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diff --git a/33929.txt b/33929.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c6c0c1b --- /dev/null +++ b/33929.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3829 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dixmude, by Charles Le Goffic + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dixmude + The epic of the French marines (October 17-November 10, 1914) + +Author: Charles Le Goffic + +Translator: Florence Simmonds + +Release Date: October 13, 2010 [EBook #33929] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIXMUDE *** + + + + +Produced by Moti Ben-Ari and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + DIXMUDE + + + BEFORE, DURING, AND AFTER 1914 + From the Swedish of ANTON NYSTROM and with an introduction + by EDMUND GOSSE, C.B., LL.D. 6s net. + + EUROPE'S DEBT TO RUSSIA + By DR. CHARLES SAROLEA. Cr. 8vo, 3s 6d net. + + AMONG THE RUINS + A Volume of Personal Experiences. By GOMEZ CARRILLO. + Cr. 8vo, 3s 6d net. + + VIVE LA FRANCE + By E. ALEXANDER POWELL, Author of "Fighting in Flanders." + Cr. 8vo, Illustrated, 3s 6d net. + + GERMANY'S VIOLATIONS OF THE LAWS OF WAR + Published under the auspices of the French Government. + Translated by J. O. P. BLAND. With many documents in facsimile. + Demy 8vo, 5s net. + + THE SOUL OF THE WAR + By PHILIP GIBBS. Demy 8vo, 7s 6d net. + + THE POISON WAR + By A. A. ROBERTS. Demy 8vo, 5s net. Illustrated. + + THE DRAMA OF 365 DAYS + Scenes in the Great War. By HALL CAINE. + With a Photogravure Portrait of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. 1s net. + + * * * * * + + SOLDIERS' TALES OF THE GREAT WAR + Each Volume cr. 8vo, Cloth, 3s 6d net. + + I. WITH MY REGIMENT. By "PLATOON COMMANDER." [_Ready_ + + II. DIXMUDE. The Epic of the French Marines. Oct.-Nov. 1914. + By CHARLES LE GOFFIC. _Illustrated_ + + To be followed by + + III. IN THE FIELD (1914-15). The Impressions of an Officer + of Light Cavalry. + + IV. IN THE DARDANELLES AND SERBIA. Notes of a French Army Doctor. + _Illustrated_ + + WILLIAM HEINEMANN + 21 BEDFORD STREET, LONDON, W.C. + + + _The most successful war book. + Forty editions have been sold in France._ + + +[Illustration: Phot. _Excelsior_ + +FRENCH MARINES MARCHING OUT OF THEIR DEPOT AT THE GRAND PALAIS, PARIS] + + + DIXMUDE + + THE EPIC OF THE FRENCH MARINES + + (OCTOBER 17--NOVEMBER 10, 1914) + + BY + + CHARLES LE GOFFIC + + TRANSLATED BY FLORENCE SIMMONDS + + _With Maps and Illustrations_ + + LONDON + + [Illustration] + + WILLIAM HEINEMANN + + + _London: William Heinemann, 1916._ + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +Praise, they say, is stricken dumb by the greatest names, and also, we +may add, by the greatest deeds. It is only by the bare simplicity of +faithful narrative that we can hope not to belittle these. + +But yesterday the public had no knowledge of the great, heroic things +accomplished by the Brigade of Marines (_Fusiliers Marins_). They were +hidden under a confused mass of notes, _communiques_, instructions and +plans of operations, private letters, and newspaper articles. It has +been no easy task to bring them to light--the discreet light permitted +by the censorship. Everything seems simple and obvious to those who can +look at facts in their logical order and regular sequence. The historian +who has to handle new matter knows what a labour it is to introduce, or +rather to re-establish, such order and sequence. History has to be +written before the philosophy of history can be evolved.[1] + +Our readers must not be surprised, therefore, to find here only such +considerations as are in direct relation to events. We have been +concerned with facts rather than with ideas. And in the result nothing +will be lost hereby, for we provide materials ready for use in the +establishment of that war mysticism which the sombre genius of Joseph de +Maistre presaged, which Vigny showed at work in certain souls, and which +is marked out as our national religion of to-morrow. It is obvious that +such an immense effort, such prolonged tension, such whole-hearted +sacrifice, as were demanded from the handful of men with whom we are +concerned, could not have been obtained by ordinary methods. A special +compact was required, a peculiar state of grace; the miracle was only +possible as the outcome of a close communion, and, to use the proper +word, of a true spiritual fraternity between men and officers. + +True, this fraternity has been manifested in every branch of the service +and on every battlefield during the course of the present struggle; but +nowhere perhaps has it been so absolute as among the Marines. They had, +no doubt, been well prepared. The sea is a perpetual battlefield, and a +trench is hardly more of a prison than a ship. Community of danger soon +creates community of hearts; how otherwise can we account for the fact +that the most turbulent and individualist of men become the most +perfectly disciplined on board ship? This is the case with the Bretons. +At Dixmude under the command of their own officers, retaining not only +the costume, but the soul and the language of their profession, they +were still sailors. Grouped with them were seamen from all our naval +stations, Bayonne, Toulon, Dunkirk, etc., and the battalion of Commander +de Sainte-Marie, formed at Cherbourg, even contained a fair sprinkling +of natives of Les Batignolles. I had opportunities of talking to +several of these "Parigots," and I should not advise anyone to speak +slightingly of their officers before them, though, indeed, so few of +these have survived that nine times out of ten the quip could be aimed +only at a ghost. The deepest and tenderest words I heard uttered +concerning Naval Lieutenant Martin des Pallieres were spoken by a Marine +of the Rue des Martyrs, Georges Delaballe, who was one of his gunners in +front of the cemetery the night when his machine-guns were jammed, and +five hundred Germans, led by a major wearing the Red Cross armlet, threw +themselves suddenly into our trenches. + +"But why did you love him so?" I asked. + +"I don't know.... We loved him because he was brave, and was always +saying things that made us laugh, ... but above all because he loved +us." + +Here we have the secret of this extraordinary empire of the officers +over their men, the explanation of that miracle of a four weeks' +resistance, one against six, under the most formidable tempest of +shells of every calibre that ever fell upon a position, in a shattered +town where all the buildings were ablaze, and where, to quote the words +of a _Daily Telegraph_ correspondent, it was no longer light or dark, +"but only red." When the Boches murdered Commander Jeanniot, his men +were half crazy. They would not have felt the death of a father more +deeply. I have recently had a letter sent me written by a Breton lad, +Jules Cavan, who was wounded at Dixmude. While he was in hospital at +Bordeaux he was visited by relatives of Second-Lieutenant Gautier, who +was killed on October 27 in the cemetery trenches. + +"Dear Sir," he wrote to M. Dalche de Desplanels the following day, "you +cannot imagine how your visit went to my heart.... On October 19, when +my battalion took the offensive at Lannes, three kilometres from +Dixmude, I was wounded by a bullet in the thigh. I dragged myself along +as best I could on the battlefield, bullets falling thickly all around +me. I got over about five hundred metres on the battlefield and reached +the road. Just at that moment Lieutenant Gautier, who was coming towards +me with a section, seeing me in the ditch, asked: 'Well, my lad, what is +the matter with you?' 'Oh, Lieutenant, I am wounded in the leg, and I +cannot drag myself further.' 'Here then, get on my back.' And he carried +me to a house at Lannes, and said these words, which I shall never +forget: 'Stay there, my lad, till they come and fetch you. I will let +the motor ambulance men know.' Then he went off under the fire. Oh, the +splendid fellow!" + +"The splendid fellow!" Jules Cavan echoes Georges Delaballe, the Breton, +the "Parigot." There is the same heartfelt ring in the words of each. +And sometimes, as I muse over these heroic shades, I ask myself which +were the more admirable, officers or men. When Second-Lieutenant Gautier +received orders to take the place of Lieutenant de Pallieres, buried by +a shell in the trench of the cemetery where Lieutenant Eno had already +fallen, he read his fate plainly; he said: "It's my turn." And he +smiled at Death, who beckoned him. But I know of one case when, as Death +seemed about to pass them by, the Marines provoked it; when, after they +had used up all their cartridges and were surrounded in a barn, twelve +survivors only remaining with their captain, the latter, filled with +pity for them, and recognising the futility of further resistance, said +to his men: "My poor fellows, you have done your duty. There is nothing +for it but to surrender." Then, disobedient to their captain for the +first time, they answered: "No!" To my mind nothing could show more +clearly the degree of sublime exaltation and complete self-forgetfulness +to which our officers had raised the _moral_ of their men. Such were the +pupils these masters in heroism had formed, that often their own pupils +surpassed them. There was at the Trouville Hospital a young Breton +sailor called Michel Folgoas. His wound was one of the most frightful +imaginable: the whole of his side was shaved off by a shell which killed +one of his comrades in the trenches, who was standing next to him, on +November 2. "I," he remarks in a letter, "was completely stunned at +first. When I came to myself I walked three hundred metres before I +noticed that I was wounded, and this was only when my comrades called +out: 'Mon Dieu, they have carried away half your side.'" It was true. +But does he groan and lament over it? He makes a joke of it: "The Boches +were so hungry that they took a beef-steak out of my side, but this +won't matter, as they have left me a little." + +Multiply this Michel Folgoas by 6,000, and you will have the brigade. +This inferno of Dixmude was an inferno where everyone made the best of +things. And the _battues_ of rabbits, the coursing of the red German +hares which were running in front of the army of invasion, the +bull-fights in which our Mokos impaled some pacific Flemish bull +abandoned by its owners; more dubious escapades, sternly repressed, in +the underground premises of the Dixmude drink-shops; a story of two +Bretons who went off on a foraging expedition and were seen coming back +along the canal in broad daylight towing a great cask of strong beer +which they had unearthed Heaven knows where at a time when the whole +brigade, officers as well as men, had nothing to drink but the brackish +water of the Yser--these, and a hundred other tales of the same kind, +which will some day delight village audiences gathered round festal +evening fires, bear witness that Jean Gouin (or Le Gwenn, John the +White, as the sailors call themselves familiarly[2]), did not lose his +bearings even in his worst vicissitudes. + +Dixmude was an epic then, or, as M. Victor Giraud proposes, a French +_geste_, but a _geste_ in which the heroism is entirely without +solemnity or deliberation, where the nature of the seaman asserts itself +at every turn, where there are thunder, lightning, rain, mud, cold, +bullets, shrapnel, high explosive shells, and all the youthful gaiety of +the French race. + +And this epic did not come to an end at Dixmude. The brigade did not +ground arms after November 10. The gaps in its ranks being filled from +the depots, it was kept up to the strength of two regiments, and reaped +fresh laurels. At Ypres and Saint Georges it charged the troops of +Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria and the Duke of Wuertemberg in succession. +Dixmude was but one panel of the triptych: on the broken apex of the +black capital of the Communiers, on the livid backgrounds of the flat +country about Nieuport, twice again did the brigade inscribe its stormy +silhouette. + +But at Ypres and Saint Georges the sailors had the bulk of the +Anglo-French forces behind them; at Dixmude up to November 4 they knew +that their enterprise was a forlorn hope. And in their hands they held +the fate of the two Flanders. One of the heroes of Dixmude, Naval +Lieutenant Georges Hebert, said that the Fusiliers had gained more than +a naval battle there. My only objection to this statement is its +modesty. Dixmude was our Thermopylae in the north, as the Grand-Couronne, +near Nancy, was our Thermopylae in the east; the Fusiliers were the first +and the most solid element of the long triumphant defensive which will +one day be known as the victory of the Yser, a victory less decisive and +perhaps less brilliant than that of the Marne, but not less momentous in +its consequences. + +The Generalissimo is credited with a dictum which he may himself have +uttered with a certain astonishment: + +"You are my best infantrymen," said he to the Fusiliers. + +We will close with these simple, soldierly words, more eloquent than the +most brilliant harangues. The brigade will reckon them among their +proudest trophies to all time. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] We may perhaps be allowed to note that _Dixmude_ appeared in the +_Revue des Deux Mondes_, March 1 and 15, before any other study on the +subject. + +[2] "When we passed through the streets of Ghent they were full of +people shouting, 'Long live the French!' I heard one person in the crowd +call out, 'Long live Jean Gouin!' He must have known them well." (Letter +of Fusilier F., of the island of Sein.) Le Gwenn, which has been +corrupted into Gouin, is a very common name in Brittany. [Compare the +current English nickname "Jack Tar."--TR.] + + + + +NOTE + + +The sources drawn upon in the following narrative are of various kinds: +official _communiques_, French and foreign reports, etc. But the +majority of our information was derived from private letters, collected +by M. de Thezac, the modest and zealous founder of the _Abris du Marin_ +(Seamen's Shelters), from note-books kindly lent by their owners, and +from oral inquiries addressed to the survivors of Melle and Dixmude. +Whenever possible, we have let our correspondents speak for themselves. +We regret that the strictest orders have compelled us to preserve their +anonymity, which, however, we hope may be merely temporary. + + + + + CONTENTS + + PAGE + + INTRODUCTION i--xv + I. TOWARDS GHENT 1 + II. THE BATTLE OF MELLE 11 + III. RETREAT 29 + IV. ON THE YSER 35 + V. DIXMUDE 42 + VI. THE CAPTURE OF BEERST 52 + VII. THE FIRST EFFECTS OF THE BOMBARDMENT 70 + VIII. THE INUNDATION 94 + IX. THE MURDER OF COMMANDER JEANNIOT 99 + X. IN THE TRENCHES 117 + XI. THE ATTACK ON THE CHATEAU DE WOUMEN 133 + XII. THE DEATH OF DIXMUDE 142 + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + FACING PAGE + + FRENCH MARINES MARCHING OUT OF THEIR DEPOT _Frontispiece_ + THE FLAG OF THE BRIGADE 4 + LA GRAND' PLACE, DIXMUDE 36 + THE PAPEGAEI INN 42 + THE BEGUINAGE AT DIXMUDE 48 + THE BRIDGE AND FLOUR FACTORY 54 + BELGIAN ARMOURED CAR RECONNOITRING 60 + THE PARISH CHURCH AFTER THE FIRST DAYS + OF THE BOMBARDMENT 76 + THE TOWN-HALL AND BELFRY AFTER THE + FIRST DAYS OF THE BOMBARDMENT 92 + THE "KIEKENSTRAAT" (CHICKEN STREET) + AFTER THE FIRST DAYS OF THE BOMBARDMENT 140 + OLD HOUSES ON THE HANDZAEME CANAL 150 + THE INUNDATION. OLD MILL AND FARMS ON + THE YSER 162 + PLAN OF ATTACK ON DIXMUDE ON NOVEMBER + 10, 1914 _page_ 165 + MAP OF OPERATIONS ROUND DIXMUDE + _At end of volume_ + + + + +I. TOWARDS GHENT + + +On the morning of October 8 two troop trains passed each other in the +station of Thourout. One contained Belgian Carabiniers; the other, +French Marines. They exchanged greetings from their respective lines. +The Carabiniers waved their little yellow-bound caps and cried: "Long +live France!" The sailors replied by hurrahs in honour of Belgium. + +"Where are you going?" asked a Belgian officer. + +"To Antwerp. And you?" + +"To France." + +He explained that the Carabiniers were recruits from La Campine, who +were being sent to our lines to finish their training. + +"You'll soon get them into shape, won't you?" said a sailor to the +officer. And shaking his fist at the horizon, he added: + +"Don't you worry, Lieutenant! We shall get at the scum some day, never +fear." + +The Belgian officer who describes the scene, M. Edouard de Kayser,[3] +had left Antwerp during the night. He did not know that the defence was +at its last gasp, and that the evacuation had begun. Our sailors were no +better informed. Rear-Admiral Ronarc'h, who was in command, thought that +he was taking his brigade to Dunkirk; he had been given a week to form +it and organise it on the footing of two regiments (six battalions and a +machine-gun company). Everything had to be evolved: the complement of +officers, the men, the auxiliary services. This arduous task was +complicated by the lack of cohesion among the elements of the brigade +and perpetual changes of quarters (Creil, Stains, Pierrefitte, etc.). +But the idea of forming infantry brigades with sailors was an +after-thought. Article 11 of the Law of August 8, 1913, certainly +permitted any surplus men in the navy to be used for service in the +field, but the manner in which these contingents were to be employed had +never been clearly defined. Would they be linked to existing bodies, or +would they be formed into separate units? The latter alternative, by far +the most reasonable, which effected a gradual transition, and, while +connecting the naval combatant with the land forces, preserved his +somewhat jealous but very stimulating _esprit de corps_, was by no means +unanimously approved. The Minister overruled objections, and he was well +advised. The glorious lessons of 1870, of Le Bourget and Le Mans, had +taught him what to expect from the co-operation of navy and army. Some +preparation was of course necessary. Strictly speaking, a navy is made +to navigate, and this explains a certain neglect of drill; these men in +new clothes, "_capeles_" (cloaked), as they say, in the new fashion, +their caps bereft of pompons,[4] their collarless tunics buttoned up to +the throat, had be transformed into soldiers. Handy as sailors +proverbially are, a certain stiffness of movement in the early days +betrayed the inexperience of these sea-birds, whose wings had been +clipped; they were further hampered by heavy infantry overcoats. The +brigade was sent almost immediately to the entrenched camp of Paris.[5] +Scarcely had it settled into its quarters when its commander received +orders to be ready to start for Dunkirk, where a new army was being +formed. Dunkirk was not yet threatened; the brigade would be able to +complete its organisation there. The order was dated October 4. On the +morning of the 7th the brigade entrained at Saint Denis and at +Villetaneuse with its convoys. + +[Illustration: Phot. _Excelsior_ + +THE FLAG OF THE BRIGADE] + +"We are comfortably installed in cattle-trucks," notes Fusilier R. in +his pocket-book. "At Creil we see houses that were burnt by the Germans. +Night comes; we try to sleep, but in vain. It is very cold. We shiver in +our trucks." But over the dunes, along which the train had been running +since it left Boulogne, a patch of purple light appeared; then other +fires twinkled, green and red, and the keen breath of the open sea made +itself felt--Dunkirk. Here a surprise awaited the brigade: a change in +the orders; it was not to turn out, but the trains were to go on +"towards Belgium, towards the enemy," to Antwerp, in short. + +The men stamped with joy. They hung over the doors of the trucks, waving +their caps in greeting to Belgian territory.[6] The Admiral went off in +the first train with his staff. On the afternoon of the 8th he found +General Pau on the platform at Ghent. The great organiser of the +connections between the Allied Armies had just left Antwerp, where he +had been to plan out the retreat of the Belgian army with King Albert. +He informed the Admiral that the railway had been cut above the town, +and that the six divisions which were defending Antwerp had begun to +fall back upon Bruges; two divisions were echeloned to the west of the +Terneusen Canal, and three to the east. Only one division was still in +Antwerp, with 10,000 English troops.[7] The Belgian cavalry was covering +the retreat on the Scheldt, to the south of Lokeren. There was no longer +any question of entering Antwerp; the contingent was to co-operate in +the retreating movement with the English reinforcements which were +expected, and with the troops of the garrison at Ghent; everything +seemed to indicate that the enemy would try to gain ground in the west, +and to invest the Belgian army, exhausted by two months of incessant +fighting, and the forces from Antwerp that were supporting it at +intervals along the Dutch frontier. But, to ensure the success of this +enveloping manoeuvre, the Germans would first be obliged to take Ghent +and Bruges, which they might so easily have done a month earlier; they +had deliberately neglected this precaution, feeling confident that they +would be able to occupy them at their own time without firing a shot. + +By the end of August, indeed, General von Boehn's Army Corps had +advanced to Melle, within a few miles of Ghent. Although no resistance +had been offered, Melle had been partially burnt and pillaged; the +Germans had spared only the distillery where their troops were +quartered, which belonged to a naturalised Bavarian. To save the town +from effective occupation by the enemy, the Burgomaster, M. Braun, had +agreed with General von Boehn to undertake the victualling of the German +troops stationed at Beleghem. The requisition was not a very harsh one +for war time. But the foes were to meet again; on August 25, the morrow +of Charleroi, the Kaiser would have cashiered a general as duly +convicted of imbecility who had ventured to suggest that in October +France, supposing her to be still alive, would have had strength enough +in her death-throes to detach units and send them to the help of +Belgium. Be this as it may, it is certain that the Belgian army owed its +salvation to this erroneous calculation, or foolish presumption. + +The effort the enemy had scorned to make in August against Ghent and +West Flanders was now determined upon in October, after the fall of +Antwerp. The conditions seemed to have changed but little. Ghent, an +open town, spread over an alluvial plain at the confluence of the +Scheldt and the Lys, which branch off here into innumerable canals, is +open on every side to sudden assault. It has neither forts nor +ramparts. We could only rely upon improvised defences to check the +advance of the enemy. The garrison, under the command of General +Clothen, was reduced to eight squadrons of cavalry, a mixed brigade, a +volunteer brigade, and two line regiments, none of them up to full +strength. However, with our 6,000 rifles, they would suffice to deploy +in the loop of the Scheldt, and on the space between the Scheldt and the +Lys to the south of the town, which seemed to be specially threatened. +If the English 7th Division arrived in time on the following day, it +would reinforce the front, which it would be unnecessary to extend +further for the purposes of a purely temporary defence, designed to give +the army in Antwerp an additional day or two. The fighting would +probably be very severe; neither General Pau, who was responsible for +the plan, nor Admiral Ronarc'h, who was to direct the principal effort, +had any illusions on this score. + +"Salute these gentlemen," said the General to his Staff, pointing to +the naval officers; "you will not see them again."[8] + +The rest of the brigade followed hard upon the Admiral. The last trains +arrived at Ghent during the night. The whole population was astir, +cheering the sailors as they marched through the town to their +respective barracks: the Leopold Barracks, the Circus, and the Theatre +Flamand. The officers and the Admiral were lodged at the Hotel des +Postes.[9] The reveille was sounded at 4.30 a.m. The men drank their +coffee and set off for Melle, where the Belgians had prepared trenches +for them. