The First Battle of Ypres, 1914

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

numerous battles since the sixteenth century. With the German failure

at the Battle of the Marne in September 1914 and the subsequent Allied

counter attacks, the "Race to the Sea" began.

This so called race ended at the North Sea coast after each army

attempted to outflank the other by moving north and west. This area

of Flanders, described by one historian as having the dreariest

landscape in Western Europe, contained the last gap through which

either side could launch a decisive thrust.

By October 1914, the Allies had reached Nieuport on the North Sea

coast. The Germans, as a prelude to General Erich von Falkenhayn's

Flanders Offensive, captured Antwerp and forced its Belgian defenders

back to Nieuport, near Ypres.

Under the command of Field Marshall Sir John French, the British

Expeditionary Force (BEF) retreated to Ypres after Antwerp fell. They

arrived there between 8 and 19 October to bolster the Belgian and

French defence. The Allied position around Ypres took the shape of a

small salient in the trench lines because it could best be defended

from the low ridge of higher ground to the east, but it was vulnerable

to superior German artillery. The BEF held a thirty-five mile long

line in the centre of the bulge while the French Army in the area,

commanded by General Ferdinand Foch, manned the flanks to the south of

the city.

At the outset of the battle, French and Foch both retained the hope of

launching an offensive of their own. They belie...

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... argued that the disastrous turn in the climate could not

have been predicted: that the rainfall was by far the heaviest for

many years. Indeed, fighting had taken place around Ypres since 1914

without the kind of problems experienced during Third Ypres.

Haig himself argued that when regarded as a battle of attrition, the

German forces could less afford the loss of men than the Allies, who

by this time were being supplemented by the entry into the war of the

U.S. This view is shared by a number of German contemporaries.

Needless to say, the controversy continues today; however most

historians continue to question Haig’s decision not to call off the

offensive earlier than November, when at least a number of the core

objectives had been attained, and it became clear that the French

forces would remain in the field.