The
battles of the Yser extended over the four years of the war.
However perhaps the most critical of them all was in 1914
when the Germans almost broke the Belgian line. The story
is that of a railway and a river. By the end of October 1914
following the struggles around Liege, Namur and Antwerp, the
exhausted Belgian army had fallen back onto a ten miles long
line of defence based on the Yser River between the North
sea at Nieuport and the town of Dixmuide. On 21 October the
Germans crossed the Yser at Tervate and a probable German
advance to the Channel ports was only prevented by the flooding
of vast tracts of land and the adoption of a defensive line
based on the Dixmuide to Nieuport railway embankment which
ran behind the river. After 15 days of continuous struggle,
and a heroic Belgian bayonet charge, the front held. The lines
would hold for four years.
This
is the sort of very brief summary that precedes each of the
27 different battles covered in our two books Western Front
- North, and Western Front - South. A more detailed description
follows in the books with a point to point battlefield tour
as well as up to date photographs.
HOW TO FIND
OUT MORE ABOUT THE BATTLE
This
battle is described in Western Front - North. Please click
here to go to details of
the guide book in which the Battles of the Yser are described
