Belgian Appreciation.
170
The Ypres Times.
those trials the optimism and confidence of our Chief were reflected in the men who held
that Salient from first to last, month after month, year after year, in that grim struggle
his set face of determination was handed down.
Well do I remember his pride in the fortitude and bearing of certain soldiers under
the stress of battle, FitzClarence and Johnnie Gough he named, how he kept his own
spirits up with such responsibilities at stake was a marvel to me.
Space forbids any further description of his services in France and Belgium.
I have been with the Chief to the Salient since the War, walked over Messines, Hill 60
etc., and looked from an enemy's point of view down on the ground our heroes held with
every disadvantage, an almost incredible defence, but one that will never be forgotten by
the German 4th and 6th Armies.
That same fortitude carried him through those troublous times in Ireland. Lastly,
when struck down by the malady from which he died, he never flinched he faced the
journey from London down to Deal Castle, a place he had learnt to love.
What a tribute to his life's work was his funeral, at the Guards Chapel, at Westminster,
and in the procession nothing but perfect reverence.
The pall bearers, with the Senior Field Marshal of our Army on one side, H.R.H. The
Duke of Connaught, while on the other was the famous Maréchal Joffre, his comrade-in
arms, scores of General Officers following; no personal disagreement was allowed to
interfere with the finer feelings of these gentlemen who were paying their last homage to
this great soldier.
Now he rests in the lovely little churchyard at Ripple, close to where he was born,
within sight of the sea, where his great and victorious Expeditionary Force crossed.
It is our duty to hand down to generations to come what he did for his country and
the duty of his country to raise a memorial to his memory.
Let the members of the Ypres League feel that though he has been taken from them
in this life the result of his work shall ever be remembered.
W. P. PULTENEY, Lieut.-General.
The death of Field Marshal Lord Ypres brought back vividly to the minds of those
who lived through the horrors of the first months of War in 1914, the arrival of the
British Expeditionary Force in Belgium.
At the moment when, in spite of the support of our French friends, the Belgian
Army was being forced to give way before the pressure of the German hordes and to
abandon our richest provinces, the appearance of the first soldiers in khaki made all
hearts beat with a wild hope and no name was more popular than that of Field Marshal
French who, to us, personified the strength of the British Empire.
The Belgian peopleignorant of all military strategy- thought that the arrival of
the first soldiers of powerful Great Britain upon the battlefield was sufficient to change
the fate of arms.
This confidence, though shaken for a moment after the valorous but sanguinary
retreat from Mens, was happily strengthened when, after the victory of the Marne, the
Field Marshal brought back his troops to Ypres, which they guarded for four years and
only left for the victorious offensive.
It was the tenacity with which the Field Marshal defended the martyr townwhose
glorious name he bearsthe abnegation of Iris brave troops, who let themselves be
massacred rather than abandon the henceforth immortal ruins, which made it possible
for the Belgian Army to remain in that narrow strip of land which stretches from the
Yser to the French frontier.
Therefore will the memory of Field Marshal Lord Ypres live in all Belgian hearts
as one of the first artificers of the liberating victory.
H. G. NERINCX, Major Belgian Field Artillery, Military Attaché.
