“The failure of one great attack, heralded as it was by an impassioned appeal to the troops made in the presence of the emperor himself, but carried out by partially trained men, has been only the signal for another desperate effort in which the place of honor was assigned to the corps d’elite of the German army.

“It must be admitted that the Guard Corps has retained that reputation for courage and contempt of death which it earned in 1870, when Emperor William I, after the battle of Gravelotte, wrote:  ’My Guard has formed its grave in front of St. Privat,’ and the swarms of men who came up bravely to the British rifles in the woods around Ypres repeated the tactics of forty-four years ago, when their dense columns, toiling up the slopes of St. Privat, melted away under the fire of the French.”

Ypres was now but a name.  Nothing but a mass of ruins reminded the world of its previous quaint splendor.  For Ypres had been rich in historic buildings and monuments of past days.

With the fall of Antwerp the Germans had made every effort to push forward strong forces toward the west and had hastened to bring up new army corps which had been hurriedly organized, their object being to drive the Allies out of Belgium and break through to Dunkirk and Calais.  Altogether they collected 250,000 fresh men.  Eventually the Germans had north of La Bassee about fourteen corps and eight cavalry divisions, a force of 750,000 men, with which to attempt to drive the Allies into the sea.  In addition there was immensely powerful armament and heavy siege artillery, which also had been brought up from around Antwerp.  But in spite of these strong forces it became clearly evident by the middle of November that the attempt to break through to Calais had failed for the time being.  The flooding of the Yser marks the end of the main struggle for Calais.  The battle fronts had shifted.  Between them there was a mile or two of mud and water.  The Belgians had lost a quarter of their effectives.  The Germans had evacuated the west bank of the Yser and were obliged to return to the point from which they had started.

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXVIII

ATTACKS ON LA BASSEE AND ARRAS

While the engagement on the Yser was in progress in October, 1914, fierce fighting was kept up in the second section of the battle front, pivoting on Givenchy to the south and running east to the north of the La Bassee-Lille road.  In this section the forces of the Crown Prince of Bavaria opposed the troops under the command of General Smith-Dorrien.

From October 1 to 3, 1914, considerable fighting went on in the flats east of Arras between Lens and the River Scarpe.  This resulted in the retirement of the Allies on the 4th.  The Germans began to bombard Arras, keeping it up until the 6th, when their attempt to take the city next day was successfully repulsed.  On October 8, the Germans, then holding Douai and Lens, were shelling Lille, then held by the British territorials.  For the next two weeks artillery duels alternated with trench fighting and skirmishing.