British retake Hazebrouck and Estaires

The British chronicle of the war records under 10 October 1914 the recapture of Hazebrouck and Estaires by the British. Both towns lie in French Flanders, on the route along which the British Expeditionary Force was then moving from the Saint-Omer and Béthune area towards the Lys. The chronicle’s entry, however, simplifies events. Neither town had to be taken by fighting that day.

Hazebrouck, an important railway junction, was the objective of the German IV Cavalry Corps, which a few days earlier had passed through Ypres and Bailleul. Near the town the Germans ran into French Territorial units, and on 9 October they fell back to Bailleul. That same day the British cavalry corps of General Edmund Allenby was ordered to secure the line from Merville to Hazebrouck. According to the British official history, it reached it by 11 October, meeting only weak resistance from German cavalry. The 2nd Cavalry Division took up positions around Hazebrouck and covered the concentration of the British III Corps, which from 10 October was detraining near Saint-Omer. On 12 October the British set up a field hospital in the local college, and the next day III Corps set out from Hazebrouck eastwards, towards Bailleul.

The case of Estaires is more tangled. The small town on the Lys, north of Béthune, was on 9 and 10 October in the hands of the French cavalry of General Louis Conneau, which was covering the march of the British II Corps. The British were not yet there. On 11 October Bavarian cavalry burst into Estaires, driving civilians before them across the bridge over the Lys as a human shield. The French cavalry retook the town only on 15 October.

Soon afterwards Estaires lay just behind the British front. On 14 October, nearby at Bout Deville, the commander of the British 3rd Division, General Hubert Hamilton, was killed by shrapnel. On 23 October the Indian Lahore Division, newly arrived at the front and the first of the two divisions of the Indian Corps, assembled at Estaires. Both towns remained on the Allied side until the spring of 1918, when Estaires was taken by the Germans during the offensive on the Lys and Hazebrouck found itself just behind the front.