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[3] _Revue Hebdomadaire_ of January 9, 1915. These were the same +recruits which the last trains of Marines passed in Dunkirk station. +"October 8, 4 p.m. Arrived at Dunkirk. Passed the Belgian class 1914. +Many cries of 'Long live France!'" (Second-Lieutenant Gautier's +pocket-book. See also p. 5, n.). + +[4] The pompons were restored after a time; at first they were +considered too conspicuous; but regrettable mistakes had been made, and +in the distance the headgear of our men was too much like the German +caps. + +[5] A certain number of the men were there already. "For weeks we +bivouacked in the entrenched camp [of Paris], marching and +countermarching to accustom the men to the novel weight of the knapsack. +We spent the glorious days of the Marne as second line reserves and saw +nothing." (Interview with Naval Lieutenant G. Hebert, by R. Kimley, +_Opinion_, December 19, 1914.) + +[6] "At every station the inhabitants were massed on the platforms. Loud +cheers were raised, and our compartments were literally filled with +fruit, sandwiches, cigars, cigarettes, etc. Beer, tea, and coffee flowed +freely. You can picture the delight of our Marines, who imagined +themselves in the Land of Promise." (Note-book of Dr. L. F.) + +[7] A Royal Naval Brigade and 6,000 volunteers from the Naval Reserve. +These forces had only been in Antwerp, where they were preceded by Mr. +Winston Churchill, since October 4. They fought very gallantly during +the last days of the siege and gave most valuable support to the Belgian +troops. In the course of the retreat which they helped to secure, a +portion of them only was pressed back into Dutch territory and there +interned. + +[8] Cf. Jean Claudius, "_La Brigade Navale_." (_Petite Gironae_ of +February 1, 1915.) + +[9] "I shared a room with the naval Lieutenant Martin des Pallieres, and +before going to bed we refreshed ourselves by a general toilet, our last +ablutions during our stay in Belgium, and the last of all for my poor +companion, who was killed at Dixmude." (Note-book of Dr. L. F.) + + + + +II. THE BATTLE OF MELLE + + +The little lace-making town, the younger sister of Mechlin and Bruges, +had not suffered as much as we had feared. The rattle of the bobbins was +no longer to be heard on the doorsteps; certain houses showed the +stigmata of preliminary martyrdom in their empty window-frames and +blackened facades. But her heart beat still, and around her, in the +great open conservatory which forms the outskirts of Ghent, Autumn had +gathered all her floral splendours. "We marched through fields of +magnificent begonias, among which we are perhaps about to die," wrote +Fusilier R. To die among flowers like a young girl seems a strange +destiny for the conventional sailor--the typical sea-dog with a face +tanned by sun and spray. But the majority of the recruits of the brigade +bore little resemblance to the type. Their clear eyes looked out of +faces but slightly sunburnt; the famous "Marie-Louises" were hardly +younger.[10] Their swaying walk and a touch of femininity and coquetry +in the precocious development of their muscular vigour explain the +nickname given them by the heavy Teutons, to whom they were as +disconcerting as an apparition of boyish Walkyries: _the young ladies +with the red pompons_! The Admiral, who had just reconnoitred the +position, was conferring with his lieutenants on the spot; a fraction of +the 2nd Regiment, under Commander Varney, was to take up a position +between Gontrode and Quatrecht, leaving a battalion in reserve to the +north of Melle; a fraction of the 1st Regiment, under Commander Delage, +was to advance between Heusden and Goudenhaut, and to leave a battalion +in reserve at Destelbergen. He himself would keep with him as general +reserve, at the cross-roads of Schelde, which was to be his post of +command, the rest of the brigade, that is to say, two battalions and the +machine-gun company. + +The convoys, with the exception of the ambulances commanded by +Staff-Surgeon Seguin, were to stay in the rear, at the gates of Ghent. +This was an indispensable precaution in view of a rapid retreat, which, +however, the Admiral had no intention of carrying out until he had +sufficiently broken the shock of the enemy's onslaught. + +Thanks to our reinforcements, the Belgian troops were able to extend +their front as much as was necessary by occupying Lemberge and +Schellerode. The artillery of the 4th mixed Brigade, emplaced near +Lendenhock, commanded the approaches of the plain. No trace of the enemy +was to be seen. But the Belgian cyclist scouts had brought in word that +the German vanguard had crossed the Dendre. We had only just time to +occupy our trenches; in the last resort, if it should be necessary to +fall back on Melle, we should find a ready-made epaulement in the +railway embankment near the station bridge. + +Antwerp was burning, and the civic authorities were parleying over its +surrender; the English forces and the last Belgian division had +fortunately been able to leave the town during the night; they blew up +the bridges behind them, and made for Saint Nicolas by forced marches, +arriving there at dawn. They hoped to reach Eeclo by evening. But the +enemy was hard in pursuit; a party of German cavalry was sighted at Zele +and near Wetteren, where they crossed the Scheldt on a bridge of boats. +At the village of Basteloere they fell in with the Belgian outposts, +whose artillery stopped them for the time; other forces, further to the +north, advanced in the district of Wais as far as Loochristi, 10 +kilometres from Ghent. Part of these came from Alost, the rest from +Antwerp itself; but the bulk of the German troops remained at Antwerp, +to our great satisfaction. + +An enemy less arrogant or less bent on theatrical effect would +undoubtedly have thrown his whole available forces on the rear of the +retreat; the Germans preferred to make a sensational entry into +Antwerp, with fifes sounding and ensigns spread.[11] + +Simultaneously, the troops they had detached at Alost had their first +encounter with the 2nd Regiment of the Brigade. They were expected, and +a few well-directed volleys sufficed to check their ardour. To quote one +of our Fusiliers, "they fell like ninepins" at each discharge. "There +was plenty of whistling round our heads, too," writes another of the +combatants, who expresses his regret at having been unable "to grease +his bayonet in the bellies of the Germans." He had his chance later. The +enemy returned in force, and Commander Varney thought it advisable to +call up his reserve, which was at once replaced at Melle by a battalion +of the general reserve. "There was," says Dr. Caradec, "a certain gun +which was run up by the Germans about 800 metres from the trenches; it +had only just fired its fourth shot when we blew up its team and its +gunners. They were not able to get it away till nightfall." Indeed, +generally speaking, the enemy's fire, which was too long in range, did +very little damage to us in the course of this battle; the town did not +suffer appreciably, and only three shells struck the church. Towards six +o'clock the attack ceased. Night was falling; a slight mist floated over +the fields, and the enemy took advantage of it to solidify his position. +Pretending to retire, he remained close at hand, occupying the woods, +the houses, the hedges, the farmyards, and every obstacle on the ground. +These were unequivocal signs of a speedy resumption of the offensive. +Commander Varney, whose contingents bore the brunt of the pressure, was +not deceived and kept a sharp look-out. The men were forbidden to stir; +they were told that they must eat when they could. Besides, they had +nothing for a meal. "It was not until midnight," says Fusilier R., "that +I was able to get a little bread; I offered some of it to my Commander, +who accepted it thankfully." The mist lifted, but it was still very +dark. Black night on every hand, save down by Quatrecht, where two +torches were blazing, two farms that had been fired. The men listened, +straining their ears. It was just a watch, on land instead of at sea. +But nothing stirred till 9 o'clock. Then suddenly the veil was rent: +shells with luminous fuses burst a few yards from the trenches; the +enemy had received artillery reinforcements; our position was soon to +become untenable. "We saw the Boches by the light of the shells, +creeping along the hedges and houses like rats. We fired into the mass, +and brought them down in heaps, but they kept on advancing. The +Commander was unwilling for us to expose ourselves further; he gave +orders to abandon Gontrode and fall back a little further upon Melle, +behind the railway bank."[12] + +We lost a few men in the retreat. But our position was excellent. +About 60 metres from the trenches our machine-guns poured out hell-fire +on the enemy, whom we had allowed to approach. A splendid charge by the +Fusiliers completed his discomfiture. It was four in the morning. At 7 +a.m. our patrols brought us word that Gontrode and Quatrecht were +evacuated; the Germans had not even stopped to pick up their wounded. + +The Fusiliers did this good office for them when they went to reoccupy +Gontrode, taking the opportunity to collect a good number of German +helmets.[13] Meanwhile the brigade had passed under the command of +General Capper, of the 7th English Division, who had just arrived at +Ghent, where his men received an ovation like that bestowed on our own +sailors. Indeed, there is a strong likeness between them. The Englishmen +in their dark dun-coloured uniform, with their clear eyes and rhythmic +gait, are also of an ocean race, and do not forget it. They swung along, +their rifles under their arms, or held by the barrel against their +shoulders like oars, singing the popular air adopted by the whole +British army: + + _It's a long, long way to Tipperary._ + +Apparently Ghent lies on the road to this goal, for the _Tommies_ can +never have been gayer. These fine troops, which advanced to the firing +line as if they had been going to a Thames regatta, were the admiration +not only of the citizens of Ghent, but of our own sailors, who felt an +unexpected tenderness for them. Had not the hereditary foe become our +staunchest ally? "We look upon them as brothers," wrote a sailor of the +Passage Lauriec to his family next day. + +Reinforced by two of their battalions and the Belgian troops of the +sector, we were ordered to hold our former positions in the loop of the +Scheldt. But towards noon, after a visit from a Taube, the enemy +developed such a fierce attack upon Gontrode and Quatrecht that at the +end of the day we had to repeat the manoeuvre of the preceding day and +fall back upon the railway bank. Here at least the German offensive +spent itself in vain upon the glacis of this natural redoubt, defended +with conspicuous gallantry by Commander Varney's three battalions. The +rest of the night was quiet; the reliefs came into the trenches normally +at dawn, and those who wished were free to go to church. It was a +Sunday. "I have been to mass in a very pretty little church," wrote +Seaman F., of the Isle of Sein. The day passed very well. In the evening +after supper we went to bed. Scarcely had we lain down upon the straw +when the order was given to turn out again. + +We were to beat a retreat, and it was time. The apparent inactivity of +the enemy during this day of the 11th of October was explained by his +desire to turn our position and surround us with all his forces in the +loop of the Scheldt. On both banks of the river, down-stream and to the +south, long grey lines were writhing. It was a question whether it would +be wise to expose ourselves further, and to give the enemy a pretext for +bombarding Ghent, an open town, which we had decided not to defend. Had +we not achieved our main object, since our resistance of the previous +days had given the Belgian army forty-eight hours' start? Headquarters +acknowledged that we had carried out our mission unfalteringly. From the +moment when they first came into touch with the enemy the Naval +Fusiliers had behaved with the firmness and endurance of tried troops, +like "old growlers," as Fusilier R. said. Twice the German infantry had +given way to their irresistible charge. This gave good hope for the +future. + +Our own casualties had been inconsiderable. Ten of our men had been +killed, among them Naval Lieutenant Le Douget, who had been in the +trenches, with his company, and who had been mortally wounded by a +bullet as he was falling back on the railway embankment; we had 39 +wounded and one missing, whereas, according to the official +_communique_, the enemy's losses were 200 killed and 50 prisoners.[14] + +Melle was not a great battle, but it was a victory, "our first victory," +said the men proudly, the first canto of their Iliad. And the troops +which gained this victory were under fire for the first time. They came +from the five ports, mainly from Brittany, which provides four-fifths of +the combatants for naval warfare. And the majority of them, setting +aside a few warrant-officers, were young apprentices taken from the +depots before they had finished their training, but well stiffened by +non-commissioned officers of the active list and the reserve. The +officers themselves, with the exception of the commanders of the two +regiments (Captains Delage and Varney), who ranked as colonels, and the +battalion commanders (Captains Rabot, Marcotte de Sainte-Marie, and De +Kerros, 1st Regiment; Jeanniot, Pugliesi-Conti, and Mauros, 2nd +Regiment), belonged for the most part to the Naval Reserve. It was, in +fact, a singular army, composed almost entirely of recruits and +veterans, callow youths and greybeards. There were even some novices of +the Society of Jesus, Father de Blic and Father Poisson,[15] serving as +sub-lieutenants, and a former Radical deputy, Dr. Plouzane,[16] who +acted as surgeon. The percentage of casualties was very high among the +older men at the beginning of the campaign, and this has been made a +reproach to them. If a great many officers fell, it was not due to +bravado, still less to ignorance of the profession of arms, as has been +suggested[17]; but leaders must preach by example, and there is only one +way of teaching others to die bravely. We must not forget that their men +were recruits, without homogeneity, without experience, almost without +training. The _moral_ of troops depends on that of their chiefs. "If you +go about speaking to no one, sad and pensive," said Monluc, "even if all +your men had the hearts of lions, you would turn them into sheep." This +was certainly the opinion of the officers of the brigade, and notably of +him who commanded the 2nd Regiment, Captain Varney, "always in the +breach," according to an eye-witness, "going on foot to the first lines +and the outposts and even beyond them, as at Melle. Here," adds the +narrator, "he was on an armoured car, but ... on the step, entirely +without cover, to give confidence to his men." One of the officers of +his regiment, Lieutenant Gouin,[18] wounded in the foot in the same +encounter, refused to go to the ambulance until the enemy began to +retreat; Second-Lieutenant Gautier,[19] commanding a machine-gun +section, allowed a German attack to advance to within 60 metres, "to +teach the gunners not to squander their ammunition," and when wounded in +the head, said: "What does it matter, since every one of my 502 bullets +found its billet?" + +Moreover, the chief of these gallant fellows, Rear-Admiral Ronarc'h, +had proved himself a strategist on other battle-fields; the Minister's +choice was due neither to complaisance nor to chance. + +Admiral Ronarc'h is a Breton; his guttural, sonorous name is almost a +birth-certificate. And physically the man answers exactly to the image +evoked by his name and race. His short, sturdy, broad-shouldered figure +is crowned by a rugged, resolute head, the planes strongly marked, but +refined, and even slightly ironical; he has the true Celtic eyes, +slightly veiled, which seem always to be looking at things afar off or +within; morally he is, as one of his officers says: "a furze-bush of the +cliffs, one of those plants that flourish in rough winds and poor soil, +that strike root among the crevices of granite rocks and can never be +detached from them: Breton obstinacy in all its strength, but a calm, +reflective obstinacy, very sober in its outward manifestations, and +concentrating all the resources of a mind very apt in turning the most +unpromising elements to account upon its object."[20] It is rather +remarkable that all the great leaders in this war are taciturn and +thoughtful men; never has the antithesis of deeds and words been more +strongly marked. It has been noted elsewhere that Admiral Ronarc'h, +though a very distinguished sailor,[21] seems destined to fight mainly +as a soldier in war; as a naval lieutenant and adjutant-major to +Commander de Marolles, he accompanied the Seymour column sent to the +relief of the European Legations when the Boxers besieged them in Pekin. +The column, which was too weak, though it was composed of sailors of the +four European naval divisions stationed in Chinese waters, was obliged +to fall back hurriedly towards the coast. It was almost a defeat, in the +course of which the detachments of the Allied divisions lost a great +many men and all the artillery they had landed. The French detachment +was the only one which brought off its guns. The author of this fine +strategic manoeuvre was rewarded by promotion to the command of a +frigate; he was then 37 years old. At the date of his promotion (March +23, 1902) he was the youngest officer of his rank. At 49, in spite of +his grizzled moustache and "imperial," he is the youngest of our +admirals. He attained his present rank in June, 1914, and was almost +immediately called upon to form the Marine Brigade. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[10] Napoleon's young recruits of 1813, who called themselves after the +Empress. + +[11] As a matter of fact, this triumphal entry, followed by a review of +the investing army with massed bands, did not take place till the +afternoon of the following Sunday. But the criticism holds good: only a +portion of the German forces went in pursuit of the Belgian army after +repairing the bridge across the Scheldt; 60,000 men remained in Antwerp. + +[12] Fusilier Y. M. J., _Correspondence_. See also the letter of the +sailor P. L. Y., of Audierne; "Then, seeing that they were advancing +against us in mass (they were a regiment against our single company), we +were obliged to fall back 400 metres, for we could no longer hold them. +I saw the master-at-arms fall mortally wounded, and four men wounded +when we got back to the railway line. There we stayed for a day and a +night to keep the Boches employed, sending volleys into them when they +came too near and charging them with the bayonet. It was fine to see +them falling on the plain at every volley. We ceased firing on the 10th, +about 4 a.m." + +[13] "This morning we made a fine collection of dead Germans from 50 to +100 metres from our trenches. We have a few prisoners." (Letter from +Second-Lieutenant Gautier.) + +[14] According to _Le Temps_ of October 18, the German losses were very +much greater: "800 Germans killed." The hesitation and want of vigour +shown in the attack seem surprising. They are perhaps to be explained by +the following passage, written by Second-Lieutenant de Blois: "The +Germans had not expected such a resistance, and even less had they +thought to find us in front of them. They suspected a trap, and this +paralysed their offensive, though our line was so thin that a vigorous +onslaught could not have failed to break it. This they did not dare to +make; several times they advanced to within a few metres of our trenches +and then stopped short. We shot them down at our ease. Yet our positions +were far from solid; we were on the railway embankment, and the trenches +consisted of a few holes dug between the rails; the bridge had not even +been barricaded by the Belgian engineers, and nothing would have been +simpler than to have passed under it. When night came, Commander Conti +ordered me to see to it. I turned on a little electric pocket light; the +bullets at once began to whistle about my ears; the Germans were only +about 20 metres from the bridge, but they made no attempt to pass!" + +[15] The first killed and the second wounded at Dixmude. Both received +the Legion of Honour. + +[16] He also received the Legion of Honour. + +[17] Cf. Dr. Caradec, "_La Brigade des Fusiliers Marins de l'Yser_" +(_Depeche de Brest_ for January 19, 1915). + +[18] Killed at Dixmude. + +[19] Killed at Dixmude. + +[20] Dr. L. G., private correspondence. + +[21] He won his stars as commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, and has +invented a mine-sweeper adopted by the British navy. + + + + +III. RETREAT + + +How was the retirement to be carried out? + +The operation seemed to be a very delicate one. The enemy was watching +us on every side. General Capper's orders were to disengage ourselves by +a night march to Aeltre, where the roads to Bruges and Thielt intersect. +The retreat began very accurately and methodically, facilitated by the +precautionary arrangements the Admiral had made: first, our convoys; +then, half an hour later, our troops, which were replaced temporarily in +their positions by the English units. "As we passed through Ghent," +writes Fusilier B., "we were heartily cheered again, the more so as some +of us had taken Prussian helmets, which they showed to the crowd. The +enthusiasm was indescribable. The ladies especially welcomed us warmly." +Fair Belgium had given us her heart; she did not withdraw it, even when +we seemed to be forsaking her. Covered by the English division which +followed us after the space of two hours, we passed through +Tronchiennes, Luchteren, Meerendre, Hansbeke, and Bellem, a long stretch +of eight leagues, by icy moonlight, with halts of ten minutes at each +stage. The motor-cars of the brigade rolled along empty, all the +officers, even the oldest of them, electing to march with their men. +Aeltre was not reached till dawn. The brigade had not been molested in +its retreat; we lost nothing on the way, neither a straggler nor a +cartridge. And all our dead, piously buried the night before by the +chaplain of the 2nd Regiment, the Abbe Le Helloco, with the help of the +cure and the Burgomaster, were sleeping in the little churchyard of +Melle. + +After snatching a hasty meal and resting their legs for a while, the men +started for Thielt. "Twenty-five kilometres on top of the forty we had +done in the night," says a Fusilier, somewhat hyperbolically. "And they +say sailors are not good walkers!"