Charles Le Goffic

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Our guns do not succeed in silencing the enemy's batteries; our infantry attacks are ineffectual: they only [89] 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 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. ”

“ The [138] remaining two, crossing higher up, were to make straight for the Château, 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 élan of our troops, at least of curiously blunting it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 manœuvre 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. ”

“ 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.
THE BÉGUINAGE AT DIXMUDE
(From a picture by M. Léon 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 [50] up. Try to hold out for at least four days." ”

“ 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 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 Château 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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, [vii] 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. ”

“ 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 [101] 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”