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Updated: June 18, 2025
But this resulted only in extending the lines of parallel trenches which now stretched to the Belgian frontier from Noyon. They were halted in the desperate battles along the Yser and the Lys.
Close at hand, all round Nieuport, there were numerous small lakes and watercourses connected with the channel of the Yser, which, flowing past the town, widened out until it joined the sea, and became a harbour, which on that morning was full of shipping.
All the fighting youth of our race took their turn in those places, searched along those roads, lived in ditches and dugouts there, under constant fire. In wet holes along the Yser Canal by Ypres, young officers who had known the decencies of home life tried to camouflage their beastliness by giving a touch of decoration to the clammy walls.
The Belgians were forced partly to evacuate their advanced positions over the river Yser, near Hernisse, south of Dixmude. In the Argonne the Germans, by a strong infantry charge, penetrated the first line of the French trenches, but were unable to hold their ground.
All the folk at home who grumbled at the slow progress ought to have been sent for a single day and night into that mud-swamp! "In those fields and canals, in this endless morass made impassable by flooding many, many brave German soldiers have sacrificed their lives. During the autumn and winter months of 1914 the whole Yser domain was transformed into a vast graveyard.
For a few hours the Germans succeeded in crossing the Yser, threatening a general advance upon the Belgian line. Before Nieuport their trenches were only fifty metres away from those of the Belgians, and on the night of October 22 they charged eight times with the bayonet in order to force their way through.
Some of these discontented proletarians have taken the same view as Vandervelde their leader, and are now energetically engaged in protecting themselves along the line of the Yser; I am glad to say not altogether without success.
It was only luck that the artillery from beyond the Yser did not begin tuning up. The Germans had shelled that road diligently for many days and some evenings. Back to the crossroads Mrs. Knocker brought her cargo, and on to Oudecappelle, and so to the hospital at Furnes, a full ten miles. Safely home in the convent yard, the journey done, the wounded men lifted into the ward, she broke down.
The Belgians continued in their endeavor to flood the German position along the Yser, on January 25, 1915, and succeeded in obliging their opponents to vacate for a time at least, and on the last day of January allied forces consisting of Zouaves, Gurkhas and other Indian companies made an attack upon the German trenches upon the dunes at Lombaertzyde, gaining a temporary advantage at an expense of considerable loss in casualties.
As the Belgian troops, assisted by a British naval brigade, were pushed back from the Yser, they were gradually merged into the army of the allies, by whom they were received with the honors due the men who had made, for twelve long weeks, such a gallant and determined defense of their country against invasion and despoilment.
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