The Childrens' Story of the War, Volume 3 (of 10) / From the First Battle of Ypres to the End of the Year 1914

A Battle amidst the Coal Trucks of Lens.

(From the picture by Paul Thiriat. By permission of The Sphere.)

Nor was this the only attack on Lille that day. Some 3,000 Germans tried to force their way in from the direction of Tourcoing, while others tried to cross from the Belgian to the French side of the Lys below Armentières, but both attacks were repelled. On the 6th there was fighting to the west of Lille and on the 10th a company of Uhlans dashed into the streets. They arrested the mayor and several other citizens as hostages; but in the nick of time a party of French Chasseurs arrived, set free the prisoners, and chased the Uhlans out of the city. Almost immediately the Germans began to bombard the place, and shells fell upon it at intervals until the 12th, when an infantry attack began. The Territorials did their best to resist, but they were altogether outnumbered, and were forced to withdraw. On the 13th Lille surrendered, and the Germans, with bands playing, marched in and took possession. Thus the most valuable city of North France fell into their hands.

You already know that it was of the utmost importance that Lille should be retained by the Allies. Why, then, did not General Maud'huy send a stronger force to hold it? The fact is, that he was so hard pressed at Arras that he could not spare an additional man for the defence of Lille. He had all his work cut out to save Arras and prevent the Germans from swarming through the gap towards the Channel. But even the feeble resistance of the Territorials at Lille was of advantage to the Allies. The city was held for nine days, during which large German forces were detained. By keeping these forces busy round the city the Territorials helped to conceal the Allied movements which were going on farther to the west, and also enabled the French and British troops to reach the line of the Yser just, and only just, in time to stop the Germans from bursting through.

Now we must hurry north to Antwerp and see what happened after the tragic fall of that great fortress. In the last chapter of Volume II., page 313, I told you that a British Naval Brigade, numbering about 8,000 men in all, was sent to the assistance of the beleaguered city. It arrived too late to save the fortress, but its energies were not wasted. The defence of the city was prolonged for a few priceless days while the troops from the Aisne were being hurried up to the new theatre of war.

The Belgian troops began to retreat from Antwerp on the evening of 6th October. Covered by cavalry, armoured motor cars, and cyclist corps, they moved out towards Ghent and Ostend, while a strong show of resistance was kept up by other Belgian troops and the British contingent in the trenches to the south of the city. Next day came the terrible flight of the civil population, and late that night, amidst scenes of indescribable confusion, the remainder of the Belgian troops and most of the British left the forts and trenches, cut the pontoon bridge over the Scheldt behind them, and hurried westwards, beating off attacks on their rear. Unfortunately, as you will remember, three battalions of the British Naval Brigade did not receive orders to retire until the road westwards was blocked by the enemy. Some 2,500 of them either passed into Holland, where they had to remain, or were captured by the Germans. It is said that 18,000 Belgians suffered the same fate.

The following extract from the diary of a petty officer who served with the Naval Brigade gives you some idea of the experiences of the British contingent:—

When Mr. Winston Churchill explained why the Naval Brigade had been sent to Antwerp, he said that it was "part of a large operation for the relief of the city which more powerful considerations prevented from being carried out." On the day after the Naval Brigade reached Antwerp (6th October), a part of the Fourth British Army Corps, under General Sir Henry Rawlinson, landed at Ostend and Zeebrugge,[29] and at once marched eastwards. The original object of this force, always supposing that Antwerp held out, was to join hands with the troops defending the city, and then advance across the Scheldt so as to cut the German lines of communication. On the evening of his arrival in Belgium Sir Henry Rawlinson visited Antwerp, and saw with his own eyes that the fortress could not be saved. His business now was to cover the retreat of the forces which had vainly tried to hold the city.

CHAPTER VI.

When Rawlinson's troops reached Ghent, on 7th October 1914, they fell in with the first body of retreating Belgians, and also with a brigade of French Marine Fusiliers, 6,000 strong, which had been hastily organized and rushed northwards that very morning. Most of them were Breton[30] reservists and recruits who had never fought on land before. Their chief was Admiral Ronarc'h,[31] a big, broad-shouldered, cool seaman, with eyes of Celtic blue. The Germans called these Bretons lads and graybeards "the girls with the red pompoms."[32] They were soon to discover that the Bretons were not playing at war, but that they were fighters of iron resolution and fiery courage.

