On 9 November, the Germans attacked the French and Belgians between Langemarck and Dixmude, forcing them back to the Yser, where the Belgians blew the crossings. For at least 24 hours, French persisted in the belief that he was attacking while his troops were barely holding their ground. [60], In 1925, Edmonds recorded that the Belgians had suffered a great number of casualties from 15–25 October, including 10,145 wounded. From 21 to 23 October, German reservists had made mass attacks at Langemarck, with losses of up to 70 percent, to little effect. It was not until October 21 that French began to grasp the situation on the ground; he ordered that positions be entrenched and held defensively. The First Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November) was a First World War battle fought around Ypres, in western Belgium during October and November 1914. [1], Britain and France declared war on Turkey on 5 November and next day, Keupri-Keni in Armenia was captured, during the Bergmann Offensive (2–16 November) by the Russian army. [40] German attacks were made on the right flank of the 7th Division at Gheluvelt. The British were forced back by the German 4th Division and British counter-attacks were repulsed. The purpose of these battles was to gain control of the city and “its advantageous positions on the north coast of Belgium” (Source). [44] On 30 October, German attacks by the 54th Reserve Division and the 30th Division, on the left flank of the BEF at Gheluvelt, were repulsed but the British were pushed out of Zandvoorde, Hollebeke and Hollebeke Château as German attacks on a line from Messines to Wytschaete and St Yves were repulsed. The German 6th and 4th armies attacked from Armentières to Messines and Langemarck. The ground surface quickly turns to a consistency of cream cheese and on the coast movement is confined to roads, except during frosts. East of the line, the land declines in a series of spurs into the Flanders plain, bounded by canals linking Douai, Béthune, St Omer and Calais. [3], After the retreat of the French Fifth Army and the BEF, local operations took place from August–October. [24][25][d], North-east France and the south-west Belgium are known as Flanders. [7] Royal Marines landed at Dunkirk on the night of 19/20 September and on 28 September, a battalion occupied Lille. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). [57], Sheldon wrote that a German description of the fate of the new reserve corps as a Kindermord (massacre of the innocents), in a communiqué of 11 November 1914, was misleading. A coastal strip is about 10 mi (16 km) wide, near sea level and fringed by sand dunes. The First Battle of Ypres was marked by intensive shelling. Between two and three o'clock on Saturday, the 31st, was the most critical hour in the whole battle. While Falkenhayn waited to spring his trap, the new Allied advance was developing piecemeal, as corps detrained from the south and swung eastward to form the hook of the attempted flanking maneuver. The War had five phases: The War of Movement (August ‒ September 1914) The Germans invaded France, but were stopped at the Battle … [38], The Battle of Langemarck took place from 21–24 October, after an advance by the German 4th and 6th armies which began on 19 October, as the left flank of the BEF began advancing towards Menin and Roulers. [45], The French XVI Corps reached the area from St Eloi to Wytschaete on 1 November, to reinforce the cavalry Corps and the IX Corps attacked further north near Becelaere, which relieved the German pressure on both flanks of I Corps. GHQ left Fère-en-Tardenois and arrived at Saint-Omer on 13 October. The Lys, Yser and upper Scheldt are canalised and between them the water level underground is close to the surface, rises further in the autumn and fills any dip, the sides of which then collapse. The Belgians were exhausted and critically short on ammunition, but Albert held a trump card that he was loath to use. Joseph-Jacques-Césaire Joffre, detail of a portrait by H. Jacquier, 1915. Though the Belgians of the Yser had been under increasing pressure for two days already, both Sir John French and Ferdinand Foch, Joffre’s deputy in the north, were slow to appreciate what was happening to…, …casualties in the first two battles of Ypres. 19 October – 22 November 1914: the Battles of Ypres, 1914. [62] In 2010, Sheldon recorded 54,000 British casualties, c. 80,000 German casualties, that the French had many losses and that the Belgian army had been reduced to a shadow. The Second German Offensive against Warsaw opened with the Battle of Łódź (16 November – 15 December). Advances by Armeegruppe Fabeck to the south-west against I Corps and the dismounted Cavalry Corps further south, came to within 1.9 mi (3 km) of Ypres along the Menin road and brought the town into range of German artillery. [29], In October, Herbert Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War, forecast a long war and placed orders for the manufacture of a large number of field, medium and heavy guns and howitzers, sufficient to equip a 24-division army. French and Belgian forces were to push the Germans back against the sea, as French and British forces turned south-east and closed up to the Lys river from Menin to Ghent, to cross the river and attack the northern flank of the German armies. One German army, composed of troops transferred from Lorraine, was to hold the expected Allied offensive while another, composed of troops released by the fall of Antwerp as well as four newly raised corps, was to sweep down the Belgian coast and crush the left (northern) flank of the attacking Allies. This made it important because these transport routes could be used to move supplies for an army. The failure of the attack on Wytschaete resulted in the attack further south being cancelled but German artillery retaliation was much heavier than the British bombardment. When Joffre was informed of the situation, he dispatched the IX Corps to Ypres, a move that brought the opposing forces to near numerical parity. The British rallied opposite Zandvoorde with French reinforcements and "Bulfin's Force" a command improvised for the motley of troops. Later in the day this success was confirmed by another counterattack on a larger scale organized and directed by Maj. Gen. Edward