[22] + +To avoid corns, they marched bare-footed, their boots slung over their +shoulders. And they had to drag the machine-guns, for which there were +no teams. But Aeltre, the kindness of its inhabitants, the good coffee +served out, and laced by a generous municipal ration of rum, had revived +them. "What good creatures they are!" said a Fusilier. "They receive us +as if we were their own children!" + +The brigade reached Thielt between four and five in the afternoon; the +English division arrived at six, and we at once went into our temporary +quarters; the roads were barricaded, and strong guards were placed at +every issue. Fifty thousand Germans were galloping in pursuit of us. If +they did not catch us at Thielt, we perhaps owed this to the Burgomaster +of one of the places we had passed through, who sent them on a wrong +track. His heroic falsehood cost him his life, and secured a good +night's rest for our men. For the first time for three days they were +able to sleep their fill on the straw of hospitable Belgian farms and +make up for the fatigues of their previous vigils. A Taube paid an +unwelcome visit in the morning, but was received with a vigorous +fusillade, and the "beastly bird" was brought down almost immediately, +falling in the English lines, to the great delight of our men. Shortly +afterwards we broke up our camp and set out for Thourout, which we +reached at 1 p.m. Here the English division had to leave us, to march +upon Roulers, and the brigade came under the command of King Albert, +whose outposts we had now reached. + +The Belgian army, after its admirable retreat from Antwerp, had merely +touched at Bruges, and deciding not to defend Ostend, had fallen back by +short marches towards the Yser. All its convoys had not yet arrived. To +ensure their safety, it had decided, in spite of its exhausted state, to +deploy in an undulating line extending from Menin to the marshes of +Ghistelles; the portion of this front assigned to the Fusiliers ran from +the wood of Vijnendaele to the railway station of Cortemarck. On the +14th, in a downpour of rain, the brigade marched to the west of +Pereboom, and took up a position facing east. It was the best position +open to them, though, indeed, it was poor enough, by reason of its +excentricity. The enemy, who had finally got on our track, was reported +to be advancing in dense masses upon Cortemarck. The 6,000 men of the +brigade, however heroic they might prove themselves, could not hope to +offer a very long resistance to such overwhelming forces on a position +so difficult to maintain, a position without natural defences, without +cover on any side, even towards the west, where the French troops had +not yet completed their extension. It was the Admiral's duty to report +to the Belgian Headquarters Staff on these tactical defects; the reply +was an order to make a stand "at all costs," a term fully applicable to +the situation; but this was rescinded, and at midnight on October 15 the +retreat was resumed. + +It ceased only on the banks of the Yser. + +FOOTNOTE: + +[22] This was one of the first questions General Pau put to the Admiral: +"Are your men good walkers?" He foresaw that they might have to execute +a very rapid retreat. Our officers felt some anxiety on this score. +"When not in danger," says Dr. L. F. in his note-book, "the sailor gets +rusty. At the beginning of October all of us, officers and men alike, +had received the blue infantry overcoat, which was obligatory. The men +shouldered knapsacks (not without grumbling), and we were transformed +into troopers, nothing left of naval uniform but our caps.... This part +of the foot-soldier assigned to them seems an inferior one to our men, +and they accept it unwillingly, especially when it entails military +marches with great-coats and haversacks. We had innumerable limpers and +laggards on our marches in the environs of Paris. The contrast was very +striking to those who saw our men afterwards in Belgium. It was a proof +of the marvellous resilience of our race, and more particularly of our +Bretons, who are always in the majority in the brigade." + + + + +IV. ON THE YSER + + +Our columns started at 4 a.m., while it was still quite dark, but the +roads were good in spite of the rain which had been falling incessantly +all night. + +The route was through Warken, Zarren, and Eessen, with Dixmude as its +final point. The first battalion of the 2nd Regiment and the three +Belgian batteries of the Pontus group brought up the rear. The advance +was hampered by the usual congestion of the roads, refugees fleeing +before the invaders, dragging bundles containing all their worldly +goods. These miserable beings seemed to be moving along mechanically, +their legs the only part of them that showed any vitality. They halted +by the roadside, making way for us, staring at us dully, as if they had +left their souls behind them with all the dear familiar things of their +past lives. Our men called out to them as they passed: "Keep your hearts +up. We'll come back." + +They made no answer. It was still raining, and the water was streaming +off the great-coats. Near Eessen we left Commander de Kerros with the +second battalion of the 1st Regiment, to hold the roads of Vladsloo, +Clercken, and Roulers; the third battalion of the 2nd Regiment, under +Commander Mauros, pushed on in the direction of Woumen, to bar the way +to Ypres. We had a fine front, though the Admiral thought it rather too +wide for our strength. The four other battalions and the machine-gun +company entered Dixmude about noon, and at once took up a position +behind the Yser after detaching a strong outpost guard on the north, +near the village of Beerst, on the Ostend road, by the side of which +runs a little light railway for local transport. The Admiral, who had +been anxiously looking out for some undulation in this desperately flat +landscape where he could place his artillery, found a suitable spot at +last to the south of the Chapel of Notre Dame de Bon Secours, half-way +to Eessen. He chose the chapel itself for his own headquarters. All +these arrangements were made immediately, and the men had scarcely got +into their quarters, when they were sent out with spades and picks, +together with a company of the Belgian Engineers, to put the outskirts +of the town into a state of defence. They had to be content with +measures of the greatest urgency alone, for the enemy was pressing in +upon us and creeping up to Dixmude. A few shrapnel shells had already +fallen upon the town, the inhabitants of which began to decamp hastily. +However, the railway was still intact, and we were expecting the last +trains of material from Antwerp. "At all costs"--this is a phrase that +recurs very often in orders from the Staff, and one which the brigade +accepted unmurmuringly--the line was to be protected and the enemy held. +Two, three, trains passed, and strange ones they were. They continued to +run in until night; the fires were covered up; the engine-drivers never +whistled; all that was heard was the muffled pant of the engine, like a +great sigh rising from the devastated plains. + +[Illustration: LA GRAND' PLACE, DIXMUDE + +(From a picture by M. Leon Cassel)] + +That same evening our outposts on the Eessen road were attacked by an +armoured car and 200 German cyclists; they repulsed the attack; but we +were really too much exposed in our position. The Admiral decided that +it was imprudent to maintain such a wide front with troops numerically +so weak, but which it would take a long time to move off. At Dixmude, on +the other hand, where the Yser begins to curve towards the coast, and +forms a re-entrant confronting the enemy, there was a position which +would permit of a concentric fire from our artillery, particularly +favourable to the defensive attitude we were to assume. The +considerations which had forced us to extend our front had no longer any +weight; all the transports from Antwerp had got in in time. The safety +of the Belgian army was assured; its material had reached it, and, with +the exception of certain units which had been made prisoners in the +evacuation of Antwerp or had been driven into Holland, and the +divisions which continued our line to the North Sea, it was in shelter +behind the Yser, in touch with the English corps and the army of General +d'Urbal. The brigade might therefore very properly concentrate its +defensive round Dixmude. + +The Belgian command, which had passed into the hands of General Michel, +readily accepted these arguments, and the operation was agreed upon for +the next day. "The Boches were there twenty-four hours after us," says a +sailor's letter. "We hoped they were eight kilometres from the town. We +were all dead tired, but standing firm." The evacuation of these +dangerous outposts on flat, open ground, where scattered farms, +occasional stacks of straw, and the poplars along the roadside were the +only available cover, was carried out with very trifling loss, and we at +once organised our defences round Dixmude. + +"The Admiral has cast anchor here," wrote a warrant officer of Servel on +October 18. "I don't expect we shall weigh it again just yet." + +The image was very appropriate. Dixmude, especially when its eastern +outskirts were under water, was not unlike a ship anchored fore and aft +at the entrance of an inland sea. But this ship had neither armour +plates, quarter-netting, nor portholes. The trenches that had been +hastily dug round the town could not have been held against a strong +infantry attack; the first rush would have carried them. A whole system +of defence had to be organised, and all had to be done in a few hours, +actually under the enemy's fire. All honour to the Admiral for having +attempted it, and for holding on to Dixmude as he would have done to his +own ship! No sooner had he recognised the importance of the position +than he set to work to increase its defensive value; he was not to be +seduced by the feints of the enemy and the temptations offered to +beguile him into deploying. Crouching upon the Yser, his head towards +the enemy, he only left his lines three times: to support a French +cavalry attack upon Thourout, to draw back the enemy, who was +concentrating in another direction, and was diverted by fears for +Woumen, and finally to co-operate in the recapture of Pervyse and +Ramscappelle. But meanwhile, even when he thus detached units and sent +them some distance from their base, he kept the whole or a part of his +reserves at Dixmude; he clung to his re-entrant--he kept his watch on +the Yser. + + + + +V. DIXMUDE + + +On October 16, 1914, Dixmude (in Flemish Diksmuiden) numbered about +4,000 inhabitants. The _Guides_ call it "a pretty little town," but it +was scarcely more than a large village. "It is a kind of Pont-Labbe," +wrote one of our sailors, but a Flemish Pont-Labbe, all bricks and +tiles, dotted with cafes and nunneries, clean, mystical, sensuous, and +charming, especially when the rain ceased for a while, and the old +houses, coloured bright green or yellow, smiled at the waters of the +canal behind their screen of ancient limes, under a clear sky. From the +four points of the horizon long lines of poplars advanced in procession +to the fine church of Saint Nicolas, the pride of the place. The +graceful fifteenth-century apse was justly praised; but after having +admired this, there were further beauties to enjoy in the interior, +which contained a good Jouvenet, Jordaens' _Adoration of the Magi_, a +well-proportioned font, and one of the most magnificent rood-screens of +West Flanders, the contemporary and rival of those of Folgoet and +Saint-Etienne-du-Mont. + +[Illustration: THE PAPEGAEI INN + +(From a picture by M. Leon Cassel)] + +This stately church, the exquisite Grand' Place of the Hotel de Ville, +the "Roman" bridge of the canal of Handzaeme, the slender silhouette of +the Residencia (the house of the Spanish Governors), and five or six +other old-time dwellings, with crow-stepped or flexured gables, like the +hostelry of _Den Papegaei_ (The Parrot), which bore the date of its +foundations in huge figures upon its bulging front, hardly sufficed to +draw the cosmopolitan tourist tide towards Dixmude. Travellers neglected +it; historians ignored it. The capital of an essentially agricultural +district, at the confluence of two industries, and astride, so to speak, +upon the infinity of beetroot-fields and the infinity of meadows to +which the Yser serves as the line of demarcation, Dixmude showed a +certain animation only on market-days; then it appeared as the +metropolis of the vast flat district, streaked with canals and more +aquatic than terrestrial, where innumerable flocks and herds pastured +under the care of classic shepherds in loose grey coats. The salt +marsh-mutton of Dixmude and its butter, which was exported even to +England, were famous. A peaceful population, somewhat slow and stolid, +ruddy of complexion, husky and deliberate of speech, led lives made up +of hard work, religious observance, and sturdy drinking bouts in the +scattered farms about the town. The Flemish plains do not breed +dreamers. When, like those of Dixmude, such plains are amphibious, half +land, half water, they do not, as a rule, stimulate the fighting +instinct; their inhabitants are absorbed in domestic cares, battling +unceasingly for a livelihood with two rival elements. + +Such were the only battles that they knew; no invader had ever ventured +among them. Invasion, indeed, seemed physically impossible. The whole +country between the hills of Cassel, Dixmude, and the line of sand-hills +along the coast is but a vast _schoore_, a huge polder snatched from +the sea, and almost entirely below the sea-level, owing to the deposits +of mud left high and dry on the shore. Down to the eleventh century it +was still a bay into which the _drakkars_ of the Norse pirates might +venture. If Dixmude, like Penmarc'h and Pont-Labbe, had retained its +maritime character, we might have found on the fronts of its riverside +houses the rusty iron rings to which barques were once moored. To +safeguard the tenure of this uncertain soil, slowly annexed by centuries +of effort, conquered, but not subdued, and always ready to revert to its +former state, it was not enough to thrust back the sea, which would have +overflowed it twice a day at high tide; it was further necessary to +drain off the fresh water, which streams down into it from the west and +the south, mainly from the stiff clay of the Dutch hills, floods the +meadows, cuts through the roads, and invades the villages. The struggle +is unintermittent. Such country, threatened on every side, is only +habitable by virtue of incessant precautions and watchfulness. The sea +is kept under control by Nieuport, with its formidable array of sluices, +locks, chambers, water-gates, and cranks; the fresh water, which oozes +out on every hand, spangling the rough homespun of the glebe with +diamond pools from the beginning of autumn to long after the end of +winter, is dealt with by a methodical and untiring system of drainage +directed, under State control, by associations of farmers and landowners +(_gardes wateringues_). Hence the innumerable cuttings (_watergands_) +along the hedges, the thousands of drains that chequer the soil, the +dykes, several metres high, which overhang the rivers--the Yser, the +Yperlee, the Kemmelbeck, the Berteartaart, the Vliet, and twenty other +unnamed streams of inoffensive aspect--which, when swelled by the autumn +rains, become foaming torrents rushing out upon the ancient _schoore_ of +Dixmude. The roads have to be raised very high in this boundless marsh +land, the depressed surface of which is broken only by sparse groups of +trees and the roofs of low-lying farms. They are few in number, only +just sufficient to ensure communication, and they require constant +repair. Torn up by shells and mined by the huge German explosives, the +"saucepans" (_marmites_) and "big niggers" (_gros noirs_), as the +sailors call them, our company of French and Belgian road-menders had to +work day and night throughout the operations to keep them open. + +Other roads that meander across the plain are negligible. They are mere +tracks, most of which are obliterated when the subterranean waters rise +in the autumn. For in these regions the water is everywhere: in the air, +on the earth, and under the earth, where it appears barely a metre +beneath the surface as soon as the crust of soft clay that it raises in +blisters is lifted. It rains three days out of four here. Even the north +winds, which behead the meagre trees and lay them over in panic-stricken +attitudes, bring with them heavy clouds of cold rain gathered in +hyborean zones. And when the rain ceases, the mists rise from the +ground, white mists, almost solid, in which men and things take on a +ghostly aspect. Sometimes indeed the _schoore_ lights up between two +showers, like a tearful face trying to smile, but such good moments are +rare. This is the country of moisture, the kingdom of the waters, of +fresh water, that bugbear of sailors. And it was here that fate called +upon them to fight, to make their tremendous effort. For nearly four +weeks, from October 16 to November 10 (the date of the taking of +Dixmude), they, with their Admiral, clung desperately to their raft of +suffering at the entrance to the delta of marshes, watched over by +ancient windmills with shattered wings. One against six, without socks +and drawers, under incessant rain, and in mud more cruel than the +enemy's shells, they accomplished their task, barring the road to +Dunkirk, first ensuring the safety of the Belgian army and then enabling +our own Armies of the North to concentrate behind the Yser and dissipate +the shock of the enemy's attack. "At the beginning of October," says the +_Bulletin des Armees_ of November 25, 1914, which sums up the +situation very exactly, "the Belgian army quitted Antwerp too much +exhausted to take part in any movement.[23] The English were leaving the +Aisne for the north; General Castelnau's army had not advanced beyond +the south of Arras, and that of General Maudhuy was defending itself +from the south of Arras to the south of Lille. Further off we had +cavalry, Territorials, and Naval Fusiliers." For the moment at Dixmude, +the most exposed point of all, we had only the Fusiliers and a few +Belgian detachments, who were putting forth their remaining strength in +a supreme effort to co-operate in the defence. + +[Illustration: THE BEGUINAGE AT DIXMUDE + +(From a picture by M. Leon Cassel)] + +The Admiral had said to them: "The task given to you is a solemn and a +dangerous one. All your courage is needed. Sacrifice yourselves to save +our left wing until reinforcements can come up. Try to hold out for at +least _four days_."[24] + +At the end of a fortnight the reinforcements had not yet arrived, and +the Fusiliers were still "holding out." These men had no illusions as to +the fate awaiting them. They knew they were doomed, but they understood +the grandeur of their sacrifice. "The post of honour was given to us +sailors," wrote Fusilier P., of Audierne, on November 5; "we were to +hold that corner at all costs and to die rather than surrender. And +indeed we did stand firm, although we were only a handful of men against +a force six times as large as ours, with artillery." They numbered +exactly 6,000 sailors and 5,000 Belgians, under the command of Colonel +(acting General) Meiser, against three German army corps. Their +artillery was very insufficient, at least at the beginning. They had no +heavy guns and no air-planes,[25] nothing to give them information but +the reports of the Belgian cyclists and the approximate estimates of the +men in the trenches. + +"How many of you were there?" asked a Prussian major who had been taken +prisoner, speaking the day after the fall of Dixmude. "Forty thousand, +at least!" + +And when he heard that there had been only 6,000 sailors, he wept with +rage, muttering: + +"Ah! if we had only known!" + +FOOTNOTES: + +[23] In spite of this, four Belgian divisions held the road from Ypres +to Ostend, between Dixmude and Middelkerke, unaided, till October 23, +and then the line of the Yser from Dixmude to Nieuport. + +[24] Pierre Loti, _Illustration_ for December 12, 1914. + +[25] But this was not due to defective organisation. It must be +remembered that the brigade was destined for Antwerp, and that +unforeseen circumstances had caused it to become a detached corps, +operating far from our bases. + + + + +VI. THE CAPTURE OF BEERST + + +Save for an unimportant suburb beyond the Handzaeme Canal, Dixmude lies +entirely on the right bank of the Yser. Nevertheless, our general line +of defence on October 16, both up and down stream, went beyond the line +traced by the course of the river. From Saint-Jacques-Cappelle to the +North Sea, by way of Beerst, Keyem, Leke, Saint-Pierre, etc., little +rural settlements but yesterday unknown, drowsing in the gentle Flemish +calm, the arc of the circle it described followed, almost throughout its +course as far as Slype, the roadside light railway from Ypres to Ostend. +The Fusiliers flanked this front from Saint-Jacques to the confluence of +the Vliet. The 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th Belgian Divisions occupied the +rest of the horse-shoe, but the effectives of these reduced divisions +had not been made up; some of the regiments had been reduced from 6,000 +to 2,000 men; whole companies had melted away. The remnants continued +to stand their ground with fine courage. Until when? They had been +asked, like our Fusiliers, to hold out for four days, and it was not +until October 23, at the end of nine days, that General Grossetti and +his reinforcements arrived.[26] + +The Admiral had divided the defence of Dixmude into two sectors, cut by +the road of Caeskerke; the north sector was entrusted to the 1st +Regiment, under Commander Delage, the south to the 2nd Regiment, under +Commander Varney. His Command Post he established at Caeskerke station, +at the junction of the lines of Furnes and Nieuport, keeping only a +battalion of the 2nd Regiment at his own disposal. Of the two batteries +of the Belgian group, one was sent to the south of the second level +crossing of the Furnes railway, the other to the north of Caeskerke. A +telephone line connected them with the great flour factory of Dixmude, +at the head of the High Bridge. A platform of reinforced cement +belonging to this factory provided us with an excellent observatory. The +thickness of this mass of concrete, as costly as it was incongruous with +the importance of the establishment, but very well adapted for heavy +guns, which would command the whole valley of the Yser, did not fail to +suggest certain reflections. This was perhaps one of the few instances +in which ante-bellum preparations had turned against their authors. The +machine-gun company was stationed at the intersection of the roads to +Pervyse and Oudecappelle; in the trenches of the Yser we had mainly +Belgian troops; finally, to the south, debouching from the forest of +Houthulst with four divisions of cavalry, General de Mitry threw out a +bold advance post towards Clercken, and relieved us a little on that +side, although he was unable to control the German offensive, which +began in force at 4 p.m.[27] + +[Illustration: THE BRIDGE AND FLOUR FACTORY + +(From a picture by M. Leon Cassel)] + +The enemy had begun in his customary manner by preparing the ground with +his artillery, which from the hollow where it was posted, near Eessen, +to the east of Dixmude, rained projectiles upon us from 10 and +15-centimetre guns. Scarcely had the last smoke clouds of the German +batteries lifted, when the infantry advanced to the attack. The action +was very hot, and was prolonged throughout the night and the morning of +the 17th, with violent alternations of advance and retreat. The enemy, +anxious to deal a decisive blow, came on in compact masses, in which +our machine-guns and rifle fire tore bloody breaches. These mobile +bastions wavered for a few seconds, filled up the breaches, and then +returned to the charge in the same close formation as before. No network +of barbed wire protected the approach to our trenches; most of them had +neither roofs nor parapets. In these haphazard defences, successful +resistance depended solely on the intrepidity of the men and the skill +of the commander. Certain "elements" were taken, retaken, lost, and +retaken again. But as a whole our line held; the enemy failed to break +through it. At dawn, discouraged, he suspended his attack, but, like a +dog who makes off growling, he never ceased shelling us till 11 a.m. +"After this," notes Fusilier B., "all noise ceased. Dixmude has not +suffered much. The damage caused by the shells is insignificant." True, +the enemy had not yet received his heavy artillery. + +We profited by the respite granted us to repair the trenches of the +outskirts, which were somewhat damaged, and begin the organisation of +the others. This work, indeed, was resumed whenever there was a lull, +but it was carried on chiefly at night, and in the morning, from 5 to 9 +o'clock, until the mists lifted. At this hour and the coming of light +the German batteries generally awoke. We had not enough guns to reply +efficaciously to the enemy. The brigade was therefore greatly rejoiced +by the reinforcements it received during the day of the 17th: five +batteries of the 3rd Regiment of Belgian Artillery (Colonel de +Weeschouwer), which, added to the Pontus group, gave the defenders of +Dixmude the respectable total of 72 guns. Unhappily their range was not +very great, and the metal of which they were made was not strong enough +to bear the strain of our .75 shells. Such as they were, however, our +front was in much better case when they had been distributed from +Caeskerke to Saint-Jacques-Cappelle. The Admiral, who wished to direct +their operations himself, had these batteries connected by telephone +with his quarters; a battle is directed from a study-table nowadays. +Nevertheless, he gave a standing order that the batteries were to open +fire instantly, whether by day or night, on the approaches to Dixmude, +whenever rifle fire or the sound of machine-guns indicated that an +infantry attack threatened our trenches. + +The check received on October 16 had perhaps made the enemy more +cautious. He had allowed us breathing time in the afternoon of the 17th, +and he gave us a quiet day on Sunday, the 18th. Only two or three +cavalry patrols were reported near Dixmude, and these were rapidly +dispersed by a few salvoes. That day, too, our Fusiliers had a pleasant +surprise. A tall, silent officer, with serious eyes, in a closely +buttoned black dolman, came to visit the trenches of the Yser with the +Admiral. His inspection seemed satisfactory to him. He pressed the +Admiral's hand, and when he had regained the river bank, he paused a +moment, gazing at the triangle of marshes, all that remained to him of +his kingdom. It was Albert I.