When the troops under Rawlinson were disembarking at Ostend and Zeebrugge, fourteen transports, containing the 7th British Division, which had been assembled on the borders of the New Forest, were on the way to join him in Belgium. Just when the transports were off Ostend they received a wireless message ordering them to recross the Channel to Dover. A grain ship had just been blown up off Ostend, and it was feared that the transports would be sent to the bottom too. They were therefore ordered back to Dover to wait until the mines were swept up along the Belgian coast. On the day when the retirement from Antwerp was in full swing, the 7th Division disembarked at Zeebrugge, and marched to the outskirts of Bruges. The agony of Antwerp was then over, and all that could be done was to help to cover the retreat of the forces now marching away from the city.

Bavarian Troops leaving Antwerp for the Dash on Calais.

The Germans, as you know, strove hard to cut off the retreating defenders, and in the villages to the east and south of Ghent the British forces and the French Marine Brigade made a stand against an army which numbered about 45,000. When they had checked the enemy, they decided to retire westwards towards Bruges. That night, under a wintry moon, a long march of twenty-six miles was accomplished, the 7th Division and the French Marines acting as the rearguard.

After a brief rest the retreating forces turned south-south-east, the cavalry scouring the country in advance, and on the following evening reached Thielt,[33] where it was discovered that the pursuit had so greatly slackened that the weary men were enabled to get the first good sleep which they had enjoyed for several days. It is said that they owed this piece of good fortune to the mayor of one of the neighbouring towns, who deliberately sent the Germans off on a false scent. When the Germans discovered that they had been misdirected, the mayor was promptly shot.

On 13th October the Allies reached Thourout,[34] where they divided into two parts. Admiral Ronarc'h and his Marines, along with the Belgian forces which had been holding Ghent, moved west to the Yser, where they joined the remnants of the Belgian army which had retreated through Bruges. Here the undaunted King Albert, accompanied by his devoted wife, Queen Elizabeth, rejoined the exhausted army, and helped to reorganize it for the terrible struggles which lay before it. Meanwhile Sir Henry Rawlinson's forces pressed on southwards, and arrived at Roulers,[35] en route for Ypres, on 13th October, the day on which Lille fell into the hands of the Germans. By that time part of the German army which had been besieging Antwerp, and had been released for other operations when it fell, had swept through Bruges, and had occupied Ostend. German soldiers were seen strolling on the sands which in the early days of July had been crowded with laughing bathers and merry holiday-makers. Many of the German soldiers had never seen the sea before, and they gazed upon it with open-mouthed interest, straining their eyes in the vain attempt to see the shores of that island kingdom which was so steadfastly blocking their path to victory.

Mr. C. Underwood, an interpreter who was attached to the 7th Division, which played such an important part in the fighting retreat from Ghent, tells us[36] that it was the delay caused by sending back the transports of his division to Dover that prevented Sir Henry Rawlinson from marching to the relief of Antwerp.

On Sunday, the 18th, Mr. Underwood's brigade had its baptism of fire at a village a little to the north-east of Gheluvelt, where a British battery silenced the guns of the enemy. All night they waited for an attack, but the Germans left them alone until the morning. Then the fighting was continued, and thus began that series of desperate conflicts—"ten Waterloos a week"—known as the Battle of Ypres. I shall give you a full account of this gigantic struggle in a later chapter.

The enemy against whom the 7th Division was now fighting consisted of four reserve corps which had left Germany on 11th October. Three of the corps had assembled in Brussels, and without losing an hour had been sent on an eighty-mile march westwards. They largely consisted of Landwehr[38] and new volunteers, and ranged from boys of sixteen to stout gentlemen in middle life. Though quite new to the work of war, they soon showed themselves as desperate in attack as the most seasoned veterans. Mr. Underwood says: "On questioning one of the prisoners, he informed me that they were all Landwehr men, fathers of families, about the age of thirty-nine and forty, who had been called up quite recently. There was no doubt that the Germans were well equipped; all their clothes were in excellent order and brand new. They seemed relieved, and evidently overjoyed, when I told them that they would probably be sent to England. They were afraid that the report which had been made to them that we shot all prisoners was true."

CHAPTER VII.

