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Seeing their success in partially flooding the battle field, the Belgians made more breaches in the dams, and, opening the sluices in the canal, threw a flood of water greater still over the area occupied by the Germans. In seething brown waves the water rose up to the high ground at the railway near Ramscapelle. The Germans were caught in this tide and scores of them were drowned.
On our way back to Ramscapelle we had the bad luck to slip off the "bloomin' pavee" while passing an ammunition wagon; a thing I had been dreading all along. I got out on the foot board and stepped, in the panic of the moment, into the mud. I thought I was never going to "touch bottom." I did finally, and the mud was well above my knees.
Of course no lights of any sort were allowed, and the lines of soldiers passing along silently to their posts in the trenches seemed unending; we were glad when we drew up once again at the Headquarters in Ramscapelle.
The kaiser called for volunteers to carry Ramscapelle two Württemberg brigades responded and gained the place, but at terrible loss. On the 30th of October, 1914, again the Württembergers advanced to the attack. They waded through sloppy fields from the bridgeheads at St. George and Schoorbakke, and by means of table taps, boards, planks and other devices crossed the deeper dykes.
Stray shells burst at intervals, and it seemed not unlikely they were potting at us from Dixmude. We passed houses looking more and more dilapidated and the road got muddier and muddier. Finally we arrived at the village of Ramscapelle. It was like passing through a village of the dead not a house left whole, few walls standing, and furniture lying about haphazard.
At last the relief came up. Holding each other's hands, we carefully made our way in Indian file along the trench, on to the road, and into Ramscapelle. What a terrible sight it was! The skeletons of houses stood grim and gaunt, and the sound of the wind rushing through the ruins was like the moaning of the spirits of the dead inhabitants crying aloud for vengeance.
But nothing was ever too great a strain for the resources of our housekeeper. She discovered that there was a coal-heap at Ramscapelle, five miles away, and in a few hours an order had been obtained from the Juge d'Instruction empowering us to take the coal if we could get it, and the loan of a Government lorry had been coaxed out of the War Lords.
It lay somewhere between the roads to Nieuport on the coast, and inland, to Pervyse, Dixmude, St. Georges, or Ramscapelle where the Belgian and German lines formed a crescent down to Ypres. The centre of that half-circle girdled by the guns was an astounding and terrible panorama, traced in its outline by the black fumes of shell-fire above the stabbing flashes of the batteries.
George and forcing their way two miles to Ramscapelle; retaken on the 30th by General Grossetti. This was accomplished by General von Beseler's troops, opposing the mixed troops of the Belgian and French. On that night fourteen separate attacks were made by the Germans on Dixmude and they were repulsed each time.
On the 30th they seized Ramscapelle, but were expelled by the French on the 31st, and on 7 November a determined attack was made on Dixmude, now defended by Admiral Ronarc'h and his French marines. It succeeded after three days' fighting and a heavy bombardment on the 10th. The capture of Dixmude coincided with the last attack on Ypres.
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