Bulfin. In October, the Germans attempted to breakthrough at the town of Ypres in Flanders. Kortekeer Cabaret was recaptured by the 1st Division and the 2nd Division was relieved. Czernowitz in Bukovina was re-occupied by the Austro-Hungarian army on 22 August and then lost again to the Russian army on 28 October. On 3 October, a German wireless message was intercepted, which showed that the BEF was still believed to be on the Aisne. The unexpected strength of the German 4th Army opposite, compounded British failings, although the partly trained, poorly led and badly equipped German reserve corps suffered high casualties. French gave orders to attack from the Lys to Warneton and Hollebeke with II and III Corps, as IV and Indian corps conducted local operations, to fix the Germans to their front. [35], Falkenhayn sent the 4th Army headquarters to Flanders, to take over the III Reserve Corps and its heavy artillery, twenty batteries of heavy field howitzers, twelve batteries of 210 mm howitzers and six batteries of 100 mm guns, after the Siege of Antwerp (28 September – 10 October). However, by early October, 1914, the British Expeditionary Force(BEF) was able to recapture the town. Battles - The First Battle of Ypres, 1914 Strategically located along the roads leading to the Channel ports in Belgian Flanders, the Belgian city of Ypres had been the scene of … Devolving control of the guns made concentrated artillery-fire difficult to arrange, because of a lack of field telephones and the obscuring of signal flags by mists and fog. In the meantime Gen. Max von Fabeck, at the head of an ad hoc force dubbed Army Group Fabeck, made his principal effort on the British front southeast of Ypres. On 22 November 1914, the 1 st battle of Ypres, as it was known to the British, or the 2 nd battle of Flanders, as it was known to the Germans, sputtered to an end. The XXII, XXIII, XXVI and XXVII Reserve corps, of the six new reserve corps formed from volunteers after the outbreak of the war, were ordered from Germany to join the III Reserve Corps on 8 October. Keupri-Keni was recaptured by the Ottoman army on 14 November, the Sultan proclaimed Jihad, next day the Battle of Cracow (15 November – 2 December) began and the Second Russian Invasion of North Hungary (15 November – 12 December) commenced. Ypres, a medieval town in Belgium, was taken by the German Army at the beginning of the war. One battalion took 200 yd (180 m) of the German front trench and took 42 prisoners. The Belgian army had been reduced by half and the French had lost 385,000 men by September, 265,000 men having been killed by the end of the year. This small rise remained a bone of contention until December 1914, but elsewhere the attack made no significant progress. The town of Ypres was the focus of several battles during the war. The defensive firepower of artillery and machine guns dominated the battlefield and the ability of the armies to supply themselves and replace casualties prolonged battles for weeks. The autumn battles in Flanders had become static, attrition operations, unlike the battles of manoeuvre in the summer. The major centre in this part of Flanders was Ypres. The allied troops managed to advance towards Lille and the Lys river but were stopped by German attacks in the opposite direction on 20 October. In early April 1915 the Allied forces on the Ypres front comprised (from south to north) elements of the two corps of the British Second Army—which included the 1st Canadian Division—commanded by Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, the French 45th (Algerian) and 87th Territorial divisions under Gen. Henri Putz, and the Belgian 6th Division under Maj. Gen. Armand de Ceuninck. It becomes a desperate epic fight east of the city of Ypres which finally results in stalemate and entrenched warfare. I Corps (Lieutenant-General Douglas Haig) was due to arrive with orders to attack on 21 October. II Corps arrived around Abbeville from 8–9 October and concentrated to the north-east around Gennes-Ivergny, Gueschart, Le Boisle and Raye, preparatory to an advance on Béthune. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Despite the inconvenience of British troops crossing French lines of communication, when French forces were moving north after the Battle of the Aisne, Joffre agreed subject to a proviso, that French would make individual British units available for operations as soon as they arrived. Sheldon also wrote that German troops knew the firing characteristics of machine-guns and kept still until French Hotchkiss M1909 and Hotchkiss M1914 machine-guns, which had ammunition in 24- and 30-round strips, were reloading. [37] On 24 October, the Germans attacked fifteen times and managed to cross the Yser on a 5 km (3.1 mi) front. [33], The French, Belgian and British forces in Flanders had no organisation for unified command but General Foch had been appointed commandant le groupe des Armées du Nord on 4 October by Joffre. Only 30 percent of German casualties at Ypres were young and inexperienced student reservists, others being active soldiers, older members of the Landwehr and army reservists. The Eighth Army was ordered to attack in Flanders and French was asked to participate with the BEF on 14 December. Lack of observation was remedied in part by decentralising artillery to infantry brigades and by locating the guns in the front line but this made them more vulnerable and several batteries were overrun in the fighting between Arras and Ypres. The second, by the 2nd Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry, drove the Germans out of the Nonne Bosschen. On October 19, a protracted period of fierce combat began, as the Germans opened their Flanders offensive and the Allies steadfastly resisted, while seeking their own chances to go on the attack wherever possible. On the right the 5th Division was only to pretend to attack and III Corps was to make demonstrations, as the corps was holding a 10 mi (16 km) front and could do no more. The new German 4th Army was ordered to capture Dunkirk and Calais, by attacking from the coast to the junction with the 6th Army. [36] German attacks began on 18 October, coincident with the battles around Ypres and gained a foothold over the Yser at Tervaete. 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