Seventeen miles north of Arras we find the second passage by which the Channel ports may be reached by an army advancing westwards. You have already heard more than once of the town of La Bassée, which stands on the canal uniting Béthune with Lille. A great thrust through La Bassée would serve almost as well as a thrust through the Arras gap, for Béthune, which lies seven miles to the west, is the junction of two diverging railways, both of which lead to Boulogne. The more northerly of these lines has a branch which runs through the important railway centre of Hazebrouck[39] to Ypres. At Hazebrouck the St. Omer[40]-Ypres line meets the railway which comes westwards from Lille through Armentières to the coast. A little west of Hazebrouck this line subdivides: one route goes through St. Omer to Boulogne; the other runs north to Dunkirk, from which Calais and Boulogne may be reached by a line along the coast.

Examine this little railway map carefully, and you will see that if the Germans could make a thrust through the Allied lines at La Bassée they would soon be in possession of the two railway junctions of Béthune and Hazebrouck, which would give them no fewer than four lines of railway for their advance on the sea-coast. Had the Germans broken through at this point, the Allied forces to the north would have been overwhelmed. We shall soon learn that the sally-port at La Bassée was the scene of long and desperate struggles.

The third passage by which the enemy might capture the coast of North France and outflank the Allies at the same time is by way of the Yser Canal and the Ypres Canal. You have already learnt how Rawlinson's army tried to block the road to Ypres and how the Belgians withdrew to the line of the Yser in order to contest its passage. Rawlinson's force was far too small to resist the numbers which were hurled against it on and after the 18th of October, and the much-battered Belgians were far too exhausted to offer more than a feeble resistance to the forces of the enemy following hard on their heels. They were strengthened by some French Territorials, but even with this support they had to fall back behind the line of the Yser on the 16th.

Weary Belgian Soldiers resting on the Banks of the Yser River after their Retreat from Antwerp.    Photo, Daily Mirror.

Now, while the gates at Arras and the Yser were thus being guarded by Allied forces too weak to do more than barely hold their own, what had happened at the middle gate of La Bassée? On 11th October, two days after the Germans made their triumphal march into Antwerp, General Smith-Dorrien and the Second Corps detrained, marched to the line of the La Bassée Canal, and took up a position along its southern bank. On their right were the French cavalry, linking them with Maud'huy's army; on the left were the brisk squadrons of Gough's cavalry, who were clearing the Germans from the wooded country to the north of the Lys. The Germans were holding the high ground south of La Bassée, where the French trenches had baffled Marlborough more than two hundred years before, and were in strong force on the road to Lille. That great industrial city had not yet fallen, so Sir John French decided to make a great effort to save it.

On the morning of the 12th, in a thick fog, the Second Corps wheeled on its right, and took up a new position facing east, its left resting on the Lys and its right on the canal north of Béthune. It then advanced eastward, finding its way much impeded by the difficult character of the ground. Our soldiers from the coal-mining districts of Great Britain found themselves in familiar country—amidst the large, straggling, connected villages, the pit-heads, refuse mounds, and factories of their own homeland. They had to advance across a flat country with a patchwork of fields and hop-gardens, hemmed in by high bedraggled hedges, and cut across by interminable ditches, with frequent canals by way of variety. The roads, which were lined by scraggy poplars, were narrow, and deep in mud owing to the heavy traffic. Through this flat, depressing country in which good gun positions were few and far between, the British marched to meet the Germans. By nightfall, however, they had made some progress amidst the slippery maze of the muddy dykes, and had driven back several counter-attacks, both by steady fire and by bayonet charges.

Next day the Second Corps began to wheel. It pivoted on the village of Givenchy,[41] which stands on the north bank of the canal, less than two miles due west of La Bassée, and endeavoured to get astride of the La Bassée-Lille road, so as to threaten the right flank and rear of the enemy's position on the high ground south of La Bassée. The enemy was found to be strongly entrenched, and supported by artillery in good positions. Before long the fighting was of the most desperate character. The British advanced across the marshy fields under a fierce and devastating fire with the utmost courage, fighting pitched battles in the villages, where every house had been loopholed and turned into a miniature fortress.

The Fighting about La Bassée.

Sketch map showing front held by the Second Corps on October 19, on night of October 22, and about mid-November 1914.

