British complete their move to Flanders
On 19 October 1914 the transfer of the British Expeditionary Force from the Aisne to Flanders was completed. That day the last units of General Douglas Haig’s I Corps got off their trains and assembled between Saint-Omer and Hazebrouck. The operation, which the British had begun at the start of October, had thus taken more than two weeks.
I Corps, made up of the 1st and 2nd Divisions, was the last large British formation to leave the Aisne front. Its soldiers came out of the trenches only on the night of 12–13 October, when the other corps had already been fighting in the north for several days. II Corps was attacking near La Bassée, III Corps had retaken Armentières, and the Cavalry Corps was fighting for the hills around Messines. From the middle of the month General Henry Rawlinson’s IV Corps had been standing at Ypres; it had come to Flanders not from the Aisne but from Belgium.
On to Ypres
Field Marshal John French had great plans for I Corps. On the evening of 19 October he met Haig and handed him a written order: the corps was to pass through Ypres, advance via Torhout on Bruges and drive the Germans back towards Ghent. French believed that at most one enemy corps stood on this sector. He made light of reports that the same day the British 7th Division at Ypres had run into the head of a new German army made up of several fresh reserve corps.
That same day the 2nd Division moved into the area of Poperinge and Cassel. At dawn on 20 October the whole corps set off for Ypres along roads choked with crowds of Belgian and French refugees. By evening its divisions stood north and north-west of the town. Instead of marching on Bruges, I Corps had to defend itself the very next day against the attacking Germans in the First Battle of Ypres. For the following month it fought there on the most threatened sectors of the front, and its divisions lost most of their infantry.
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Meanwhile
(04)Elsewhere in the same days.
- 19 October 1914 · Eastern FrontBattle of Warsaw endsAround 19 October 1914 the Germans began to withdraw from Warsaw. The British chronology ends the Battle of Warsaw on that day.
- 18 October 1914 · Asia and the PacificSinking of the cruiser TakachihoOn the night of 17–18 October 1914 the German torpedo boat S90 sank the Japanese cruiser Takachiho off Tsingtao. About 270 sailors were killed.
- 18 October 1914 · War at seaGrand Fleet leaves Scapa FlowOn 18 October 1914, fearing U-boats, the Grand Fleet began moving from Scapa Flow to Lough Swilly in Ireland and Loch na Keal on the island of Mull.
- 20 October 1914 · Eastern FrontBattle of Dęblin endsThe British chronology ends the Battle of Ivangorod, or Dęblin, on 20 October 1914. In reality the fighting there went on for another week.
Related events
(04)The same battle, people or subject.
- 3 October 1914 · Western FrontThe British leave the Aisne frontOn 3 October 1914 the British Expeditionary Force began secretly leaving the Aisne front. It was to move north, closer to the Channel ports.
- 12 October 1914 · Western FrontBattle of Messines beginsOn 12 October 1914 Allenby's British cavalry took the Mont des Cats in Flanders. The battle for the Messines ridge south of Ypres had begun.
- 10 October 1914 · Western FrontBattle of La Bassée beginsOn 10 October 1914 the British II Corps, moved from the Aisne, marched towards Béthune and La Bassée. So began the British fighting in Flanders.
- 11 November 1914 · Western FrontPrussian Guard attack at Nonne BosschenOn 11 November 1914 the Prussian Guard broke into the British line at Ypres. Gunners and an Oxfordshire counter-attack stopped the last great German attack.