[28] + +Other news from the front arrived, and gave us confidence. In spite of +the fall of Lille, our Armies of the North had taken the offensive with +marked success from Roye to the Lys. Orders had come from the English +headquarters to the 1st Corps to concentrate at Ypres, whence it was to +attempt to advance towards Bruges.[29] This strategic movement had even +been initiated, and the French cavalry which had just seized Clercken +might be considered the advance guard of Sir Douglas Haig's corps. It +asked the Admiral to support it in flank, to enable it to push on to +Zarren and Thourout. He at once sent forward Commander de Kerros with a +battalion of the 1st Regiment and two Belgian armoured cars towards +Eessen.[30] The road was free; it was strewn with the carcases of dead +horses, and even with dead soldiers, as if there had been a precipitate +retreat. The enemy seemed to have evaporated. But the church of Eessen, +which he had turned into a stable, just as afterwards he turned the +church of Vladsloo into a cesspool, with the immemorial Teuton taste for +sacrilege, showed evidences of his recent passage. These tracks of the +beast did not, however, tell us which way he had gone. Several roads lay +open to him. It seemed most probable that, hearing of the movement of +the French cavalry, he was retiring upon Bruges by way of Wercken or +Vladsloo. Taking his chance, Commander de Kerros had installed himself +to await the morning, while two Turco regiments,[31] which had been +placed at the Admiral's disposal and ensured his _liaison_ with the main +body operating on Thourout, set out as foragers towards Bovekerke and +the woods of Couckelaere. Morning dawned, and the execution of the +French plan seemed about to be realised normally, when a terrible thrust +by the enemy at a wholly unexpected point suddenly upset all +calculations. + +[Illustration: Cl. Meurisse + +BELGIAN ARMOURED CAR RECONNOITRING IN THE PLAIN OF DIXMUDE] + +In reality the Germans had not retreated at all, or rather they had only +retired to come into touch again under more favourable conditions. +Knowing the sort of reception that awaited them at Dixmude, they had +decided to try another point on the front, in the hope that "the little +Belgians" would be easier to deal with than the "young ladies with red +pompons." About 9 o'clock on the morning of the 19th they threw +themselves in three simultaneous leaps, at Leke, Keyem, and Beerst, upon +the thin Belgian line, which staggered under the shock. The question was +whether we should be able to reinforce it in time. If it were broken, +the road would lie open to the Yser, the Yser would perhaps be seized, +and Dixmude taken in the rear. The Admiral did not hesitate; the whole +brigade should go if necessary. He sent forward two of his reserve +battalions by forced marches on the road to Ostend, another, under +Commander Mauros, towards Vladsloo and Hoograde in flank. The artillery +supported the movement, which began at 10 o'clock. But we did not know +whether Keyem and Beerst were in the hands of the Belgians or of the +Germans, and in this uncertainty we dared not open fire upon them. The +two villages were wrapped in ominous silence. Commander Jeanniot and +Commander Pugliesi-Conti, who were marching upon Keyem with the first +and second battalions of the 2nd Regiment, made their arrangements +accordingly. While the sixth company of the second battalion advanced +towards Keyem, with Lieutenant Pertus, the fifth company, under +Lieutenant de Maussion de Cande, received orders to make for Beerst. De +Maussion put his company into line of sections in fours. On approaching +the village he was received by a salvo of machine-guns. The Germans were +entrenched in the houses and the church, whence they poured a withering +fire upon our troops. The attack was made peculiarly difficult by the +nature of the ground, which was completely flat, and afforded no cover +save the irrigation ditches and a few leafless hedges; the only possible +method of advance was crawling. We lost a good many men in this +deploying manoeuvre, so ill adapted to the impulsive nature of sailors; +every head that was raised became a target. De Maussion, who had stood +up to inspect the enemy's position, was struck down. Every moment one of +our men rolled over among the beetroots. Would the charge never sound? +It would, but not yet. Pertus fell first, his leg shattered at the +moment when he was carrying a group of farms close to Keyem; Lieutenant +Hebert was sent with the eighth company to support him. But the ditches +on the road were already occupied by the men of the first battalion, and +Hebert had to cut across fields to avoid this encumbered road. The fire +directed against us had become very hot. It took us in flank, and we ran +the risk of being wiped out before we had reached our objective. The +Hebert company accordingly swerved to the right, and marched to the +edge of the woods and the houses situated between Beerst and Keyem, +where the enemy's artillery and infantry seemed to be posted.[32] Hebert +took up a position in a farm with the third section; Second-Lieutenant +de Blois and Boatswain Fossey with the first and second sections +deployed to act as marksmen, facing the wood. Creeping from hedge to +hedge and from _watergand_ to _watergand_, supported by Lieutenant de +Roncy's machine-guns, they arrived to within 500 metres of the enemy's +position in connection with Commander Jeanniot, who had arrived at the +same point on the left by a similar manoeuvre. + +"I think this is our moment," said the commander. + +"Forward!" cried De Blois to his men. + +Fossey gave the same order; the two sections sprang out of their +temporary trenches under a hail of bullets. Fossey was killed, De Blois +severely wounded in the head and leg.[33] The rest of the sections +found their way to the farm where Hebert was making an attempt to check +the enemy's counter-attack by fire from the loopholes that had been +stopped up by the former occupants of the upper storeys, but which he +had succeeded in opening. His exertions were cut short by an invisible +battery, which broke down the walls, wounded his two lieutenants, and +obliged him to fall back. He himself was wounded twice as he crept +through the ditches.[34] Second-Lieutenant de Reau, who came out of +cover to advance, had his shoulder shattered. The casualties in the +Jeanniot battalion, whose sections continued the attack, leaving 110 of +their number on the field, soon became so serious that they had to be +brought back to the rear. It was then that the "Colonel" of the 2nd +Regiment, rallying the remnants of the companies engaged, and continuing +to cover them towards Keyem, massed his forces, put himself at their +head, and, after crawling up to within two hundred yards of the +position, hurled himself upon Beerst. His example electrified his men. +This time they would have allowed themselves to be cut to pieces sooner +than give way. Some of them had thrown off their great-coats that they +might move more freely. The old corsair blood was boiling in their +veins. It was no longer a charge, but a boarding of the enemy's ships, +and, as in the heroic days, the first who sprang upon the deck, pistols +in hand and sword between teeth, was the chief. The whole crew rushed +after the "Colonel" of the 2nd Regiment, who had become Commander Varney +again. But as soon as one house was captured the next had to be taken by +assault. Nevertheless, the attack progressed. To keep it in heart, the +Admiral sent forward the second battalion of the 1st Regiment, under +Commander Kerros, to support it, and withdrew the sorely tried Jeanniot +battalion to Dixmude. The Mauros battalion debouched simultaneously from +Vladsloo, whence it had dislodged the enemy, with the help of the +Belgian Brigade and their armoured cars; the 5th Allied Division +prolonged the fighting line to the right and in the rear. The effects of +this successful tactical arrangement were at once felt: the enemy, who +had brought his artillery into action, was groping about in search of +the guns we had brought along to the north of Dixmude; at 5 o'clock in +the afternoon we were in possession of Beerst. The bayonets were able to +take a rest; they had done yeoman's service; in the streets and in the +farmyards, the ground was paved with corpses. But night was falling. The +Admiral, who had come up to the firing line, ordered Commander Varney to +put the approaches to the village into a state of defence at once in +view of a possible offensive return of the enemy. The men obeyed gaily; +they were still in the full flush of their costly victory.[35] They had +scarcely begun to wield their picks, when a counter-order came from +Belgian Headquarters: we were to fall back upon our former positions! At +11 o'clock that night the brigade returned to its quarters at Caeskerke +and Saint-Jacques-Cappelle. The horizon was aflame behind it: Hoograde, +Beerst, and Vladsloo had been re-occupied by the enemy, who were +"setting the red cock up" on the roofs (_i.e._, firing them). + +FOOTNOTES: + +[26] The Belgian detachments which co-operated with us in the defence of +Dixmude showed themselves no whit inferior to those of the Lower and the +Middle Yser, and if we were writing a general account of the operations, +and not a chapter in the history of the Naval Brigade, the most +elementary justice would require us to give these troops their due for +the part they took in the defence. This was so admirable, that the +Generalissimo commissioned General Foch to present General Meiser, whose +brigade had specially distinguished itself at Dixmude, with the cravat +of Commander of the Legion of Honour, while two of the colours of this +brigade, the 11th and the 12th, were decorated by the King and +authorised to inscribe the glorious name of the town on their folds. The +few hundred Senegalese who reinforced the Fusiliers towards the end also +gave us very active and brilliant support, on which, for similar +reasons, we have not insisted in our narrative. + +[27] It was General de Mitry's corps which guarded the Yser towards Loo. +With magnificent audacity, General d'Urbal had thrown it upon the forest +of Houthulst before he had all his forces in hand. Here it was to +dislodge the Germans, and then march upon Thourout and Roulers while Sir +Henry Rawlinson marched upon Menin. + +[28] "He's a model king: I saw him visiting the trenches; he's a man, if +you like." (Letter of a sailor, A. C., October 30.) + +[29] Cf. Sir John French's report. As is well known, this movement, +which began on October 21, was stopped on the line +Zonnebeke-Saint-Julien-Langermack-Bixschoote. + +[30] Commander de Kerros had made an offensive reconnaissance in this +direction the day before. + +[31] Under Colonel du Jonchay. Abd-el-Kader's grandson was with them. + +[32] The woods in question were the Praetbosch. + +[33] Under the pseudonym of D'Avesnes, the Comte de Blois has published +some notes of travel, various stories, and a naval novel, _La Vocation_, +remarkable for their delicate sentiment and subtlety of analysis. It is +bare justice to record here the gallantry of Quartermaster Echivant, who +carried his wounded officer off to the rear under a heavy fire. + +[34] "We were able to get away by creeping through the ditches, but +picked marksmen concealed in the trees decimated us. Suddenly my left +arm began to hurt me horribly. A bullet had torn the muscles from elbow +to wrist. A second bullet, aimed at my heart, went through a note-block +and a war manual, and was stopped by my pocket-book. I fell. My men +carried me off under fire. The last thing I remember seeing was a +captive balloon which was hovering over the woods directing the fire of +the enemy's battery." (R. Kimley, _op. cit._) M. Hebert is the famous +inventor of the system of naval athletics which bears his name. + +[35] "Monday, October 19, bayonet attack on Beerst. Several officers +killed and wounded." (Note-book of Second-Lieutenant X.) "We have been +fighting for five days," wrote Second-Lieutenant Gautier on October 22. +"The day before yesterday we resumed the offensive. It was a bit stiff. +Don't be too much upset by the casualty lists. I should not have said +anything about them, but as you will see them in the papers, I would +rather tell you of them myself. Le Douget, who was in the training +companies at Lorient, was killed at Ghent; De Maussion was killed the +day before yesterday; Hebert, Pertus, and De Mons are wounded." In his +note-book, under date of the 18th, Gautier adds the names of +Second-Lieutenants de Blois and de Roussille as among the wounded. He +gives some interesting details of the affair itself. A little incident +reported by the Abbe Le H. bears witness to the heroism and +self-sacrifice of the men. "It was at Beerst. A quartermaster had his +leg broken by a bullet in the temporary trench he was occupying with his +company. He went on fighting. His comrades were obliged to fall back +under a tremendous fire. He refused to be carried away, and crawled into +a ditch, where he killed three Germans who came creeping up to take him +prisoner. Fortunately, a young Marine, who had been trained by him at +Lorient, could not make up his mind to abandon the quartermaster. By +dint of extraordinary efforts, he managed to reach him and succeeded in +dragging him some three hundred yards to a house, where he left him +under shelter. As he left this house he himself was wounded in the arm +by a bullet. Night was falling. He came to the dressing-station to have +his wound attended to. I was there. He told me his story with such +infectious emotion that I proposed he should act as guide to two +stretcher-bearers and myself for the purpose of bringing in the +quartermaster. Without a moment's hesitation, he set out in front of us, +heedless of the very real danger. After a difficult pilgrimage over open +ground swept by the German machine-guns, we were lucky enough to find +the quartermaster and to bring him back into our lines. I notified the +conduct of these two brave fellows to the commanding officer that same +evening, and I hope they received the reward they deserved." + + + + +VII. THE FIRST EFFECTS OF THE BOMBARDMENT + + +The Belgian Headquarters Staff had probably decided that its front on +the Ostend road was too excentric, and that the line of the Yser would +form a more solid epaulement. And in this case our diversion on Beerst +was not quite useless, since it had secured the orderly retreat of the +Belgian troops; but, on the other hand, as a result of this diversion +and of the reinforcement of the German troops, De Mitry had been unable +to maintain himself at Thourout; the Turcos had returned to Loo, and the +rest of the French cavalry was obliged to follow the movement. The whole +of the ground in front of Dixmude lay open to the enemy, who, reinforced +by fresh contingents and the heavy artillery from Antwerp, released by +the capitulation of the city, prepared in all security to renew the +attack upon our positions in combination with a parallel action on the +lines of the Lower and Middle Yser. In order to understand clearly what +follows, it will be necessary to remember that the defence of Dixmude +and of the Yser, and, in the event of the forcing of the Yser, the +defence of the railway from Caeskerke to Nieuport were closely +connected, and that Pervyse and Ramscappelle lead to Furnes as well as +Dixmude, Pollinchove, or Loo. + +A new disposition of the Allied forces was required under the new +conditions. During the night of October 19 the Belgian Meiser Brigade +passed under the Admiral's orders; on the 20th at 11 o'clock the first +"saucepan" fell upon Dixmude. "Up to this date," writes Captain X., "77 +shrapnel, with their queer caterwaulings, were the only presents the +enemy had sent us. But during the course of the 20th the big shells +began to rain upon us, and their first objective was, of course, the +church. At the fifth or sixth the beautiful building was on fire."[36] +And we had no observer there. In preparation for the bombardment, we had +worked all night at the trenches. Those nearest to the enemy had been +provided with parapets and barbed wire entanglements, dug down to a +depth of I metre 70 cm., and strongly roofed. But all the internal +defences remained to be organised, notably the railway embankment, where +the "big niggers" were falling in showers. One evening when his company +was in reserve, after forty-eight hours in the trenches, Lieutenant A. +was ordered to take up a position there. He had been on guard there +three nights before; he knew by experience how dangerous this spot was, +and, less for his own sake than for the 250 men under his charge, he +thought it his duty to speak out. + +"'There are no trenches on the railway slope, Commander,' he remarked +to Captain V. + +"'I know that.' + +"'Oh, very well, sir.' + +"And smiling to encourage his men," added the eye-witness who reported +this dialogue, "he went off to a post as exposed as a glacis." + +With such officers, Dixmude was better defended than if it had had a +triple line of blockhouses. The men, who were worthy of their leaders, +had soon grown used to the racket of the shells. The damage they do is +not in proportion to the noise they make, "for one can see them coming, +and they are heralded by a creaking sound, as of ungreased pulleys,"[37] +wrote a Marine to his family, adding ingenuously: "All the same, anyone +who wants to hear guns has only to come here." Indeed, the noise was +stupendous: 420, 305, and 77 were thundering in unison. As we had no +heavy artillery to reply, we had to wait patiently for the inevitable +attack which follows after the ground is cleared. Then the 72-m. guns of +our six groups would be able to have their say. Unfortunately on our +right the ravages caused in the Belgian trenches by the storm of German +artillery had made it impossible for our allies to hold their position; +this being duly notified in time, the Admiral sent four of our companies +to replace them. Scarcely were they installed, when the German attack +began. Sure of themselves and of victory, they had adopted the close +formation of their first onslaught, with machine-guns in the rear, the +veterans on the two wings, the conscripts in the centre and in front, +the latter with rapt, ecstatic faces, the former swelling with the pride +of former victories, all united by the same patriotic ideal, marching +rhythmically, and singing hymns to the national God. The majority were +young men, hardly more than boys. Later, in the trenches, when the +Marines fell upon them, they knelt down, clasping their hands, weeping, +and begging for quarter. But here, in the excitement of the _melee_, +elbow to elbow and sixteen ranks deep, they had but one colossal and +ferocious soul. They were swinging along with a slightly undulating +movement when the fire of our machine-guns struck them, true sons of +those other barbarians who linked themselves together with chains, that +they might form a solid block in death or in victory. An aroma of +alcohol, ether, and murder preceded them, as it had been the breath of +the blood-stained machine. Our men allowed them to approach within a +hundred yards. To the shouts of _Vorwaerts!_ ("Forward!") from the +enemy's ranks we answered abruptly by the orders "Independent fire! +Continuous fire!" given by officers and petty officers. Behind their +parapets, amidst the buzz of bullets and the bursting of shrapnel, the +Marines did not miss a single shot. "We'll do for you!" yelled the +gunners, catching the contagious fever of battle. The Germans came on +steadily, but the mass was no longer solid. The dislocated machine was +working with difficulty. It uttered its death-rattle at the foot of the +trenches in the network of barbed wire where the survivors had rolled +over. At 8 o'clock in the evening three blasts on a whistle, strident as +a factory hooter, put an end to the work of the monstrous organism. + +The battle had been raging for six hours in the night. Once more we +were the victors, but at what a price! Dixmude, which the enemy's heavy +artillery had battered incessantly during the attack, was not yet the +"heap of pebbles and ashes," the line of blackened stones, it was +presently to become, but its death agony had begun. Innumerable houses +had been gutted. The entire quarter round the church was on fire. The +rain, heavy as it was, could not extinguish the flames kindled by +incendiary bombs. A projectile struck the belfry of Saint Nicolas at the +hour of the Angelus; the great bell, mortally wounded, uttered a kind of +dying groan, the vibrations of which quivered long in space. "Poor +Dixmude!" cried a sailor; "your passing bell is tolling." Happily, the +population was no longer on the spot. The Burgomaster had given the +signal of exodus, and all had obeyed it, stricken to the heart, with the +exception of the Carmelites and some dozen laggards and stubborn +spirits, such as the old beadle described by M. T'Serstevens, who lived +in a little gabled house with barred windows on the Grand' Place, and +who, pipe in mouth, used to bring the keys of the church to visitors. He +mumbled the rude Flemish dialect of the coast, and was tanned by the +sea-wind. "The church, the house, the Place, the old man, were all in +harmony: all embodied the unique soul of Mother Flanders," and all were +destroyed at the same time; the old man was unable to disengage himself +from his house, of which he seemed but a more animated stone than the +rest. + +[Illustration: (Newspaper Illustrations) + +THE PARISH CHURCH AFTER THE FIRST DAYS OF THE BOMBARDMENT] + +In spite of the retreat of the enemy, the four companies of Marines had +been left at their posts as a precautionary measure. An intermittent +fusillade to the north of the Yser during the night suggested a renewed +offensive. The only attack of any moment took place at 3 o'clock in the +morning, "but we repulsed it easily," notes the Marine R., "for in our +covered trenches we are invulnerable." Disappointed, the enemy turned +again towards the town, which he began to bombard once more at dawn. It +chanced that the weather had cleared. The _schoore_ smiled; the larks +were singing; weary of lowing for their sheds, or already resigned to +their forsaken condition, the cattle were ruminating in the sun[38]: and +the interminable line of canals, the silvery surfaces of the +_watergands_, shone softly on the brown velvet of the marsh. The sky, +however, as says the Psalmist, armed itself with thunders and +lightnings. The bombardment became particularly violent in the +afternoon. "At given moments the whole town seemed about to crumble," +writes an officer. "The Germans had first attacked it with 10-centimetre +guns, then with 15, and then with 21-centimetre; but as this was no +good, they determined to finish off these infernal sailors in grand +style with their 305 and 420-mm."[39] Our reserves in Dixmude were of +course sorely tried by this terrible fire, which it was difficult to +locate and still more difficult to silence with defective guns. To add +to the complexities of the situation, we learned suddenly that at 4 +o'clock the enemy had taken one of the trenches on the outskirts to the +south of the town. Surprised by an attack in force, the Belgian section +which occupied it gave way after a spirited resistance, involving the +supporting section of Marines in their rear in their retreat. Only +Lieutenant Cayrol remained at his post, revolver in hand, to enable his +men to carry off the machine-guns.