The 5th Division, on the right, bore the brunt of the deadly fray. At Pont Fixe, on the La Bassée canal near Givenchy, the Dorsets, led by their brave commander, Major Roper, fought hand-to-hand combats in the lanes between the houses, and drove the enemy headlong before them. The Germans then turned their guns on to the place, and tore it to fragments. High explosives and shrapnel were hurled on the village, until it seemed that no living thing could survive the deadly hail. When, however, the infantry attack was launched, the Dorsets were still there, but were sadly reduced in numbers. Though their leader was killed, they held on to the smoking ruins all day, and when nightfall came they were still in possession. One hundred and thirty killed and two hundred and seventy wounded was the price paid for this village on that blood-drenched day. The Bedfords, of the same brigade, fought their way to Givenchy, but were driven out again by heavy shell fire.

That night news arrived that Lille had fallen and was in possession of the 14th German Corps. Though Lille was lost La Bassée might be won, and the Second Corps now devoted its energies to the task. Next day the 3rd Division suffered a heavy loss. Sir Hubert Hamilton, its commander, was struck by a shrapnel bullet while riding along his lines, and fell from his horse a dead man. He was one of the most skilful and beloved of the younger generals, and his loss was greatly deplored. An eye-witness thus describes his burial in the village graveyard:—

Next day the 3rd Division brilliantly avenged the loss of its leader. Sir John French tells us that they "fought splendidly," crossing with planks the dykes with which this country is intersected, and driving the enemy from one entrenched position to another in loopholed villages, till at night they pushed the Germans off the road leading from Estaires,[42] on the Lys, to La Bassée. On the 16th the division advanced its left flank in front of the village of Aubers,[43] which lies behind a ridge of high ground and a stream which joins the Lys at Armentières. Aubers was captured by the 19th Brigade on the following day, and late that evening the village of Herlies,[44] about a mile and a half to the south-east, was carried at the point of the bayonet by the 1st Lincolns and the 4th Royal Fusiliers.

The Second Corps was now within four miles of La Bassée. So far it had been opposed by German cavalry; now it found itself up against the main wall of German defence. "This position of La Bassée," records Sir John French, "has throughout the battle defied all attempts at capture." Powerful counter-attacks began the next day, and continued right up to the end of the month. Against the masses of Germans now concentrated against them the Second Corps could do nothing but stand on the defence. Most resolutely they held their lines until the end of the month, and again and again repulsed very heavy attacks, in which the Germans lost heavily and left large numbers of dead and prisoners behind them.

All this heavy work was now telling on the Second Corps, and their losses had been so heavy that Smith-Dorrien on the evening of the 22nd was obliged to withdraw his forces to lines of entrenchments which had been prepared on a line running from the eastern side of Givenchy to a village on the Béthune-Armentières road, some seven miles south-west of the latter town. There they settled down into their new trenches; but their lines were very thin, and had not every soldier in them done the work of ten men, they could never have held the position against the swarming masses of the enemy. One day, it is said, General French visited these lines, and talked with a colonel who was hard pressed. "We can't hold out much longer, sir," said the colonel; "it is impossible." "I want only men who can do the impossible," said French. "Carry on."

Before I conclude this account of the very gallant but unavailing attack of the Second Corps on La Bassée, I must tell you one or two incidents which occurred during the fighting in October. On the 19th Major Daniell and his Royal Irish Regiment found the enemy in the village of Le Pilly,[45] about a mile to the north of Herlies. Every house in the place had been loopholed, and line after line of trenches had been dug, so that the position was as strong as a fortress. With loud yells the Royal Irish dashed upon the place, and, in spite of the shrapnel that was rained on them, carried it by storm. They then entrenched themselves, and prepared to defend the village. But next day the gallant battalion was cut off by German supports from Lille, and was surrounded, after suffering heavy losses.

Very early on the morning of the 24th there was a fierce German attack upon our new lines, but owing to the skilful work of the artillery it came to naught. Towards evening there was another heavy attack, which the Wiltshires and Royal West Kents repulsed. Later on the Germans drove the Gordon Highlanders out of their trenches, but they were retaken by the Middlesex Regiment, gallantly led by Lieutenant Colonel Hull.

