Belgians abandon Ostend and Zeebrugge

A British chronicle of the war records under 12 October 1914 the abandonment of Ostend and Zeebrugge by Belgian troops. The two North Sea ports, through which British reinforcements had been arriving only a few days earlier and through which Belgium kept in touch with its allies, lay in the path of the German march westwards. The Belgian Army did not have the strength to defend them.

After the fall of Antwerp

From 7 October Ostend was the seat of the Belgian government, and after the fall of Antwerp it also became army headquarters for a few days. The exhausted Belgian divisions that had slipped out of the fortress were retreating west through Flanders. On 11 October they left the area of Ghent, and over the following days their retreat was covered by cavalry, cyclists and machine-gun cars. The Germans approaching from the east had clear orders: reach the coast near Ostend and Blankenberge.

The Belgians did not intend to give battle in the open country around the ports. A further retreat across the French border, to the area of Saint-Omer and Calais, where the army could rest and make good its losses, was even considered. In the end, under French pressure, it was decided to stop on the line of the Yser river, between Nieuport and Dixmude, in the last strip of unoccupied Belgium. From then on the army’s supplies were to come through the French port of Dunkirk.

The King and government leave

On 12 October King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth left Ostend. The King did not leave the country but followed the army west, to the area of Veurne, where his headquarters was soon established. Ministers and officials sailed for France aboard the ferry Pieter de Coninck. Sources differ as to whether the ship left Ostend on 12 or only on 13 October. They agree, however, that the government reached Le Havre on 13 October.

The British, too, no longer had anything to defend on the coast. The remnants of the Naval Division, which had fought at Antwerp, were embarked at Ostend and reached Dover on 11 October. The British 7th Division and the 3rd Cavalry Division, which had landed at the two ports a few days earlier, were falling back from Ghent inland, towards Tielt and Roeselare, moving away from the sea.

Flight from the city

The departure of the authorities caused panic among the inhabitants and the thousands of refugees who had been flocking to Ostend from all over Belgium since August. Charles Castelein, an Ostend man who worked on the local light railway, noted in his diary that on the night of 12–13 October, from midnight, five or six hundred people were waiting for trams to Veurne and fighting for places. On 14 October, according to his notes, 22,000 people fled the city. Ferries, steamers, fishing boats and shrimp boats sailed off overcrowded until the whole port was empty. Warehouses at the station and on the quay were looted. From nearby towns on the Dutch border, crowds fled on foot, by tram and by boat to the neutral Netherlands.

Three days after the King’s departure, the Germans entered Ostend.