[40] Three companies at once crept +along towards the captured trenches after our guns had cleared the +approaches a little. + +"We tried our hands as marksmen," writes one of the actors in this +scene, "and while the Boches were trying to re-form, before they had +recovered from their surprise, we fired into them at 50 metres, and then +charged them with the bayonet. You should have seen them run like hares, +throwing away their arms and all their equipment. What a raid it was, +five to six hundred dead and wounded and forty prisoners, among them +three officers! We reoccupied the trenches, and I spent the night in the +company of a dead Belgian and a wounded German, who, when he woke up, +exclaimed: 'Long live France!' lest we should run him through. When day +came, and we could behold our work ... (Here an interval. A shell burst +just over my head, smashed a rifle, and threw a handful of earth in my +face. It was slightly unpleasant. I continue.) It was a pretty sight. +All day long stretcher-bearers were picking up the dead and wounded, +while we continued to fire from time to time. All the wounded we have +picked up are young men, sixteen to twenty years old, of the last levy. + +"The next night there was a repetition of these experiences, only this +time it was the northern trenches that failed. As always, it was the +sailors who had to recapture them. For lack of available forces, we were +obliged to send two companies of the 2nd Regiment, which had been set +aside to act as reliefs; they put matters right by a little bayonet +play." + +"You might have supposed that after this dance we had claims to a turn +at the buffet," writes a second quartermaster. "Not a bit of it! My +company had been set aside for relief, and it carried out the relief. It +would be untrue to say that we are not all a bit blown; but we are +holding out all the same. We called the roll; there were some who did +not answer to their names, and who will not see their mammies again.... +If only we could move about a bit to stretch our legs! But we are packed +together in the mud like sardines in their oil. In the morning the +hurly-burly began again, first a few shrapnel, then from 12 to 1 a +perfect whirlwind of shells of every imaginable calibre. How they lavish +their munitions, the brutes!" + +This defence of the Yser was, to quote the words of Dr. L., "an eternal +Penelope's web." Scarcely had it been mended, when the fabric gave way +at another point. Thanks to the reinforcements the enemy had received, +his pressure became more violent every day. Reduced to impotence on the +flank of the defence, where the vigorous attitude of our sailors deluded +him into the belief that he had to deal with superior numbers, the foe +pushed forward his centre. He succeeded in driving in a wedge on October +22,[41] occupying Tervaete and gaining a footing "for the first time on +the left bank of the Yser."[42] The 1st Belgian Division, thrown back, +but not broken, sent us word that it would attack next day, supported by +our artillery. We were further to send them one or two of our reserve +battalions. But the next day Dixmude and our outer trenches were so +furiously bombarded that we required our total strength to resist. The +Germans were evidently using their biggest calibres, 21 and perhaps +28-cm. In spite of all this, their infantry could not get into our +trenches. We had a few casualties, both killed and wounded, among the +latter Commander Delage, "Colonel" of the 2nd Regiment, who, when his +wound was dressed, would not stay in the ambulance, but resumed his +command before he was cured. But things had not been going so well with +our allies at Tervaete. Checked in a first attempt, a second and more +vigorous counter-attack succeeded in driving the Germans into the river +or upon the other bank; but this, as the _Courrier de l'Armee Belge_ +admitted, "was a transitory success, for the same evening German +reinforcements renewed the attack, and carried Tervaete." Our artillery +had done its best under the circumstances; but, shouted down by the +clamour of the big German guns, it was not able to keep up the +conversation. "We still have nothing but the little Belgian guns," wrote +Second-Lieutenant M. on the morning of the 22nd. "However, we are +promised two batteries of short 155-mm. and two of long 120-mm. They +arrived in the course of the evening. That's all right! Now perhaps we +shall be able to have a little talk with the Boches!" + +But was it not already too late? Dixmude was impregnable only so long as +it was not taken in the rear; and the enemy, having finally occupied +the whole of the Tervaete loop, was gradually penetrating into the +valley of the Yser. The last news was that he had arrived at +Stuyvekenskerke. The 42nd French Infantry Division, under General +Grossetti, which was to replace the 2nd Belgian Division, now reduced to +a fourth of its original strength, on the Yser, had not yet had time to +come up into line. At Dixmude itself the pressure was formidable; shells +were falling on us from every side, from Vladsloo, from Eessen, and from +Clercken, whither the Germans had removed their heavy artillery. And at +the same time the enemy's infantry attacked our trenches regularly at +intervals of an hour, with the stubbornness of a ram butting at an +obstacle, preceding every attack by a few big shells. It looked as if +they were trying to divert our attention, to prevent us from noticing +what was going on down below in the hollow of the Yser, where a grey +surge seemed to be seething, and where the _schoore_ appeared to be +moving towards Oud Stuyvekenskerke. But the movement had not escaped +the Admiral, who was watching it from Caeskerke. Whence had these troops +come--from Tervaete, from Stuyvekenskerke, or elsewhere? We could not +say, and it mattered little. At whatever point a breach had been made in +the defences of the Middle Yser, the German tide had crept up to us: +Dixmude was turned. + +In this, the most critical situation in which the brigade had yet been +placed, the Admiral had only his reserves and a few Belgian contingents +at his disposal. To bar the way to the bridges of Dixmude, Commander +Rabot, with a battalion, hurried to the support of the left wing of the +front. Commander Jeanniot, with another battalion, crept up towards Oud +Stuyvekenskerke, to support the Belgians, having received orders to +occupy the outskirts at least. The manoeuvre was a peculiarly difficult +one to carry out, under a raking fire, and with men already dropping +with fatigue and perishing with cold and drowsiness. But these men were +sailors. + +"On October 24," writes the Marine F., of the island of Sein, "we had +spent a day and a night in the first line. That night we had two men +killed in our trench and four wounded by a shell, and we were going to +the rear for a little well-earned rest. Scarcely had we swallowed our +coffee, when the order came to clear the decks, as we say on board ship, +and shoulder our knapsacks. When we got nearer, the bullets began to +whistle. We crawled on all fours over the exposed ground, without a +shred of cover. Those who ventured to raise their heads were at once +wounded, though we could see nothing of the Germans. We got so +accustomed to the bullets whizzing past our ears that we lost all fear +and advanced steadily." + +That day, however, our worthy Marine got no further. In the thick of the +firing, a bullet broke his leg, and sent him rolling over into a pool. +But as he was a Breton, with a great respect for Madame Saint Anne of Le +Porzic, he made a vow that if he got off without further damage, he +would give her on the day of her "pardon" a fine white marble ex-voto, +with "Thanks to Saint Anne for having preserved me" engraved upon it. + +All his comrades were not so fortunate, and at the close of the day the +majority of the officers engaged, notably those of the second and third +battalions of the 1st Regiment, were _hors de combat_. But we held the +outskirts of Oud Stuyvekenskerke; Commander Jeanniot and the Belgian +troops, with Commander Rabot, had succeeded, according to the Admiral's +instructions, in forming a line of defence facing north, which bid +defiance to the enemy's attacks. Moreover, heavy as our losses were, +they were nothing as compared with those of the Germans. The following +dispirited comments were found in the note-book of a German officer of +the 202nd Regiment of Infantry killed at Oud Stuyvekenskerke the +following day:-- + +"We are losing men on every hand, and our losses are out of all +proportion to the results obtained. Our guns do not succeed in silencing +the enemy's batteries; our infantry attacks are ineffectual: they only +lead to useless butchery. Our losses must be enormous. My colonel, my +major, and many other officers are dead or wounded. All our regiments +are mixed up together; the enemy's merciless fire enfilades us. They +have a great many _francs-tireurs_ with them." + +_Francs-tireurs!_ We know what the Germans understand by this term, +which merely means skilled marksmen.[43] If our sailors had not been so +hitherto, the night attack which crowned this tragic day showed that +they had become so. The attack was unprecedented and of unparalleled +fury. Between 5 p.m. and midnight we and the Belgians had to repulse no +less than fifteen attacks on the south sector of the defence, and eleven +on the north and east sectors. The enemy charged with the cries of wild +beasts, and for the first time our men saw the brutish face of War. The +next day, as soon as the mists lifted, the battle began again along the +whole line. The town was bombarded, the outer trenches, the trenches of +the Yser, and, above all, the railway station at Caeskerke, where the +Admiral was. He had to resign himself to a change of quarters without +gaining much in the way of safety. The enemy had spies in Dixmude +itself. "The houses of the Staff were spotted one after the other as +soon as any change was made," writes an officer; "and every day at noon, +when we were at our midday meal, we were greeted by four big shells. +Scarcely had a heavy battery been in position for five minutes, when the +position became untenable: a man in a tree a hundred yards off was +quietly making signals." + +In the north alone a certain relaxation of the enemy's pressure was +noted. Abandoning the attempt to turn Dixmude by way of Oud +Stuyvekenskerke, the Germans seemed anxious to push on to Pervyse and +Ramscappelle, from which they were only separated by the embankment of +the Nieuport railway. The Grossetti Division endeavoured to stop the way +with the remnant of the Belgian divisions, and sent a battalion of the +19th Chasseurs to relieve us at Oud Stuyvekenskerke. Commander Jeanniot +at once went into the reserve trenches of the sector. His men were +utterly worn out. The companies which had occupied the outer trenches of +the defence, and which had not been relieved for four days, were not +less exhausted. The enemy's fire on the Dixmude front never ceased, the +town heaved and shuddered at every blast, the paving stones were +dislodged, every window was shattered, houses were perpetually crumbling +into heaps of rubble, and after each explosion immense spirals of black +smoke rose as high as 100 metres above the craters made by the shells. +"During the night of Sunday, the 25th," notes the Marine R., on duty +with Commander Mauros, of the third battalion, "we were thrice obliged +to evacuate the houses in which we were, as they fell in upon us." +"Dixmude is gradually crumbling away," wrote Lieutenant S. on the +following day. The Carmelites had left on October 21; their monastery, +where the chaplains of the brigade[44] continued to officiate +imperturbably, had received three big shells during the day. The belfry +still held, but it had lost three of its turrets, and the charming +Gothic facade of the town-hall had a great hole in the first storey. It +looked like a piece of lace through which a clumsy fist had been thrust. +The enemy did not even spare our ambulances. "A chapel in the middle of +the town, protected by the Red Cross (Hospital of St. John), was shelled +from end to end," says Marine F. A., of Audierne; "not a single one of +the surrounding churches and belfries has been left standing."[45] The +worst of it was that our forces, greatly tried in the last encounters, +no longer sufficed for the exigencies of the defence. We had to be +making constant appeals to the depots. The winter rains had begun, +flooding the trenches. If it had not been for the heavy cloth overcoats +insisted on by a far-seeing administration, the men would have died of +cold. Many who through carelessness, or in the hurry of departure, had +left their bags at Saint-Denis, went shivering on guard in cotton vests, +their bare feet in ragged slippers. All their letters are full of +imprecations against the horrible water that was benumbing them, +diluting the clay, and encasing them in a shell of mud. + +[Illustration: (Newspaper Illustrations) + +THE TOWN-HALL AND BELFRY AFTER THE FIRST DAYS OF THE BOMBARDMENT] + +But their salvation was to come from this hated water. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[36] Cf. Dr. Caradec, _op. cit._, also the note-book and letters of +Second-Lieutenant Gautier: "11 o'clock, the church on fire.... Sailors +are queer creatures. Yesterday, while the church was being bombarded +they exclaimed: 'Oh, the brutes! I wish I could get hold of one of them +and break his jaw!' This morning we took a wounded prisoner. There was +not a word of hatred, not an insult, as he passed. Two sailors were +helping him along. He said: 'Good-day. War is a terrible thing.' And our +men answered. They are more French than they think." + +[37] "At first the big shells give one a very unpleasant sensation, but +one gets used to them, and learns to guess from the whistling noise they +make where they are likely to fall." (Second-Lieutenant Gautier's +note-book.) + +[38] "The cattle are running about on all the roads and in all the +fields. No one attends to them." (Letter of the Marine E. T.) See also +below, De Nanteuil. + +[39] Cf. Dr. Caradec, _op. cit._ + +[40] The note which furnishes this information as to the heroic conduct +of Lieutenant Cayrol adds: "Received a bullet in the middle of his +forehead. Brought into the dressing-station by his men, where he gave an +account of the incident and of the bravery of his men. He would not +consent to be removed until he had been assured that his machine-guns +were saved. Has come back to the front." + +[41] Second-Lieutenant Gautier's note-book has the following under date +of October 22: "Cannonade still lively. One of our convoys blown to +pieces." The incident took place the day before, and is evidently +identical with that mentioned by Second-Lieutenant X. under date of +October 21: "Intensive shelling, a good deal of damage. De Mons and +Demarquay, naval lieutenants, wounded. The church on fire. In the +afternoon a German airship spotted an important convoy (provisions, +ambulances, munitions, etc.) on the road from Caeskerke to Oudecappelle. +The convoy was shelled." + +[42] _Courrier de l'Armee Belge._ The pressure, says this official +_communique_, was very strong, had been very strong ever since the 20th. +On that day "a furious bombardment by guns of every calibre had been +kept up upon the Belgian lines. A farm situated in the front of the 2nd +Division was taken by the Germans, retaken by the Belgians, and again +lost." On the 21st a German attack upon Schoorbakke, combined with an +attack upon Dixmude, failed signally. But the Belgians were becoming +worn out. + +[43] R. Kimley (_op. cit._), quoting Lieutenant Hebert, offers another +and perhaps a more acceptable explanation. In their dark blue overcoats +and their caps with red pompons, the sailors looked strange to the +Germans, who took them for _francs-tireurs_. The terror they inspired +was aggravated by this idea. + +[44] The Abbes Le Helloco and Pouchard. We have spoken more than once of +the former, a man of great intelligence and of a self-abnegation +carried, in the words of Saint Augustine, _usque ad contemptum sui_. His +_confrere_ was equally devoted. + +[45] "There is not a single uninjured church in the deanery," declared +the Abbe Vanryckeghem, Vicaire of Dixmude. "Nearly forty churches +between Nieuport and Ypres have been destroyed." + + + + +VIII. THE INUNDATION + + +A new actor was about to appear on the scene, a new ally, slower, but +infinitely more effectual, than the best reinforcements. + +Last November the _Moniteur Belge_ published a royal decree conferring +the Order of Leopold upon M. Charles Louis Kogge, _garde wateringue_ of +the north of Furnes, for his courageous and devoted services in the work +of inundation in the Yser region. + +It was, we have been told, this M. Kogge who first conceived the idea of +calling the waters to our aid. A more romantic version has it that the +notion was suggested to the Headquarters Staff by the singularly +opportune discovery of a bundle of old revolutionary documents bearing +upon the action brought in 1795 by a Flemish farmer against his landlord +"to recover damages for the loss he had suffered through the inundation +of his land during the defence of Nieuport." Be this as it may, on the +evening of October 25 the Belgian General Headquarters Staff informed +the Admiral that it had just taken measures to inundate the left bank of +the Yser between that river and the railway line from Dixmude to +Nieuport. + +The effects of this inundation could not, however, be felt for the first +day or two, or even for those immediately following. The word inundation +generally suggests to the mind the image of a torrential rush of water, +a great charge of marine or fluvial cavalry which sweeps all before it. +There was nothing of the sort in this case. We were in Western Belgium, +in an invertebrate country, without relief of any sort, where everything +proceeds slowly and phlegmatically, even cataclysms. It is, perhaps, a +pity that there is not another word in the language to describe the +hydrographic operation we were about to witness; but in default of a +substantive there is a verb, which surprised most readers of the +_communiques_ as a neologism, but which, as a fact, has been used in +Flanders from time immemorial, and has the advantage of expressing the +nature of the operation most admirably. It is the verb _tendre_ (to +spread or stretch). They _spread_ an inundation there as fishermen +spread a net. No image could be more exact. The _spreader_, in this +case, was at the locks of Nieuport. He is a head _wateringue_, +commanding a dozen men armed with levers to manipulate the +lifting-jacks. At high tide he had the flood-gates raised; the sea +entered, forcing back the fresh water of the canal and its tributaries; +and the sea did not run out again, for the flood-gates had been lowered. +Henceforth the fresh water which flowed on every side into the basin of +the Yser will find no outlet; "without haste and without rest" it will +add its contribution to that of the tide; it will gradually overflow the +dykes of the collecting canals, will reach the _watergands_, and cover +the whole _schoore_ with its meshes. Slily, noiselessly, unceasingly, it +will rise on a soil already saturated like a sponge and incapable of +absorbing another drop of water. All that falls there, whether it come +from the sky in the form of rain, or from the hills of Cassel in the +form of torrents, will remain on the surface. There is no way of +checking the inundation as long as the flood-gates are not raised. He +who holds Nieuport holds the entire district by means of its locks. This +explains the persistence of the Germans in their attempts to capture it. +Fortunately, these attempts were somewhat belated; they tried a surprise +by the dunes of Lombaertzide and Middelkerke, which might perhaps have +succeeded but for the timely co-operation of the Anglo-French fleet with +the Belgian troops: the German attack was driven back by the fire of the +monitors, and failed to carry the locks of Nieuport. The inundation +continued. When its last meshes were woven and all its web complete, it +was to spread in a semicircle on a zone of 30 kilometres, and this +immense artificial lagoon, from four to five kilometres wide and from +three to four feet deep, in which light squadrons and batteries might +have engaged if hard pressed, but for the abrupt depressions of the +_watergands_ and collecting canals, forming invisible traps at every +step, was to constitute the most impregnable defensive front, a liquid +barrier defying all attacks. Dixmude, at the extremity of this lagoon, +in the blind alley here formed by the Yser, the Handzaeme Canal, and the +railway embankment, might aptly be compared to Quiberon; like Quiberon, +it would be, were its bridges destroyed, a sort of thin, low peninsula; +but it is a Flemish Quiberon anchored upon a motionless sea, without +waves and without tides, studded with tree-tops and telegraph poles, and +bearing on its dead waters the drifting corpses of soldiers and animals, +pointed helmets, empty cartridge-cases and food-tins. + + + + +IX. THE MURDER OF COMMANDER JEANNIOT + + +On October 25 we had not yet received any help from the inundation. Our +troops were in dire need of rest, and the enemy was tightening his grip +along the entire front. New reinforcements were coming up to fill the +gaps in his ranks; our scouts warned us that fresh troops were marching +upon Dixmude by the three roads of Eessen, Beerst, and Woumen.[46] We +had to expect a big affair the next day, if not that very night. It came +off that night. + +About 7 o'clock the Gamas company went to relieve the men in the +southern trenches. On their way, immediately outside the town, they fell +in with a German force of about the same strength as themselves, which +had crept up no one knew how. There was a fusillade and a general +_melee_, in which our sailors opened a passage through the troop with +bayonets and butt-ends, disposing of some forty Germans and putting the +rest to flight.[47] Then there was a lull. The splash of rain was the +only sound heard till 2 a.m., when suddenly a fresh outbreak of +rifle-fire was heard near the Caeskerke station, right inside the +defences. It was suggested that our men or our allies, exasperated by +their life of continual alarms, had been carried away by some reckless +impulse. The bravest soldiers admit that hallucinations are not uncommon +at night in the trenches. All the pitfalls of darkness rise before the +mind; the circulation of the blood makes a noise like the tramp of +marching troops; if by chance a nervous sentry should fire his rifle, +the whole section will follow suit. + +Convinced that some misunderstanding of this kind had taken place, the +Staff, still quartered at the Caeskerke railway station, shouted to the +sections to cease firing. As, however, the fusillade continued in the +direction of the town, the Admiral sent one of his officers, Lieutenant +Durand-Gasselin, to reconnoitre. He got as far as the Yser without +finding the enemy; the fusillade had ceased; the roads were clear. He +set out on his way back to Caeskerke. On the road he passed an ambulance +belonging to the brigade going up towards Dixmude, which, on being +challenged, replied: "Rouge Croix."[48] Rather surprised at this +inversion, he stopped the ambulance; it was full of Germans, who, +however, surrendered without offering any resistance. But this capture +suggested a new train of thought to the Staff: they were now certain +that there had been an infantry raid upon the town; the Germans in the +ambulance probably belonged to a troop of mysterious assailants who had +made their way into Dixmude in the night and had vanished no less +mysteriously after this extraordinary deed of daring. One of our +covering trenches must have given way, but which? Our allies held the +railway line by which the enemy had penetrated into the defences, +sounding the charge.... The riddle was very disturbing, but under the +veil of a thick damp night, which favoured the enemy, it was useless to +seek a solution. It was found next morning at dawn, when one of our +detachments on guard by the Yser suddenly noticed in a meadow a curious +medley of Belgians, French Marines, and Germans. Had our men been made +prisoners? This uncertainty was of brief duration. There was a sharp +volley; the sailors fell; the Germans made off. This was what had +happened: + +Various versions have been given of this incident, one of the most +dramatic of the defence, in the course of which the heroic Commander +Jeanniot and Dr. Duguet, chief officer of the medical staff, fell +mortally wounded, with several others. The general opinion, however, +seems to be that the German attack, which was delivered at 2.30 a.m., +was closely connected with the surprise movement attempted at 7 o'clock +in the evening on the Eessen road and so happily frustrated by the +intervention of the Gamas company. It is not impossible that it was +carried out by the fragments of the force we had scattered, reinforced +by new elements and charging to the sound of the bugle. This would +explain the interval of several hours between the two attacks, which +were no doubt the outcome of a single inspiration. + +"The night," says an eye-witness, "was pursuing its normal course, and +as there were no indications of disturbance, Dr. Duguet took the +opportunity to go and get a little rest in the house where he was +living, which was just across the street opposite his ambulance. The +Abbe Le Helloco, chaplain of the 2nd Regiment, had joined him at about +1.30 a.m. The latter admits that he was rather uneasy because of the +earlier skirmish, in which as was his habit, he had been unremitting in +his ministrations to the wounded. After a few minutes' talk the two men +separated to seek their straw pallets. The Abbe had been asleep for an +hour or two, when he was awakened by shots close at hand. He roused +himself and went to Dr. Duguet, who was already up. The two did not +exchange a word. Simultaneously, without taking the precaution of +extinguishing the lights behind them, they hurried to the street. +Enframed by the lighted doorway, they at once became a target; a volley +brought them down in a moment. Dr. Duguet had been struck by a bullet in +the abdomen; the Abbe was hit in the head, the arm, and the right thigh. +The two bodies were touching each other. 