While our men were "hanging on by their eyelids, some one, I am told, looked back from a trench and saw a solitary outpost, a turbaned, cloaked figure of the desert, very startling in the green, peaceful landscape, riding over a hill. Behind him nodded the turbans of Sikh cavalry, and the British in the trenches, who seemed past emotion, waved their rifles and cheered." It was the advance guard of the Lahore Division of the Indian army coming in the nick of time to reinforce the hard-pressed men who had fought almost continuously for nearly a fortnight. The Indians had been resting and preparing for a winter campaign near Marseilles, and had long been eager to play their part side by side with their fellow Britons. A few days before, Sir James Willcocks, their commander, had addressed them as follows:—

This timely reinforcement was at once sent off to the support of the Second Corps.

We now know how a small army of much-tried Britons barred the way through the La Bassée postern and stretched a thin line of valour and steel northwards towards the Lys. I have still to tell you how the twelve-mile gap between Armentières and Ypres was closed. While the Second Corps was forming up near Béthune, the trains carrying the Third Corps were running into St. Omer. As each unit arrived it set out for Hazebrouck, and on the 13th the whole force moved eastwards towards the line of the Armentières-Ypres road, with the object of reaching Armentières, from which it could threaten Lille. Gough's cavalry lay to the north, and French cavalry to the south.

The French cavalry had already done much hard fighting. On 9th October it was discovered that German horsemen were holding the south bank of the Lys to the west of Estaires. They had covered the river crossings with machine guns, and had set up searchlights, which at night swept their broad beams along the northern bank. The French commander assembled his men at a point on the river where the current was very swift and the water deep. The Germans believed that the river could not be forded at this spot, and had not troubled to hold it strongly. At dusk a French trooper who was a good swimmer stripped, and, carrying with him one end of a light rope, plunged into the water and swam across the river. When he arrived on the south bank his comrades on the other side fastened a heavy rope to the end of the line which he was holding, and the dripping soldier hauled it across and tied it securely to the trunk of a tree. The other end of the rope was made fast in a similar way, and during the night, assisted by the rope, men and horses crossed the stream. At daybreak, when the Germans found that the French were on their bank of the river they retired rapidly towards Armentières.

In this force of French cavalry there was a champion rider, named Lieutenant Wallon. One day, during the cavalry fighting along the Lys two squadrons of the dragoons to which he was attached advanced across the fields in a thick mist to seize a river bridge at a village where there was an important crossing. The village was held by the enemy, and the French squadrons entrenched themselves in front of a small farmhouse, and beat off an attack, during which thirty Germans were shot. After an interval, eleven men in peasants' dress, with picks and spades over their shoulders, were seen advancing towards the French lines. Supposing that they were peaceful civilians, the French refrained from firing. When, however, these "peasants" were within forty yards or so of the trenches, they suddenly dropped their implements, and, drawing concealed revolvers, opened fire. A sergeant who stood by Lieutenant Wallon laughed as a bullet whistled by, and remarked that another Boche had missed him. The lieutenant, however, had fallen. The sergeant wished to carry him to a safe place in the rear; but the dying man said, "Leave me. A wounded man is worthless. Get back to the trench; you are wanted there." The trusty non-com. could not be persuaded to abandon his leader, and dragged him to the rear, where he shortly afterwards expired. The eleven disguised Germans were captured and shot; the bridge was taken, and the village occupied.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Third British Corps, commanded by General Pulteney, first came in contact with the German outposts at a village about a mile and a half west of Bailleul.[46] It was a day of heavy rain; the thick, steamy fog prevented the aircraft from scouting, and the water-logged fields were too much enclosed for cavalry to operate. The 10th Brigade, under General J. A. L. Haldane, were the first to attack, and they made a bayonet charge in which the 2nd Seaforths distinguished themselves. By nightfall the position was carried; the Germans were driven out, and the troops were entrenched, ready to attack Bailleul next day (14th October 1914). In the morning it was discovered that the enemy had retired. Bailleul was occupied, and the signs of German pillage were to be seen everywhere. Fourteen villagers had been shot, and the inmates of the lunatic asylum had been turned out of doors. These poor creatures wandered about the countryside for days, and many of them were afterwards found dead by the roadside or in the woods. No wonder a native bitterly said, "The Germans are not soldiers so much as brigands and assassins.'"

Some very fine deeds of gallantry were done during the first day's fighting. Sergeant E. Howard, of the 1st Royal Lancaster Regiment, discovered that twelve men of his platoon who were occupying a trench had ceased firing. Amidst a very heavy fire, he crawled up to them, and found that they were all dead! Sergeant G. A. Hodges, of the 2nd Essex Regiment, led his platoon into the firing line though shot through the shoulder; while Private C. Rowley, of the 1st Royal Warwickshire Regiment, crossed and recrossed from the firing line to the support trench, a distance of 300 yards, under a perfect hail of bullets, with ammunition for his hard-pressed comrades.

