Germans take Diksmuide

On 10 November 1914 the Germans took by storm Diksmuide, a ruined small town on the river Yser. Since mid-October it had been defended by the French brigade of marine fusiliers of Rear-Admiral Pierre Ronarc’h together with Belgian units. After a day of fighting the defenders withdrew to the west bank of the river and blew up the bridges behind them. The fall of Diksmuide ended the fighting for the Yser line, but the Germans were unable to go any further.

Three weeks of defence

The marine fusiliers, about 6,500 sailors, most of them Bretons, took up position in Diksmuide on 15 October together with the Belgian brigade of Colonel Alphonse Jacques. The town lay on the east bank of the Yser and formed a bridgehead covering the crossing nearest to Calais. Ronarc’h was ordered to hold it for at least four days. The first attack was repulsed on 16 October, and in the following weeks the Germans repeatedly stormed the town and shelled it with heavy guns. On 26 October two battalions of Senegalese tirailleurs arrived as reinforcements. When the Belgians flooded the plain north of Diksmuide and the Germans withdrew across the river at the turn of October and November, the bridgehead remained the last Allied position on the east bank of the Yser.

The assault of 10 November

This time the Germans decided to take the town at any cost. On 10 November the whole Fourth Army went over to the attack on a front from Diksmuide to Langemarck. Two divisions of the XXII Reserve Corps were sent against the bridgehead: the 43rd Reserve Division and the 4th Ersatz Division, about twenty battalions. According to the British official history, only four battalions defended the town itself: two battalions of fusiliers, one Belgian and one Senegalese. The rest of Ronarc’h’s brigade stood across the river.

Heavy artillery and mortars had been shelling the defenders’ positions since the night. In the morning the Germans took the cemetery east of the town, and at about 1 p.m. a general assault began from three sides. The defenders fought fiercely on the railway embankment and in the burning houses, while the French artillery fired into the town without distinguishing friend from foe. The commander of the German 201st Reserve Infantry Regiment was killed in the fighting. In the afternoon the Germans broke into the centre, and at about 4 p.m. the last defenders crossed to the west bank of the Yser. The Belgians blew up the bridges, so the Germans could not follow them. An evening counter-attack by Belgians, Zouaves and French infantry failed to retake the town.

After the fall

The Germans claimed to have taken 17 officers and 1,400 men prisoner, whereas according to the British the Allies lost only a few hundred men that day. On the same day, further south, the Germans pushed the French at Bikschote back to the Yser canal, and the next day they struck at Ypres in the last great attack. On the Diksmuide sector, however, they achieved nothing more. The west bank of the river was higher and well fortified, and north of the town stretched the flooded plain.

The defence of Diksmuide became a legend in France and Belgium. The fusiliers, who were to hold the town for four days, defended it for more than three weeks and lost about half their strength, more than 3,000 killed, wounded and missing. On 16 November they were relieved. After the war Colonel Jacques was made a baron, and in 1924 was granted the right to add the title “de Dixmude” to his name. The ruins of the town remained in German hands until the autumn of 1918, and for four years the Belgians held trenches on the Yser facing them, among them the famous Trench of Death (Dodengang).