'Abbe,' said Dr. Duguet, 'we +are done for. Give me absolution. I regret ...' The Abbe found strength +to lift his heavy arm and to make the sign of the cross upon his dying +comrade. Then he fainted, and this saved him. Neither he nor Dr. Duguet +had understood for the moment what was happening. Whence had the band of +marauders who had struck them down come, and how had they managed to +steal into our lines without being seen? It was a mystery. This +fusillade breaking out behind them had caused a certain disorder in the +sections nearest to it, who thought they were being taken in the rear, +and who would have been, indeed, had the attack been maintained. The +band arrived in front of the ambulance station at the moment when the +staff (three Belgian doctors, a few naval hospital orderlies, and +Quartermaster Bonnet) were attending to Dr. Duguet, who was still +breathing. They made the whole lot prisoners and carried them along in +their idiotic rush through the streets. Both officers and soldiers must +have been drunk. This is the only reasonable explanation of their mad +venture. We held all the approaches to Dixmude; the brief panic that +took place in certain sections had been at once controlled. The +improbability of a night attack inside the defences was so great that +Commander Jeanniot, who had been in reserve that night, and who, roused +by the firing like Dr. Duguet and Abbe Le Helloco, had gone into the +street to call his sector to arms, had not even taken his revolver in +his hand. Mistaking the identity and the intentions of the groups he saw +advancing, he ran towards them to reassure them and bring them back to +the trenches. This little stout, grizzled officer, rough and simple in +manner, was adored by the sailors. He was known to be the bravest of the +brave, and he himself was conscious of his power over his men. When he +recognised his mistake it was too late. The Germans seized him, disarmed +him, and carried him off with loud '_Hochs!_' of satisfaction. The band +continued to push on towards the Yser, driving a few fugitives before +them, and a part of them succeeded in crossing the river under cover of +the general confusion. Happily this did not last long. Captain Marcotte +de Sainte-Marie, who was in command of the guard on the bridge, +identified the assailants with the help of a searchlight, and at once +opened fire upon them.[49] The majority of the Germans within range of +our machine-guns were mown down; the rest scattered along the streets +and ran to cellars and ruins to hide themselves. But the head of the +column had got across with its prisoners, whom they drove before them +with the butt-ends of their rifles.[50] For four hours they wandered +about, seeking an issue which would enable them to rejoin their lines. + +It was raining the whole time. Weary of wading through the mud, the +officers stopped behind a hedge to hold a council. A pale light began to +pierce the mist; day was dawning, and they could no longer hope to +regain the German lines in a body. Prudence dictated that they should +disperse until nightfall. But what was to be done with the prisoners? +The majority voted that they should be put to death. The Belgian doctors +protested. Commander Jeanniot, who took no part in the debate, was +talking calmly to Quartermaster Bonnet. At a sign from their leader the +Boches knelt and opened fire upon the prisoners. The Commander fell, and +as he was still breathing, they finished him off with their bayonets. +The only survivors were the Belgian doctors, who had been spared, and +Quartermaster Bonnet, who had only been hit in the shoulder. It was at +this moment that the marauders were discovered. One section charged them +forthwith; another fell back to cut off their retreat. What happened +afterwards? Some accounts declare that the German officers learned what +it costs to murder prisoners, and that our men despatched the dogs there +and then; but the truth is, that, in spite of the general desire to +avenge Commander Jeanniot, the whole band was taken prisoner and brought +before the Admiral, who had only the three most prominent rascals of the +gang executed." + +Another very interesting account of this episode has been communicated +to us by M. Charles Thomas Couture, chauffeur to Commander Varney. + + AN UNPUBLISHED ACCOUNT OF THE MURDER OF COMMANDER JEANNIOT. + + DIXMUDE, _Monday, October 26, 1914_. + + Yesterday we were informed that a certain number of Germans, + slipping between the trenches, had managed to get into Dixmude. + Search was made in the houses and cellars, and we collected a few + prisoners. + + This incident caused us some uneasiness, and as the bombardment, + which generally ceased at night, continued persistently, I + hesitated to go to bed. Shells were bursting quite close to our + inn, the front of which was peppered with bullets. Fortunately, the + shells were shrapnel, annoying rather than deadly, and as I was + very tired, I made up my mind to get a sleep about 10 o'clock. But + I lay down fully dressed and armed; I did not even lay aside my + revolver. + + One after the other the inhabitants of the inn followed my example. + There were four of us: Commander Varney, Captain Monnot, Lieutenant + Bonneau, and myself. Dr. Duguet and Abbe Le Helloco, who generally + shared our straw, were detained at the ambulance by some severe + cases, and were not expected to come in before 1 o'clock in the + morning. By this time all was quiet, and the bombardment had + ceased. + + At 3 a.m. a cyclist rushed in, crying: "Get up! The Boches are + coming!" I did not for a moment imagine that the enemy had crossed + the bridge over the Yser, which was some 80 or 100 metres in front + of us. I thought that the Germans had forced the sailors' trenches + in front of Dixmude, that they had entered the town in force, and + that the line of defence was to be brought back to the canal. If + such were the case, it was necessary to get my car ready to start + immediately. As soon as I was awake I accordingly went out by the + front door of the inn, and going to my car, I began to pump up the + petrol. Commander Varney had come out at the same time. + + Our common living-room was feebly lighted by a lantern, but this + sufficed to throw the figures of those who passed into the + embrasure of the door into strong relief. This was the case a few + minutes later when Dr. Duguet and Abbe Le Helloco emerged. I was + bending down over my car, quite in the dark. + + At this moment a body of brawlers passed along the road, coming + from the bridge and going towards the level crossing. They were + preceded by a bugler, very much out of tune. In spite of the lights + and the reports of firearms among the band, I only realised after + they had passed that they were the enemy. + + But as soon as I grasped the fact I recognised that there was no + question of getting out the car just then, so I followed Commander + Varney, who was near me. "What shall I do, Commander?" "Above all + things, don't let them take you prisoner." Subsequent events made + me appreciate the wisdom of this order. + + The Commander disappeared in the night, going towards the Yser to + see what was happening. I went back into the inn by the back door, + and there, stretched on the ground side by side, I found the doctor + and the Abbe, on whom the Germans had fired at very short range. + Both were wounded in the abdomen. Probably the same bullets went + through them both. The doctor murmured: "I am hit in the loins; I + can't move my legs." The Abbe seemed to have but one thought: "I + won't fall into the hands of the Germans alive." But he managed to + give absolution to our poor doctor. + + I went out of the inn again, and back to the motors, to see what + was happening. I found the cook and the orderlies there; they had + taken their rifles and were awaiting events. I joined them, holding + my revolver in my hand. + + What gave me most anxiety was that not a sound came from the line + of the trenches. The rifles were all silent; no night had been so + calm. I began to wonder if by some extraordinary surprise all the + sailors had been taken prisoners. + + As we knew that the enemy troop had passed us and gone towards the + level crossing, we took our stand, in view of their possible + return, at the corner of a neighbouring house, where the Belgian + soldiers were quartered. + + Captain Ferry, who had been wounded a few days before and had his + left arm in a sling, joined us. + + A suspicious rumbling was heard on the road. Captain Ferry advanced + completely out of cover to reconnoitre. He found himself face to + face with a band of Germans who barred the road level with the + other corner of the Belgians' house. + + "Halt!" cried the captain; "you are my prisoners." + + "Not at all," replied a voice in guttural French. "It's you who are + our prisoners." + + This somewhat comic dialogue was not continued, for the sailors + Mazet and Pinardeau fired. The Germans never even attempted to + retort; they allowed Captain Ferry to rejoin us quietly, and + disappeared into the ditch by the road. + + It was now half-past three. The alarm was over, and had lasted + barely half an hour. Our little party took refuge in the cowshed, + for the German guns had begun to send us shrapnel shells, which + exploded high in the air, but nevertheless covered us with + fragments. All we could do was to wait for the day, which at this + date broke about half-past four. Lieutenant Bonneau had brought a + half-section of sailors to our inn, and these began to explore the + neighbourhood. + + Some Belgian soldiers joined the sailors, and a _battue_ of Boches + began in the marshy meadows. We heard cries of "There they are! + There they are!" and shots were fired; then "Don't fire, they are + sailors." Presently it was all over, and prisoners passed on their + way to the Admiral, who was installed at the level crossing. + + We then heard that nothing at all had happened in the trenches. The + troop that had attacked us was composed of Boches who had managed + to creep into the town secretly. Led by one or two officers, they + had crossed the bridge over the canal, killing the sentries, + seriously wounding Lieutenant de Lambertye, and then pushing + forward. As they passed they went into the houses that showed + lights, notably that occupied by the staff of the 1st Regiment, + where they killed two cooks and wounded a chauffeur. As we have + seen, they then shot our doctor and our chaplain, and their + military operations ended herewith, for their subsequent deeds were + murder pure and simple. + + I was told the story at dawn, when I found myself face to face with + Quartermaster Bonnet, chauffeur to the adjutant-major, who, to my + great surprise, had his right arm in a sling. "Well, M. Couture," + he said, "I shan't be able to drive Captain Monnot any more." I + questioned him, and he then told me that he, assisted by some + Belgian orderlies and doctors, had gone out to take Dr. Duguet to + the ambulance. Suddenly the party found themselves face to face + with the German troop, which was returning. The Boches seized the + stretcher-bearers, and the doctor was left by the side of the + ditch. Perhaps he was finished off there. + + The Germans had several other prisoners, notably Commander + Jeanniot. This remarkable man, who was no less beloved than + esteemed, was with the first battalion, which he commanded, in + reserve some distance to the rear. The noise and the shots awoke + him, and he came out alone upon the road to see what was happening. + The Germans crouching in the ditches had no difficulty in seizing + him, and his five stripes made them realise the importance of their + capture. + + In all there were some dozen prisoners, whom the Germans carried + along with them across the fields, and whom they did not scruple to + put in front of them during the firing. This explains the + hesitation shown during the chase. Seeing that they were caught, + the German officers were not long in making up their minds. "Shoot + the prisoners!" It must be noted that there was a certain + reluctance in the German ranks, perhaps even a certain opposition + to this barbarous order. We learned later that the recalcitrants + were Berlin students who had volunteered for service. Was this a + movement of humanity or merely a measure of precaution taken with a + view to their own fate? + + However, there are always some ready to carry out brutal orders. + The Mausers were fired at the heads of the prisoners. Commander + Jeanniot was struck by several bullets, the whole of the front of + his skull being blown off. Several of the Belgians fell. My comrade + Bonnet, if I understood him aright, made the movement of a child + who dodges a box on the ear. That saved him; the bullet aimed at + his head went into his right shoulder. At this moment he saw our + sailors and the Belgians coming up, and running as fast as he could + lay legs to the ground, he called to them: "Go at them; there are + only about forty of them left." The rest had made off across the + fields. + + At 7 a.m. they were all prisoners. + + The Admiral at once decided that the murderers should be shot there + and then. But as Frenchmen are not given to wholesale executions, + the prisoners who had been rescued were called upon to point out + the ringleaders. + + A few seconds later four volleys told me that military justice had + taken its rapid course. + + Almost at the same moment the body of Commander Jeanniot was + carried in. His cyclists and his chauffeur would not allow anyone + but themselves to render him this last service. They carried their + chief on a stretcher borne on their shoulders, and all had tears in + their eyes. + + The rest of the morning was quiet. A German effort was being made + further to the north, where we heard furious fighting. + + As we were drinking our coffee the Senegalese riflemen arrived to + support the sailors. They were received with joy, for the brigade + was much exhausted. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[46] "Germans of the regular army coming from the direction of Reims. +The Boches we had had to deal with so far had been volunteers or +reservists." (Second-Lieutenant X.'s note-book.) + +[47] Not without losses on our side. "Saw Gamas, who has had fourteen of +his men killed to-night, among them his boatswain Dodu." +(Second-Lieutenant Gautier's note-book.) + +[48] _I.e._, instead of "Croix Rouge," the usual French locution. + +[49] We should add, by order of Commander Varney, who, warned by Dr. de +Groote, had at once taken the necessary measures. Second-Lieutenant X.'s +note-book gives more precise details: "We had succeeded in placing +machine-guns on each side of the bridge, which was a revolving bridge, +and had just been opened by Commander Varney." + +[50] Here there seems to have been some confusion in the eye-witness's +account. He leads us to suppose that Dr. Duguet's ambulance was in the +town, and that the Germans who killed him and wounded the Abbe Le +Helloco went on afterwards to the bridge with their prisoners. "As a +fact," we are now told, "the affair took place between the bridge--which +the head of a column had crossed by surprise, driving before them a +number of Belgians, sailors, and perhaps some marauders--and the level +crossing near the station of Caeskerke where the column was finally +stopped. It was in this part of the street that Dr. Duguet had his +dressing-station; and it was there, too, that Commander Jeanniot, whose +reserve post was at Caeskerke, came out to meet the assailants. And it +was the fields near the south bank of the Yser to which the column +betook itself, dragging its prisoners with it, when it found the road +barred." (See M. Thomas Couture's narrative at the end of this chapter.) + + + + +X. IN THE TRENCHES + + +Thus ended this dramatic episode, of which neither the genesis nor the +results have been fully elucidated so far. Did the German troop which +overran the town during the night, and of which only a portion got away +to the meadows with the prisoners, consist of a battalion or a +half-battalion? The fire of Captain Marcotte de Sainte-Marie's guns had +laid a good many of the enemy low. "We were walking over their corpses +in the street," wrote Marine H. G.[51] The next day we turned a fair +number of the assailants out of the cellars where they had hidden. But +the majority, aided by mysterious accomplices, certainly managed to +escape. + +In any case, the surprise had been a sharp lesson, showing us how +necessary it was that our positions should be immediately reinforced. +The Admiral represented this to Headquarters, and two battalions of +Senegalese were despatched from Loo. Meanwhile the bombardment had been +resumed. It became very intense between eleven and three o'clock, and +was directed mainly to the bridges of Dixmude and the trenches in the +cemetery. We had some heavy casualties there, notably Lieutenant Eno[52] +and part of the seventh company of the second battalion. But the _moral_ +of the men was perfectly maintained. We may cite the case of +Quartermaster Leborgne, wounded in the head and taken to the +dressing-station during a lull in the fighting, who escaped when he +heard the cannonade resumed and came back to die at his post, or the +bugler Chaupin, who, seeing the recruits arching their backs under the +hail of bullets, cried, "Look at me, little ones," and drawing himself +up to his full height with magnificent bravery, crossed the danger zone, +carrying his comrades along in the wake of his heroism.[53] Thanks to +the reconnaissances of his airmen and the spies he had in the town, the +enemy's fire was surprisingly accurate. "In the space of two hours, from +half-past ten to half-past twelve in the morning," wrote one of the +officers who commanded a much-exposed section, Second-Lieutenant T. S., +"some fifty shrapnel shells fell round us. At one o'clock a quarter of +my men were out of action. I asked for reinforcements and provisions; we +had been in the firing line for sixty hours. The Commander gave me a +verbal order to fall back. I consulted my petty officers and my men. +'Shall we fall back without being relieved?' 'We can't do it, +Lieutenant.' An hour later I received a written order to abandon the +trench. I had to obey, after we had buried our dead and carried off our +wounded. You see, dear parents, what our sailors will do: they will hold +out to the last gasp. That same evening the trench was occupied by +another section of the brigade." + +And that same evening of October 26 this trench--or another--was again +attacked, and was only saved for us by a prodigy of heroism. The enemy +had advanced to within a few yards, and charged, shouting "Hurrah!" Our +machine-guns were very dirty and would not work.[54] But Lieutenant +Martin des Pallieres was in command of the section. It was holding the +road to Woumen, between the wall of the cemetery and a trench dug on the +other side in a beetroot field. Des Pallieres sprang upon the parapet. + +"Boys," he cried, "we must receive these gentry with cold steel. Fix +bayonets!" + +And when one of the Marines, a Parisian, who had charged too vigorously, +lamented the loss of his "hat-pin" (his bayonet), which he had left in a +German hide, Des Pallieres replied: "Do as I do; charge with your +head."[55] The next day he was killed by a shell. + +Meanwhile the brigade had passed under the command of General Grossetti, +who had undertaken the defence of the line of the Yser as far as, and +inclusive of, Dixmude (detachment of the army of Belgium under General +d'Urbal). The day of the 27th passed without an attack in force; the +enemy merely bombarded us. He gave us time to breathe the following +night and morning till 9 a.m. Then the hurly-burly began again. An +officer of the Naval Reserve who received his baptism of fire that day, +Lieutenant Alfred de la Barre de Nanteuil, grandson of General Le Flo, +wrote to his family that he had been specially favoured. "It was a fine +christening, plenty of sweetmeats, the whole show, bullets, shrapnel, +and, above all, the famous 'saucepans' (_marmites_). Chance treated me +well." In his section alone there were four killed, twelve wounded, and +eleven missing. This was the prelude to a sudden attack, directed +against the trenches in the cemetery, to which the enemy paid particular +attention. But we knew this, and had put our steadiest troops there. The +attack was again repulsed, thanks mainly to the firmness of the first +musketry instructor, Le Breton, who had already been wounded on the +24th, and who took command of the company when all the officers had been +put out of action.[56] + +Our allies were less fortunate on the line from Dixmude to Nieuport, +where the 4th Belgian Division, overwhelmed by superior numbers, had to +fall back beyond Ramscappelle and Pervyse. The strategic importance of +these two villages made it imperative to retake them immediately. Every +available man was sent from the brigade on the evening of the 29th. This +did not prevent the enemy from continuing his bombardment of Dixmude, to +which this time we were able to reply very efficaciously with our heavy +artillery. This secured us a fairly quiet night. Such nights were few +and far between in the brigade. "We don't know what it is to sleep," +wrote a sailor. "We haven't closed our eyes for ten days." Perhaps the +enemy was as weary as our men. His sole manifestation that night was to +send a few shrapnel shells upon Caeskerke and the cross-roads where the +Admiral had taken up his position. Perhaps, too, he was less interested +in Dixmude than in Ramscappelle and Pervyse at this stage of the +operations. At dawn he rushed Ramscappelle, but he was repulsed at +Pervyse, which the two companies of Rabot's battalion defended with +their accustomed vigour. The night before, however, the railway bridge +of Dixmude had been demolished by a big shell. + +In the brief intervals of this exhausting struggle, the eyes of the +defenders were turned inquiringly on the _schoore_ of the Yser. How +slowly the inundation announced by the Belgian Headquarters Staff on the +25th seemed to be spreading! The progress it had made in five days was +almost imperceptible. And yet surely it was advancing now on the great +level plain; the _watergands_ were overflowing; the meshes of the watery +net were drawing together and encircling villages and farms. Near +Ramscappelle and Pervyse it had already formed a large continuous +expanse. + +That day the first tactical effects of the inundation made themselves +felt on our north. Ramscappelle had been retaken by the 42nd Division +in a brilliant bayonet charge; the enemy had been driven back behind the +embankment of the Dixmude-Nieuport railway, whence he had almost +immediately retired upon the Yser: he was falling back not only before +our troops, but before the insidious rising of the waters. The plan of +the German General Staff was foiled. In their attempt upon Dunkirk they +had not reckoned upon the intervention of the Anglo-French fleet, which +prevented them from making their way along the dunes of the seashore, +nor upon the advantages offered to the defence by the inundation of the +basin of the Yser. The key of the position was neither at Dixmude, +Pervyse, Ramscappelle, nor Ypres, as they had supposed, but in the +pocket of the head _wateringue_ in charge of the locks at Nieuport. + +At this moment of the crisis a certain vacillation seemed to prevail in +the councils of the enemy. The German Staff, though they had not +forgotten Dixmude, were apparently casting their eyes in other +directions. On the 30th and 31st they barely sent their daily ration of +shrapnel and big shells to our trenches in the cemetery and the houses +near the bridge. It had been raining incessantly for three days; our men +were standing half-way up their legs in water in the trenches. What had +become of the spruce "young ladies with the red pompons" of the early +days? "You should see us walk," wrote a sailor, one L., of Audierne. "We +are like old fellows of seventy. I have no feeling in my poor knees and +elbows." But the most severe suffering was caused by want of socks; the +men could hardly stand on their naked feet, purple with cold, in their +hard boots. "This is the campaign of frozen toes," says one of the +sufferers. Inured to discipline and naturally fatalistic, they did not +complain, and looked to their families to help them in their trouble. +"Do send me some socks. I have to go barefoot, and it is very cold," +wrote one sailor, J. F., of Le Passage Lauriec; and in his next letter +he repeats: "I can tell you, my dear parents, that the weather is very +bad here, rain and wind every day, and the cold! Sleeping in the +trenches is not very easy. I have not closed my eyes for a fortnight, +what with the cold and the shells and bullets. Still I keep a good +heart. My feet are bare in my shoes, and they are always icy cold. If +you send me some socks, will you put some tobacco in with them?" Another +letter is in the same strain: "Dear mother, you say my brother is still +drinking, and this is very wrong of him, but that he took the socks off +his own feet to send them to me. I thank him very much, for I did want +them badly." The Breton drunkard can be generous! + +There were lucky ones here as elsewhere. Such was H. L., who made +himself some mittens with a pair of old socks found in a German trench. +Men are not very squeamish in war-time, when they have been wearing the +same ragged filthy garments for a month. "You could not touch my vest +with a pair of tongs, it is so dirty," wrote the same H. L. to his +sister. The officers were no better off, except that they had socks. +"We never change; we never wash; we never brush our hair," wrote Alfred +de Nanteuil. "I have been living in the same grime ever since I left +Brest. The only things I have changed are my socks. All my ideas of +hygiene are upset, for, on the whole, I have never felt so well." Some +few complain of the food. "I have been three days in the trenches +without enough to eat," grumbles one sailor J. L. R. But the majority +declare that the tinned meat was not bad, especially when it was warmed, +and that, on the whole, they got enough.