On the 15th the Third Corps was ordered to carry the line of the Lys from just below Estaires to Armentières. The enemy offered no serious opposition, and by evening the work was done. Next day Armentières was entered, and on the 17th the Third Corps held a line extending from three miles north to three miles south of the town. It was now discovered that the Germans were holding in strength the right bank of the Lys from a short distance below Armentières to within a couple of miles of Menin.

British Cavalry entering Warneton.

The enemy was posted behind a high loopholed barricade, which was blown to pieces by British guns; whereupon our cavalry entered the town, but could not maintain themselves within it.

Next day an effort was made to clear the Germans out of this position. Midway between Armentières and Menin is the little town of Warneton,[47] which was seized by Allenby's corps. "Eye-witness" thus describes an incident which occurred at the capture of the place:—

By this time the Third Corps found itself approaching the main German position, which was far too strong for it to attack with any prospect of success. Just about the time that the Second Corps was retiring to the line stretching from the eastern side of Givenchy northwards the Third Corps came to a standstill. It then lay across the Lys with a front of a dozen miles—an impossible length of line for one corps to hold. Both the Second and the Third Corps had reached the limit of their eastern advance.

Though they could not push forward any farther, they had closed the sally-ports at La Bassée and Armentières. One more link was necessary to connect the Third Corps with Rawlinson's force holding the eastern gate to Ypres. This was provided by the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions, under General Allenby. The 1st Division (Gough's), as we have seen, had cleared much of the country along the Lys, and had secured a footing on the right bank below Armentières. On the 14th it moved north to join the 2nd Division, which had pushed back invading bands in the neighbourhood of Cassel and Hazebrouck.

Thus the line was established. Half formed, weak, and insecure, it nevertheless extended from the La Bassée Canal to the sea, and though it was opposed by overwhelming odds, it barred the western road to the Germans. The weakest place in it was the bulge in front of Ypres, where Rawlinson's harassed and overstretched division was fighting for its life. Every day the enemy flung new forces against it. More and more Germans were rushed along the Belgian railroads to overwhelm it. "They seemed to rain down on us everywhere," said a spectator; "but most of all they rained on that weak point to our left."

In Chapter VI. I gave you an outline of the doings of Rawlinson's men in Belgium. You there learned how they retreated from Ghent to Roulers, and how the cavalry division reconnoitred all the country towards Ypres and Menin, while the 7th Division battled with four reserve corps of Germans, who on the 18th of October were on the line Roulers-Menin. Rawlinson had a very difficult task to perform. He had to operate on a very wide front, and to encounter very superior forces; yet Sir John French could not spare a man to reinforce him. Sir John was very eager to get possession of Menin, for he thought it a very important point of passage which would greatly help the advance of the rest of the army. He therefore ordered Rawlinson on the 18th to advance his 7th Division, and try to seize the crossing of the Lys at Menin, so as to cut the German communications between Ghent and Lille.

Rawlinson replied that large bodies of the enemy were advancing upon him from the east and north-east, and that his left flank was in danger. With his weak troops he dared not attempt such a task. Sir John tells us that Rawlinson was probably wise in not trying to capture Menin, but that the loss of it greatly helped the enemy to bring up reinforcements, and put an end to any further British advance.

You have probably been wondering where the First Corps was at this time. You last heard of it on the Aisne; so far it had not been seen in Flanders. It did not arrive at Hazebrouck until October 19. While it was detraining, Sir John had some very hard thinking to do. Should he use the First Corps to reinforce the Second and Third Corps, and thus secure the ground already won on the right, or should he send it to help Rawlinson? Between the British left and the Franco-Belgian right there was "a place where the weak spot in the bladder might bulge, and, bulging too much, break." Sir John French, "with the air," some one has said, "of a business man closing a deal," made his decision, and turned in for a little sleep. He chose to let the Second and the Third Corps continue to do the impossible. He sent the First Corps to the line about the city which has given name to this whole series of actions—Ypres. It incorporated what was left of Rawlinson's force, then prepared to dig in and hold on.