Battle of the Yser ends

On 10 November 1914, after the Germans captured Diksmuide, the Battle of the Yser ended according to the French tradition. The British chronicle of the war records its end under this day, noting that this is the French date. Many studies close the battle earlier, on 31 October, when after the flooding of the plain the Germans withdrew to the east bank of the river. Either way, after almost four weeks of fighting, which began at Diksmuide in mid-October, the front on the Yser froze. The Belgian army, though bled white, held the last free scrap of its country.

The balance of the fighting

The Germans crossed the river, broke in behind the Nieuport–Diksmuide railway embankment and several times came close to a breakthrough. They were stopped only by the water that the Belgians let onto the lowland through the sluices at Nieuport. They had to withdraw from the flooded ground, and their only gain in the end was the ruined town of Diksmuide on the east bank. They did not break through along the coast to Dunkirk and Calais, the ports through which supplies and reinforcements flowed to the British army. At the northern end of the Western Front, war of manoeuvre gave way to trench warfare.

The price was high. There are no exact figures, but according to the historian Sophie de Schaepdrijver the Belgians lost about 3,500 killed and 15,000 wounded on the Yser, and according to Jack Sheldon about a third of the army’s strength in the last two weeks of October. The French marine fusiliers at Diksmuide also suffered heavy losses. German losses, usually counted together with those at Ypres, were even greater.

A free scrap of Belgium

The Germans occupied about 95 per cent of Belgium. Only a narrow strip at the western end of the country remained free, with Veurne, De Panne and Poperinge. The Belgian government moved to France, near Le Havre, but King Albert I stayed with the army, moved his headquarters to De Panne and lived there until 1918. The king’s presence on his own soil, among his soldiers, meant a great deal to the Belgians. Albert became a symbol of resistance, called the Soldier King.

From the sea to Diksmuide the two armies were separated throughout the war by a flooded strip of polders, and further south ran trenches along the river and the canal. The Belgian army, gradually replenished with volunteers and conscripts, including Belgians living abroad, defended this front for four years. Its most famous spot became the Trench of Death (Dodengang) near Diksmuide, where Belgian and German posts were only a few dozen metres apart. The Belgians went over to the attack only in the offensive of autumn 1918.

Remembering the Yser

The Battle of the Yser became a symbol of national resistance in Belgium. In 1918 the Yser Medal was instituted for soldiers who had fought on the river on 17–31 October 1914. Among Flemish soldiers, commanded by French-speaking officers, the Front Movement was born at the front, from which the post-war Flemish national movement grew. Its symbol is the Yser Tower (IJzertoren) in Diksmuide, a memorial to the fallen built by Flemish veterans in 1928–1930, blown up in 1946 and rebuilt after the war.