The British retake Merville

The British chronology of the war records under the date of 11 October 1914 the recapture by the British of Merville, a small town on the river Leie (in French, Lys), north of Béthune. At the beginning of October there were skirmishes in the area between German cavalry and French and British cavalry. According to the British official history, however, by 9 October the town already lay on the line held by the French, and the British war graves commission states that from that day Merville remained in Allied hands. On 11 October, therefore, it was rather a matter of the British entering the town than of retaking it from the Germans.

Merville was entered by units of the Cavalry Corps of General Edmund Allenby. He was covering the left flank of II Corps, which was just approaching Béthune, opening the Battle of La Bassée. On 9 October Allenby was ordered to secure the line from Merville to Hazebrouck, which he reached by 11 October, pushing back weak German cavalry units on the way. On the evening of that day the 1st Cavalry Division stood in the area of Merville, Neuf-Berquin and Saint-Venant, and the 2nd Cavalry Division around Hazebrouck.

At Merville the British cavalry linked up with the French cavalry corps of Generals Conneau and de Mitry, which were screening the front from Festubert to Merville. East of the town three German cavalry corps were still roaming, pulled back to a line from La Bassée through Estaires to Bailleul. On the same day Bavarian cavalrymen broke into neighbouring Estaires, and to the south the Germans attacked the French positions along the whole length from Arras to Vermelles.

In the following weeks Merville became an important town behind the British front. In October 1914 fallen French cavalrymen were buried in the local cemetery, and later British and Indian soldiers. The town was a supply railhead and a hospital centre, and in October 1914 it housed the headquarters of General James Willcocks’s Indian Corps. On 28 October Field Marshal John French conferred here with Willcocks and Smith-Dorrien about relieving the exhausted II Corps. Merville remained in Allied hands until 11 April 1918, when the Germans took it during the offensive on the Lys.