[57] As for drink, with the +exception of the coffee, pronounced "famous," the unanimous verdict was +that it was execrable, neither wine nor beer, only stagnant water; "and +they say, besides, that the Boches have poisoned it." The men were +recommended only to drink it in their coffee, well boiled. "I lived for +days on bread and sugar, with a cup of coffee for an occasional treat," +wrote Alfred de Nanteuil. "All the water in the district is polluted. So +I go very well for a week without drinking anything but coffee." +Francois Alain, for one, was four days without food or drink, lying +among the straw in a barn where twenty-seven of his comrades had been +bayoneted. How did this nineteen-year-old conscript escape the Boches +who had remained in the neighbourhood? Through a little hole he had made +with his knife in one of the tiles of the roof he observed all their +movements, and took note of their trenches and the emplacements of their +cannon and their machine-guns; and one fine night, when there was not +too much moonlight, he crawled out, killing a German officer who was +reconnoitring the French positions, and got back into our lines with a +cargo of precious information, a thick coating of mud, and teeth +sharpened by a fast of ninety-six hours.[58] And these men, dripping +with wet, with empty stomachs and burning heads, never lost heart for a +moment. The same note recurs in all their letters: "In spite of this, +all goes well, and we are not downhearted, especially when we can have a +go at the Boches." The one thing consoles them for the other. They know +the perils of the trenches, and they prefer them to the inactivity of +being kept in reserve. "We have had twelve days of fighting now," wrote +the Marine C., of Audierne, "and this evening, I am glad to say, we are +to be in the first line, for it is better to be under fire than +resting." Was this paradox or braggadocio? Not at all. They spoke as +they thought. They courted danger as other men shun it. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[51] "Blood ran in the streets like water," said Jean Claudius still +more emphatically, according to a witness. This was probably the origin +of the fantastic accounts which appeared in the press at this period, +most of them purely imaginary. + +[52] We must quote this short passage from the eloquent speech made at +the funeral of this brave officer at Lannion by Second-Lieutenant de +Cuverville, representing Admiral Berryer: "The order to mobilise found +Ernest Eno at Brest, engaged in training those very battalions he was +later to lead against the enemy; and no one could have been better +qualified than he to give our young recruits not only professional +instruction, but those lessons of manliness and patriotism which go to +the heart, and make men strong and courageous. For he was himself a +hero. A self-made man, he had raised himself step by step on the steep +ladder of his calling. He was a true sailor. He went off with the 1st +Regiment of Marines on August 13.... He fell at the head of his men +under intense fire round the cemetery of Dixmude, his thigh fractured by +a fragment of shell. He was not fated to recover from his terrible +wound. He died, uniting in his last prayers to God his dear ones and his +beloved Brittany, which he was to see no more." An operation had been +performed on Eno on the battlefield by his fellow-citizen and friend Dr. +Taburet, one of the doctors of the brigade, who showed the most supreme +contempt of danger under fire in attendance on our wounded. + +[53] Dr. Caradec, _op. cit._ + +[54] In less critical circumstances the same accident had happened to +Second-Lieutenant Gautier, and was the occasion of an amusing little +scene, which might have been taken from Leonec and Gerveze's sketches of +Marines: "Yesterday I was going at the Germans with machine-guns at +1,200 metres on a road from which I finally cut them off. All of a +sudden the guns jammed. I yelled from my blockhouse: 'What's the +matter?' 'Guns jammed.' 'Tell the gunner from me that he's an ass.' The +communicator, a worthy Breton fisherman, repeated gravely: 'The +Lieutenant says that the gunner is an ass.' The gunner was one Primat. A +few days later, on November 10, in submerged Dixmude, this same Primat +(the orderly of the Second-Lieutenant), who had survived his officer, +used his machine-guns with such skill and coolness against a German +column that he stopped it dead, mowing down three sections." + +[55] This story is told by the Marine Georges Delaballe. Such was the +ardour communicated by Des Pallieres to his men, that the next day a +Marine and a Boche were found "lying dead one upon the other, the +Marine's fingers thrust through the German's cheek, and still clutching +it." A stray bullet had killed them both. What had exasperated the +Marines was that the major who led the attack wore a large Red Cross +armlet. Their native honesty was revolted by this constant recourse to +ignoble ruses, by which our enemies have dishonoured even their own +heroism. Martin des Pallieres was the nephew of the Admiral who +commanded the Marines in 1870. "He was a brave man, whose courage was +combined with great simplicity and gaiety. He was killed by a big shell +in the middle of the group of machine-guns he was working under a +furious fire," writes a correspondent. Dr. Caradec points out that this +night of October 26 was particularly tragic; and in support of this +statement he quotes an incident horrible enough, indeed, from the +narrative of the naval mechanician Le L.:-- + +"The Germans had taken some French trenches, and shells were raining +thickly upon us. All of a sudden some of our men were engulfed in a mass +of _debris_. As one of my friends was half buried in the earth, I and +another went to help him; but a shell fell right upon him, and I in my +turn was buried up to the neck. Night was coming on fast. I spent +fourteen hours of anguish in this position. Furious fighting was going +on. Two friends were moaning near me. The one nearest begged me to help +him, but I was held fast as in a vice, and had to look on helpless as he +died. My own strength began to fail. I became unconscious a few hours +after I had been buried. What made me suffer most was to see the Germans +a few yards from me. I could see all they were doing, all their +death-dealing preparations. During the night the Senegalese riflemen +retook our lost trenches; they set to work to clear away the rubbish and +found my two dead friends near me. One of the Senegalese stepped on my +head. Feeling something under his feet, he bent down and saw me. They +got me out and took me to the first ambulance. In a few hours I was +fully conscious again. You can imagine how I rejoiced to find myself +among friends. I felt like one risen from the dead." + +[56] Among them was Second-Lieutenant Gautier. The following order, +communicated to us by his family, was found with his papers: "Monsieur +Gautier,--By superior orders, I am sending a section to relieve you, and +to instruct you to go with your section near the cemetery, behind the +wall or on the railway embankment, as may seem best to you and to the +officer in the adjoining trenches. Des Pallieres' section, which was in +the cemetery, has been annihilated, Des Pallieres himself killed and +buried in the _debris_ of the trench." Second-Lieutenant Gautier was +killed at 9 o'clock in the evening. "We were having our dinner in the +trench," wrote Lieutenant Gamas a few days later, "when the order came +for him to go to a dangerous position to replace Des Pallieres, who had +just been killed there. The last words your son-in-law said to me were: +'Captain, it's my turn.' We shook hands warmly, looking affectionately +at each other. The next day I heard that my poor friend was dead. He had +been hit in the forehead by a German bullet at the moment when, attacked +by very superior numbers with three machine-gun sections, he had put his +head out in order to regulate his fire and do his duty thoroughly. He +fell nobly, leaving a glorious and honoured name to his wife and +children." + +[57] All the officers we have seen or who have written to us declare +that the transport service was excellent throughout the defence, in +spite of the greatest difficulties, and that the naval commissariat was +irreproachable. + +[58] He was decorated with the military medal by General Foch in person. + + + + +XI. THE ATTACK ON THE CHATEAU DE WOUMEN + + +All Saints' Day was nearly as quiet as the preceding forty-eight hours. +We re-established our trenches, and the Admiral reorganised his +regiments and transferred his headquarters to Oudecappelle. In his +journal Alfred de Nanteuil, who had been with our second line from the +day before, notices the truce from _marmites_, if not from shrapnel and +bullets, "singing past a little like summer flies." But farms were +blazing all round the vast horizon, lighting up the November night and +accentuating the fact that, although the enemy's attentions had changed +in form, they had put on no amenity. "One of my men," says De Nanteuil, +"found the severed hand of a small child in a German's knapsack...." And +at Eessen, where the _vicaire_ was a young priest of twenty-eight, the +Abbe Deman, his murderers amused themselves by forcing him to dig his +own grave before they shot him in the graveyard of his own church.[59] + +A day later the temporary inertia of the enemy was explained. A few +_marmites_ on our trenches and on the farms occupied by our supply +services were not enough to deceive us. We had been aware for several +days of a continuous growling in the south-west, on the Ypres road. The +enemy had transferred a part of his forces towards Mercken, where he was +seeking contact with our Territorials and with the British troops. It +seemed a good opportunity to break the iron girdle which held us and to +afford some relief to our positions. The _moral_ of our men had never +been better. Rumours of a general offensive were current in the brigade, +and nothing stimulates the French soldier more than the hope of an +advance. On November 3 French aeroplanes passed over Dixmude, towards +the German lines, and a balloon was hanging in the sky towards the west. + + +"Happy omen!" wrote De Nanteuil. "We have been without such +encouragements all through the long defence.... Now my spirits rise. +Everything points to an advance. The _marmites_ have disappeared, for +which no one is sorry. I have been in the first line since last night. +The sun is shining; the lark is singing; the mud is drying. We are +fearful to behold. Relieved by the Belgians in the night, I have to find +and guide those who have to take the place of my company. On my way +back, worn out, I stop a barrel of Belgian soup and have a delicious +pull at it. My battalion is in reserve since last night. Passed the +night in a barn, men in the trench. To-day it has been a case of 'packs +on' ever since the morning." + +"Where are we off to?" said this intrepid officer to himself. "Perhaps," +he thought, "nowhere! Anyway, the guns are raging, and this time it is +our own beloved guns, which we have awaited so impatiently. I cannot +hear the others; I think it is all right." + +Alfred de Nanteuil was not mistaken. This time it was our 75's which led +the dance. The General had decided that an attack should debouch from +the town "supported by a powerful mass of artillery and having for main +objective the Chateau on the road to Woumen, about a kilometre from +Dixmude." The attack was to be made by four battalions of infantry of +the 42nd Division, a Marine battalion under Commandant de Jonquieres +acting as support, and the rest of the brigade as reserve. The whole was +under the command of General Grossetti--Grossetti the invulnerable, as +he had been called ever since his splendid defence of Pervyse, where he +faced the shells sitting on a camp-stool. + +The attack began about eight o'clock by an energetic clearing of the +whole position. There was, perhaps, some little hesitation in the +movements which followed. The fact is that by not moving off until +half-past eleven in the morning our infantry lost much of the advantage +given by the artillery preparation. The enemy had had time to pull +himself together. The eighth battalion of Chasseurs could not debouch +from the cemetery by the Woumen road until supported by the De +Jonquieres battalion. Then it was checked at the end of 200 metres. At +the same time the 151st Infantry had made good a similar advance on the +Eessen road. That was the total gain of the day. We renewed the +offensive at 3 next morning, but with no more success than the day +before. The attack always lacked "go." We scarcely advanced at all, well +supported as we were by our 75's, which once more showed their +superiority over the German artillery. The General now determined to +reinforce the attack with the whole 42nd Division and two fresh +battalions of Marines. A day was taken up by preparations for the +passage of the Yser, a kilometre below Dixmude. For this purpose two +flying bridges were brought down from the town. There was a thick fog, +the best sort of weather for such an operation. One of the Marine +battalions was directed to attack on a line parallel to the Yser. The +remaining two, crossing higher up, were to make straight for the +Chateau, while the 8th Chasseurs were to prolong the attack to the +north. Fifty guns concentrated their fire on the buildings and the +ground immediately about them. But this enchanted castle, with its +fougasses, its deep trenches, its lines of barbed wire, its loopholed +walls, its machine-guns on every storey, and its flanking fire, gave out +a sort of repelling electricity which had the effect, if not of +destroying the _elan_ of our troops, at least of curiously blunting it. +The ground, seamed with watercourses, was unfavourable, and trouble +brooded in the fog. In short, when night fell we were still a quarter of +a mile from the Chateau; we had not even reached the park. On the Eessen +side we had made no progress. Finally, the Belgians near Beerst, who +were defending the north front of Dixmude, sent word that they were no +longer enough to man the trenches, and the Admiral had to send to their +help two companies of the De Kerros battalion from the first reserve. +This unwelcome necessity was made up for by the arrival of two long +120-mm. pieces, which were at once put in battery south of the level +crossing at Caeskerke. + +However, the night of November 5 was quiet all round Dixmude; but at +dawn the attack was renewed. This time we had good reason to hope for +success. Rising from the provisional trenches, our battalions moved +simultaneously in echelon across the plain. The charge sounded, shouts +of "Vive la France!" broke out, and, in spite of terrible machine-gun +and rifle fire, the farm and the park were carried with a rush. Our men +were at the foot of the Chateau. But there the rush was stopped. +Contrary to report, the Chateau was not taken. The internal defences had +been organised in the most formidable way, perhaps even before the war +began. The enemy left in our hands some hundred prisoners, who had been +barricaded in the pavilion at the main gate.[60] At nightfall the order +was given to retire. The De Jonquieres battalion returned to its +billets. The 42nd Division went off in another direction,[61] and the +brigade was again left alone at Dixmude with a handful of Senegalese and +the Belgians.[62] + +[Illustration: (Newspaper Illustrations) + +THE "KIEKENSTRAAT" (CHICKEN STREET) AFTER THE FIRST DAYS OF THE +BOMBARDMENT] + +"We don't budge," writes De Nanteuil on November 6. "Our reinforcements +are being sent back. Visited the church and Hotel de Ville of Dixmude. +Frightful! They are nothing but shapeless ruins. There is not a whole +house left. Certain quarters are destroyed down to their very +foundations; they are nothing but heaps of stone and bricks.... Messina +is in better case than this unhappy town." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[59] Declaration of the Abbe Vanryckeghem, who affirms that the _cures_ +of Saint Georges, of Mannekensverke, and of Vladsloo were also executed. + +[60] This, however, is not certainly established. For this account of +the closing scenes of the attack we have followed the narrative of the +correspondent of _La Liberte_, which appeared to us trustworthy. This +correspondent says, "They [the prisoners] had no time to retreat, so +sudden and furious was the attack. Carried away by their excitement, the +Marines never saw that the pavilion was full of Germans. It was not +until three hours later that a Prussian non-commissioned officer walked +unarmed out of the building and surrendered with his party to the first +French officer he met." We have been authoritatively told that nothing +of the kind took place. "The attack reached the Chateau, but failed to +carry it." + +[61] At Dixmude the 4th and 5th had passed in comparative tranquillity. +"It rains," writes Alfred de Nanteuil on the 4th, "five hours drawn up +on the road, fully accoutred. Mud frightful. Walked through Dixmude--a +vision of horror, lights of pillagers, carcases, indescribable ruins.... +Passed the night at a deserted farm, full of corpses, utterly sacked and +ruined. Plenty of evidence that the owners were well-behaved, pious, and +honest Belgian cultivators. The night fairly calm, so we had six hours +of sleep in our wet clothes. Impossible to change." The 5th: "To-day the +weather beautiful, the sun shining. Everything calm. In the watercourses +we see reflected the vaporous landscapes of the great Flemish masters. +The cattle which have escaped the bombardment stand about on the dykes. +At last one is able to breathe, ... to be glad one lives. I begin to +think we shall be here for a long time." + +[62] It came at this juncture under the command of General Bidon. +Shortly before it had received an interesting visit. On November 2 a +naval lieutenant, De Perrinelle, writes in his diary that Colonel Seely, +sometime Minister of War in England, had visited this front and had told +them that they had saved the situation by their vigorous resistance. + + + + +XII. THE DEATH OF DIXMUDE + + +She is not quite dead yet, however. Scalped, shattered, and burnt as she +is, she still holds a spark of life as long as we are there. This +charnel-house in which we are encamped, with its streets, which are +nothing but malodorous paths winding among corpses, heaps of broken +stone and brick, and craters opened by the Boche _marmites_, still beats +with life in its depths. Existence has become subterranean. Dixmude has +catacombs into which our men pour when they leave the trenches. And they +are not all soldiers who explore the recesses of these vaults and +cellars. The suspicious lights alluded to by Alfred de Nanteuil are not, +perhaps, always carried by pillagers. Mysteriously enough, one house in +the town has escaped the bombardment. It is the flour factory near the +bridge, and its cement platform still dominates the valley of the Yser. + +The 42nd Division left us two of its batteries of 75's when it moved +off. That was something, of course, though not enough to make up for the +disablement of 58 out of the 72 guns we originally had for the defence +of our front. The only formidable guns we have are the heavy ones, but +they are without the mobility of the 75's. And now apparently our attack +on the Chateau of Woumen has disquieted the Germans, who are again in +force before Dixmude. The bombardment of the town and of the trenches +has recommenced, and last night we had to repulse a pretty lively attack +on our trenches at the cemetery. There is also pressure along the Eessen +road, with considerable losses at both points. A renewal of the attack +to-night seems probable. And our ranks are already thin![63] + +"Mother," writes a Marine from Dixmude on November 7, "it is with my +cartridge belt on my back and sheltered from the German machine-guns +that I send you these few lines to say that my news is good, and that I +hope it is the same with you and the family. But, mother, I don't expect +that either you or the family will ever see me again. None of us will +come back. But I shall have given my life in doing my duty as a French +soldier-sailor. I have already had two bullets, one in the sleeve of my +great-coat, the other in my right cartridge case. The third will do +better." + +On the same day another Marine writes home: "Out of our squad of 16, we +still have three left." However, the night of the 6th and the day which +followed were quiet enough. The disappointment caused by the failure of +our attack on the Chateau was already almost forgotten, and our hopes +were again rising. + +"I think," wrote Alfred de Nanteuil, "that my company will not stir from +this for some time. I have to furnish reinforcing parties as they are +wanted, the rest of my men and myself staying in the trench, which we +are always improving. We have a farmhouse near by which allows us to eat +in comfort. And we have plenty of straw." + +The general impression is that we are held from one end of the front to +the other. "Bombardment always and musketry, a siege war, in short. It +will come to an end some day. Meanwhile," says De Nanteuil, gaily, "our +spirits and health are good." But this very afternoon certain suspicious +movements were descried on the further bank of the Yser. As it was easy +to bombard this part of the hostile front, a gun was promptly trained in +that direction. Was it a decoy, or was some spy from behind sending +signals? The gun no sooner came into action than a German battery was +unmasked upon it, killing Captain Marcotte de Sainte-Marie, who was +controlling the fire.[64] + +Thenceforward attacks never ceased. The night between the 7th and 8th +was nothing but a long series of attempts on our front, which were all +repulsed. They began again at daylight against the trenches at the +cemetery. There the enclosing wall had been battered down for some time +past by the German artillery. Through the loopholes in our parapets one +could see the wide stretch of beetroots on the edge of which we were +fighting, our backs to Dixmude. Away on the horizon the Chateau of +Woumen, on its solitary height, rose from the surrounding woods and +dominated the position. Little clouds of white smoke hung from the +trees, which seemed to be shedding down. In his invariable fashion, the +enemy was preparing his attacks by a systematic clearing of the ground; +shrapnel and _marmites_ were smashing the tombstones, decapitating the +crosses, breaking up the iron grilles, the crowns of _immortelles_, and +the coffins themselves. The Flemish subsoil is so permeable that coffins +are not sunk more than a couple of feet below the surface, so that +their occupants were strewn about in a frightful way. Several Marines +were wounded by splinters of bone from these mobilised corpses.... In +the fogs of Flanders, when the mystery of night and the great disc of +the moon added their phantasmagoria to the scene, all this surpassed in +_macabre_ horror the most ghastly inventions of romantic fiction and +legend. Familiar as our Bretons were with supernatural ideas, they +shivered at it all, and welcomed an attack as a relief from continual +nightmare.