TO THE VANGUARD.
Ten Years AgoFirst Battle of Ypres.
The Ypres Times.
115
Oh little mighty Force that stood for England!
That, with your bodies for a living shield,
Guarded her slow awaking, that defied
The sudden challenge of tremendous odds
And fought the rushing legions to a stand
Then stark in grim endurance held the line.
O little Force that in your agony
Stood fast while England girt her armour on,
Held high our honour in your wounded hands,
Carried our honour safe with bleeding feet
We have no glory great enough for you,
The very soul of Britain keeps your day!
Procession Marches forth a Race in Arms
And, for the thunder of the crowd's applause,
Crash upon crash the voice of monstrous guns,
Fed by the sweat, served by the life of England,
Shouting your battlecry across the world.
Oh, little mighty Force, your way is ours,
This land inviolate your monument. Beatrix Brice.
(Reprinted by kind permission of the Editor from "The Times" of October 31 st, 1924.)
Ten years ago, from the middle of October to the middle of November, the British
Army in Flanders was engaged in fighting what will live in history as one of the most
critical and most gallant battles of all time. We know it now as the First Battle of
Ypres. Though the battle raged throughout the month almost continuously along some
40 miles of front from above Ea Bassée to near the sea, it was to-day, on October 31st,
1914, that the crisis of the great struggle is by common consent considered to have been
reached, when the 2nd Worcesters made their famous charge at Gheluvelt, between
Ypres and Menin. It is on this account that to-day is known as Ypres Day.
It is to be noted that Sir John French (as he then was), the Commander-in-Chief of
the British Armies in France, has expressed his opinion that the danger was even greater
on the following day, November 1st, when only the arrival of French reinforcements
enabled our line to hold. But the commonly accepted view which consecrates to-day
as the anniversary of the supreme moment has the justification that if the Germans had
broken through at Gheluvelthad the Worcesters not been there or been less gallant
no subsequent crisis would have mattered. Once our line was fairly broken, it is difficult
to see how, by any human means, any considerable proportion of the British Expeditionary
Force could have escaped destruction. The remnant of the gallant Belgian Army, with
Bidon's French Division, must either have surrendered or died along the Yser. The
Germans must have reached the coastand Calais and Boulogne would have been theirs,
with all that that implied. All this hung upon the intervention of three companies of
the 2nd Worcesters the fate, possibly, of England and of civilization. The crisis of
October 31st was, therefore, acute enough sufficient to justify the day's commemoration.
When Sir John French made his momentous decision to stand on the Ypres Salient,
he had only the vaguest information of the strength opposed to him. He had not expected
to have to fight a defensive action at all. He knew, of course, of Beseler's force, released
from the siege of Antwerp, which had followed the Belgian Army (screened by our 7th
Division and Byng's Cavalry) down through Belgium. He had only heard three days
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