[65] + +"Although we did not give way at all," writes a Marine, "we understood +that everyone was not made like ourselves and the Senegalese. We took +pity on the poor worn-out Belgians, who had come to the end of their +tether, especially their foot Chasseurs,[66] and we took their places in +the trenches. We had three _aviatiks_ continually hanging over us,[67] +at which we fired in vain. They returned every day at the same hour, as +surely as poverty to the world. As soon as they had gone back we knew +what to expect. Down came the _marmites_ on our devoted heads!" + +And their music, compared to the gentle coughing of our little Belgian +guns! At last a dozen new 75's appeared on the scene and relieved these +poor asthmatics. They were distributed between Caeskerke and the Yser. +Our grim point was the cemetery. There one of our trenches had been +taken by the Germans, but a vigorous counter-attack, led by +Second-Lieutenant Melchior, soon turned them out. "Exasperated by so +many sterile efforts," writes Lieutenant A., "the enemy decided, on +November 10, to make a decisive stroke. Towards ten in the morning began +the most terrible bombardment the brigade had yet had to suffer. The +fire was very accurate, destroying the trenches and causing great +losses."[68] At 11 o'clock 12,000 Germans, Mausers at the charge, +advanced against Dixmude.[69] + +This attack repeated the tactics of the early days of the siege. The +Germans came on in heavy masses, reinforced by fresh troops. They had +also learnt the weak points of their opponents. And yet it is not +certain that the attack would have succeeded had it not been for the +unexpected giving way of our positions on the Eessen road.[70] This was +the only part of the southern sector not defended by Marines. It must +have been entirely smashed up, with the Senegalese who flanked it on +both wings. As a fact, the enemy's fire was so intense along the whole +line and our reply so feeble, that Alfred de Nanteuil, who occupied a +trench in rear of the northern sector, had to withdraw his men behind a +haystack. "Impossible to lift one's nose above the ground," writes an +officer, "so thick and fast came the shells." The attacking column was +thus enabled to pass the canal at Handzaeme and to fall upon the flank +of the trenches occupied by the eleventh company. This company had been +engaging the batteries at Korteckeer and Kasterthoeck, on their left, +and a violent rifle and machine-gun fire from a group of farms higher up +the canal. What was left of it had barely time to fall back upon its +neighbours, the ninth and tenth companies. A hostile detachment, +creeping along the canal, had contrived to push as far as the command +post of the third battalion, taking possession on the way of Dr. +Guillet's ambulance, which had been established at the end of the Roman +bridge. Our trenches were not connected by telephone, and communications +had broken down. Four marines only, out of the 60 in the reserve of +Commander Rabot, succeeded in escaping. The sentry on the roof of the +farm in which they were waiting saw the enemy coming and gave the alarm: +"The Boches--quarter of a mile away!" "To arms!" shouted De Nanteuil. +"Into the trenches!" + +[Illustration: OLD HOUSES ON THE HANDZAEME CANAL] + +He himself went to an exposed point to observe the enemy. There a bullet +hit him in the neck, striking the spinal marrow. How his men contrived +to bring him off it is difficult to say. He remained conscious and had +no illusions as to his state. All his energy seemed concentrated on the +desire to die in France. He had his wish.[71] + +Then came the final defeat. The lines on the Eessen road driven in, the +dyke pierced at the centre, the northern sector cut off from the south, +the German wave flowed over us. The enemy had penetrated to the heart of +our defence, and, being continuously reinforced, swept round our flanks +and took us in reverse. One after another our positions gave way. +Already the first fugitives were arriving before Dixmude. + +"Where are you off to?" cries an officer as he bars the way to a sailor. + +"Captain, a shell has smashed my rifle. Give me another, and I'll go +back." + +They give him one, and he returns to the inferno. Another, wandering on +the field like a soul in torture, replies to the inquiry of an officer +that he is "looking for his company. There cannot be much of it left, +but," straightening himself, "that does not matter: _they_ shall not get +through!"[72] + +And they do not get through. But it was too late to stop them from +entering Dixmude. Their musketry was all round us, a rifle behind every +heap of rubble, a machine-gun at every point of vantage. The sharp note +of the German trumpet sounded from every side. It is possible that a +certain number of the enemy who had lain hidden in the cellars of +Dixmude ever since the fighting on the 25th now came out of their earth +to add to the confusion. The truth of this will be known some day. We +were under fire in the town, outside the town, on the canal, on the +Yser. It was street fighting, with all its ambuscades and surprises. +What had become of the covering troops in the cemetery and on the Beerst +road? Of the reserve under Commander Rabot, driven from ditch to ditch, +its commander killed or missing,[73] only fifteen men were left. These +were rallied by Lieutenant Serieyx in a muddy ditch, where they fought +to the last man. Surrounded and disarmed, Serieyx and some others were +forced to act as a shield to the Germans who were advancing against the +junction of the canal and the Yser. "Abominable sight," says Lieutenant +A., "French prisoners compelled to march in front of Boches, who knelt +behind them and fired between their legs!" Our men beyond the Yser could +not reply. + +"Call to them to surrender," ordered the German major to Serieyx. + +"Why should you think they will surrender? There are ten thousand of +them!"[74] + +There were really two hundred! + +At this moment a sudden burst of fire on the right distracted the +enemy's attention. With a sign to the others, Serieyx, whose arm had +already been broken by a bullet, threw himself into the Yser, succeeded +in swimming across, and at once made his way to the Admiral to report +what was happening. + +A counter-attack ordered by the officer in command of the defence and +led by Lieutenant d'Albia had covered his escape. The eighth company, in +reserve, reinforced by a section of the fifth company of the 2nd +Regiment, under Commander Mauros and Lieutenant Daniel, entrenched +itself behind the barricade at the level crossing on the Eessen +road.[75] On all the roads leading to the Yser, and especially at the +three bridges, sections strongly established themselves or helped to +consolidate sections already there. Would these dispositions, hastily +taken by Commandant Delage, be enough to save Dixmude? At most they +could only prolong the agony. Her hours were numbered. After having +driven its way through the hostile column which had reached the Yser, +Lieutenant d'Albia's section encountered more Germans debouching from +the Grand' Place and neighbouring streets. Germans and Frenchmen now +formed nothing but a mass of shouting men. They shot each other at close +quarters; they fought with their bayonets, their knives, their clubbed +rifles, and when these were broken, with their fists, with their feet, +even with their teeth. By three in the afternoon we had lost one half of +our men, killed, wounded, or prisoners. The German columns were still +pouring into Dixmude through the breaches in the defence. They pushed us +back to the bridges, which we still held, which we were indeed to hold +to the end. They were going to take Dixmude, but the little sailor was +right: they were not going to pass the Yser. One more attack was +organised to bring off the Mauros company, which was retiring under a +terrible fire. The remains of several sections were brought together, +and, led by their officers, they charged into the _melee_ in the +streets. One purple-faced, sweating Marine, who had seen his brother +fall, swore he would have the blood of twenty Boches. He went for them +with the bayonet, counting "One! two! three!" etc., till he had reached +twenty-two. After that he returned to his company, a madman. + +But what could the finest heroism do against the swarms of men who +rose, as it were, from the earth as fast as they were crushed? "They are +like bugs," sighed a quartermaster, and night was coming on. Dixmude had +ceased to give signs of life. For six hours fighting had gone on over a +dismembered corpse. Not a gable, not a wall, was left standing, except +those of the flour factory. To hold these heaps of rubbish, which might +turn into a focus of infection, was not worth the little finger of one +of our men. At 5 o'clock in the evening, after blowing up the bridges +and the flour factory, the Admiral retired behind the Yser.[76] + +"Dear mother," wrote a Marine a few days later from Audierne, "I have to +tell you that on the 10th of this month I was not cheering much at +Dixmude, for out of the whole of my company only 30 returned. I never +expected to come out, but with a stout heart I managed to get away. I +had a very bad time. Many of us had to swim to save ourselves." These, +no doubt, were the prisoners who had thrown themselves into the canal +with the heroic Serieyx. + +All this time Lieutenant Cantener, who had taken command on the death of +his senior officer, had been maintaining himself on the Beerst road, +with three companies of Marines. At nightfall he had the +satisfaction--and the credit--of bringing nearly the whole of his +command safely into our lines. They had made their way by ditches full +of water and mud up to their waists. They were 450 in all--450 blocks of +mud--and they were not, as has been said, worn out and without arms and +equipment, but steadily marching in fours, bayonets fixed, and as calm +as on parade. They had their wounded in front, and each company had its +rear-guard.[77] + +Too many of our men were left beneath the ruins of the town or in the +hands of the enemy, but they had not been vainly sacrificed.[78] After +losing some 10,000 men,[79] the Germans found themselves in possession +of a town reduced to mere heaps of rubbish with an impregnable line +beyond. Our reserve lines had become our front, well furnished with +heavy guns, and punctually supported by the inundation which stretched +its impassable defence both to north and south. The whole valley of the +Lower Yser had become a tideless sea, out into which stood Dixmude, like +a crumbling headland. In taking it the Germans had simply made +themselves masters of two _tetes de pont_. Even that is saying too much, +for we still commanded the place from the northern bank of the Yser, and +our artillery, under General Coffec, frustrated all attempts to organise +their capture. Meanwhile thousands of Germans, between the Yser and the +embankment of the Nieuport railway, watched with apprehension the water +rising about the mounds up which they had hauled their mortars and +machine-guns. In the immediate neighbourhood of Dixmude, where the +Admiral had caused the sluice at the sixteenth milestone to be blown +up,[80] a hostile column of some fifteen hundred men was overwhelmed by +the water together with the patch of raised ground on which it had taken +refuge.[81] A fresh inundation added greatly to the extent of the +floods, and practically reconstituted the old _schoore_ of Dixmude. All +danger of the enemy's making good the passage of the river had finally +passed away. + +[Illustration: THE INUNDATION. OLD MILL AND FARMS ON THE YSER] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[63] For the period between October 24 and November 6 the names of the +following officers who fell must be added to those already given: killed +or dead of their wounds, Lieutenants Cherdel and Richard, +Second-Lieutenants Rousset and Le Coq; among those wounded, but not +mortally, Lieutenants Antoine, "son of Admiral Antoine and the model of +a perfect officer" (private correspondence), and Revel, who, when +severely wounded in the thigh, ordered his decimated company to retire, +"leaving him in the trench where he had fallen." + +[64] Marcotte de Sainte-Marie was provisionally succeeded at the head of +his battalion by Lieutenant Dordet, who acquitted himself admirably. + +[65] And yet these cemetery trenches afforded comparative security. +Before reaching them it was necessary to cross a perfectly flat zone of +60 metres, continually swept by rifle fire and shrapnel. "This we passed +at the double, in Indian file, our knapsacks on our heads, and popped, +those who had not been left on the way, into the cellars under the +caretaker's house with an 'Ouf!' of relief." (Georges Delaballe.) + +[66] It must be remembered that the Belgians had been fighting for three +solid months, and that until the 23rd October they had faced the Germans +alone, if not at Dixmude at least as far north as Nieuport. + +[67] To say nothing of a captive balloon. "Violent bombardment of our +trenches, directed by 'sausage' balloons; feeble reply of French and +Belgian artillery," is the entry, under date of the 8th, in an officer's +note-book, where also we find under date of the 9th: "Bombardment +continued. Night attack on the outposts, which were driven in." + +[68] Dr. Caradec says the German artillery, consisting of batteries of +105's and 77's, was posted 2,000 metres away, behind the Chateau of +Woumen, and near Vladsloo, Korteckeer, and Kasterthoeck. + +[69] Before that, however, at half-past nine, a lively attack had been +directed against the front of the ninth and tenth companies of the 1st +Regiment, which occupied towards Beerst one end of the arc described +round Dixmude by our trenches; the extremities of this arc rested on the +Yser. The Germans tried to push between the Yser and the flank of the +ninth company. This attack was repulsed by the two companies, assisted +by fire from the remaining trenches and a battery of 75's. + +[70] Rather above Dixmude station, between the railway embankment and +the Eessen road. + +[71] We find in the _Bulletin de la Societe Archeologique du Finisterre_ +that "M. de Nanteuil, a retired naval officer, returned to the service +in the first days of the war and was attached to the defence of Brest +and its neighbourhood. But this occupation seemed to him too quiet, and, +in spite of a precarious state of health, he left no stone unturned to +get to the front. Fifteen days after arriving there he was killed, one +hero more in a family of heroes. He was an efficient archaeologist, +especially in all that had to do with military architecture. He had +published some excellent papers on our old feudal castles in the +_Bulletins_ of the _Association Bretonne_, historical notes and +descriptions relating to the Chateau of Brest, the remains at Morlaix +and Saint Pol de Leon, the churches of Guimilian, Lampaul, Saint +Thegonnec, and Pleyben...." He went off full of pluck and go, we hear +from another source, his heart full of eagerness to meet the enemy. +Those friends who saw him off all noticed his radiant looks.... When +mortally wounded, for paralysis supervened almost at once, and carried +to the ambulance, his head was still clear, he was anxious as to the +phases of the battle, and asked whether the enemy had been repulsed. He +supported his sufferings without complaint, and in the evening, although +he was very weak, they moved him on to Malo-les-Bains, for he "wished to +die on French ground." + +[72] Dr. Caradec, _op. cit._ + +[73] He was killed. He had been hit by a bullet above the ear as he +raised himself to glance round over the high bank of a watercourse lined +by his men. + +[74] To this major Serieyx had only surrendered after all his ammunition +was exhausted, and he and his men saw that no further resistance was +possible. The major had then asked Serieyx whether there was no means of +crossing the Yser. Serieyx answered, "I only know of one, the Haut +Pont." Now, at some fifty yards from where they stood, there was a +footbridge which our sailors were at that moment crossing. Serieyx held +the major's attention by taking a pencil and tracing a complicated plan +of the position. From time to time firing took place, and the Frenchmen +planted themselves stoically in front of the Boches, Serieyx working +away at his plan. But the major grew impatient at its complication, and +thought it better to make use of his prisoner to procure the surrender +of the trenches. + +[75] "The troops in the southern sector moved back towards the town, +defending themselves by a series of barricades, under the orders of +Commander Mauros and Lieutenant Daniel." (Note-book of Second-Lieutenant +X.) + +[76] It has been said that an old woman caused the fall of Dixmude on +November 10. "The allied forces occupying Dixmude," said the _Daily +Mail_, "consisted of a squadron of cavalry encamped on the right bank of +the Yser, two batteries of 75's, a regiment of infantry, and a battalion +of Zouaves (!). The battle began with a violent cannonade, which had the +great distillery in the centre of the town as its principal objective. +Two of our 75's were on the first floor of a tannery, the others below, +on a little mound where skins were cleaned. Our artillery was able to +hold the enemy in check, opening great breaches through the hostile +ranks with its shells. One German gun lost all its team, and the Uhlans +were mown down by our sailors. Our men, cavalry and infantry, were +awaiting the word to attack. Just at this moment appeared an old woman +to whom our Zouaves had been kind, as she seemed so miserable. She had +marched with them, leaning on the arm of one and another and sharing +their soup. She mounted to the first floor of the tannery, and then +disappeared. A moment later a light appeared on the roof of the +distillery. It was seen to swing three times from right to left. Five +minutes later the German shells began to rain upon the point indicated +by the light. In a very short time the building was greatly damaged, +fires broke out, and the burning alcohol lighted up the whole +neighbourhood. Unable to stem either the deluge of shells or this +conflagration, the French general decided to evacuate the town and +entrench himself on the canal banks. With great difficulty the 75's were +withdrawn from their positions. Before quitting the city the French +soldiers saw, and were able to identify, the 'old woman,' stretched on +the ground, with the uniform of an Uhlan peeping from beneath 'her' +skirts." This is all pure imagination. Spies certainly played a part in +the fall of Dixmude. Too many people were accepted as refugees and +distressed inhabitants who were in reality the guides and accomplices of +the enemy. But, in the first place, we had no Zouaves at Dixmude; +secondly, our observation post was not in a tannery; finally, we had no +cavalry. The only body which barred the way to the Germans was the +Marines, omitted in this account. + +[77] The following details of this fine operation have reached me, but +before giving them I must remind the reader that the Germans who fell +upon the reserve under Commander Rabot did not destroy Company 11. This +company, after a lively exchange of fire, retired upon Companies 9 and +10, which were almost intact. Dixmude had already fallen, when the +captains of the three companies met, and after thinking over the +situation, determined to hold on at all costs. Consequently "Company 10 +proceeded to place a small advanced post on the Beerst road, with two +double sentries, and a rear-guard at the old mill. The company itself +was drawn up with one rank facing to the front, the other to the rear, +and the trenches so arranged that a front could be shown in any +direction. The machine-guns abandoned by the Belgians were overhauled +and placed so as to sweep the Beerst road. At 6.30 the little northern +post was attacked. Pursuant to orders, it retired after a volley or two. +Then fire opened along the whole line, the machine-guns of Company 10 +joining in. The Germans, who expected no such stubborn resistance, had +severe losses. For an hour the fight lasted without change, the men +still at their post and the trench still intact. All the killed, Captain +Baudry among them, were shot through the head, the wounded, in the head +or the arm, in the act of firing. At this moment the beginning of an +attack from the rear made itself felt. The time for retreat had come, as +the detachment had lost connection with the Staff of the battalion. The +companies moved off successively, each leaving a section to protect its +retreat. This retreat was admirable, but quite indescribable on account +of the ground. _Arroyos_ (mud-holes) everywhere. The men got through, +although sinking to their armpits and handing on their wounded before +them. After two hours of this painful but orderly progression, they +arrived before the footbridge over the Yser. A farm granary arose near +by, where the Germans had mounted machine-guns to sweep the bridge. +Lieutenant Cantener, who was now in command, decided to carry the farm. +The operation was a complete success. The Germans were driven out, the +farm burnt, and the Yser crossed. The column, with its wounded in front, +then made its way safely to the cross-roads at Caeskerke, and thence +into the shelter trenches at Oudecappelle." The third battalion of the +1st Regiment, which held the northern sector, had the following +officers: Company 9, Berat, Poisson, Le Gall; Company 10, Baudry, Mazen, +Devisse; Company 11, Cantener, Hillairet, Le Provost; Company 12, De +Nanteuil, Vielhomme, Charrier. + +[78] According to M. Pierre Loti, the Marines at Dixmude lost "half +their effective and from 80 to 100 of their officers." This estimate is +none too large if we include the wounded and missing. + +[79] According to the _Nieuws van den Dag_, 4,000 wounded were sent to +Liege the next day. Another Dutch journal, the _Telegraaf_, says that +out of 3,000 men engaged in the attack on the southern sector of the +defence "only a hundred men were left after the fall of the town." All +estimates are clearly uncertain in such confused affairs, and so we have +taken our figures preferably from the neutral press, in which we may +look for a certain amount of impartiality. + +[80] The operation was carried out by Quartermaster Le Belle to whom the +military medal was awarded. "A night or two ago," writes Commander +Geynet, "I was ordered to blow up the sluice in front of me.... A little +quartermaster crossed the stream on a plank nailed across two barrels. +We pushed the Prussians out of the way by rifle fire. My little man, +with his charge of dynamite, chose his moment well, then, leaving his +raft to draw the fire of the Prussians, regained our bank by swimming." + +[81] Paul Chautard in the _Liberte_ of November 24. Commander Geynet +says nothing of this episode, however. + +[Illustration: Plan of Attack on DIXMUDE on November 10th 1914.] + +[Illustration: MAP of OPERATIONS Round DIXMUDE Drawn by CH. LE GOFFIC.] + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's Notes + +Obvious punctuation errors repaired. + +Page 4: "be" changed to "been" (had been transformed into sailors). + +List of illustrations and Page 43: "Papagaei" changed to "Papegaei". +The photo preceding page 43 shows this spelling on the building. + +Page 59: "Langermack" changed to "Langemarck" in the second footnote. + +Page 82: "Oudescappelle" changed to "Oudecappelle" in the footnote. + +Pages 137, 146: "Wouwen" changed to "Woumen". + +Page 162: "Liege" changed to "Liege". + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dixmude, by Charles Le Goffic + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIXMUDE *** + +***** This file should be named 33929.txt or 33929.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/9/2/33929/ + +Produced by Moti Ben-Ari and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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