THE STORY OF YPRES RE-TOLD.
THE JOURNAL, OF THE YPRES LEAGUE.
Vol. 3. No. 4. Published Quarterly. October, 1926
By W. H. DUNCAN ARTHUR, M.C.
Ypres is a wonderful story. It is not a pretty one. We werfe up against fiends, not
fighters, and if we can forgive and forget the atrocities committed by our late enemies,
we are resolved to remember eternally the heroism, self-sacrifice and patience endured
by our gallant comrades, dead ajid alive. Ypres is a British shrine. Within the Salient
rest a quarter of a million of our comrades. It is the holy ground of the British Army.
In 1914 Ypres had a population of 17,500, its defence cost the British a number equal
to the population of Nottingham and in 1917 the casualties averaged 1,000 a day. It is
interesting to note that in 1815a hundred years beforeit was garrisoned by the Duke
of Wellington before the Battle of Waterloo. Never in the history of this or any other
country has there been anything to equal the British defence of the immortal Ypres
Salient. The glory of this achievement is shared by the old regulars, the territorials, the
new armies and the colonial troops. But for the historic stand of the Old Contemptibles
of Tipperarv famein 1914, there would have been no Ypres to defend later. With
the odds 10 to 1, one man holding 30 yards of hastily dug trench, heavily outnumbered in
artillery and machine guns, no heavy explosive shells and shrapnelthus our old army,
the heroes of Mons, the Marne, and the Aisnefought its last and greatest battle, and
won. November nth, 1914, saw the Germans fought to a standstill, so that this date
was the nation's day of deliverance as well as our day of remembrance. Had the Germans
broken through, nothing could have stopped them, the way would have been open to the
channel ports and our country would have been in dangerthe Kaiser was there to see
his army break through. What a humiliation to see his chosen troops smashed up by
French's contemptible little army! In the following year the territorials and colonials
defended the Salient when the Germans used poison gas for the first time, hoping
with the aid of science to overcome the British defence, which they had failed to do
in fair fighting. The odds were 2 to 1, but although owing to the unexpected nature
of the attack they gained ground this was retaken within a month. It was after this
failure that the Germans fired the city by means of incendiary shells.
The Ypres Salient was in the form of a horse-shoe, the city being situated near the
open end. In the front line at night the Germans seemed to be all round, as indeed
they were. The high ground which surrounds the city was all held by the enemy, and to
move anywhere in the Salient in daylight was almost certain death.
In 1916 there were further attempts to capture Ypres, but the line was held in spite
of many gas attacks until the great Somme offensive relieved the pressure in this sector
for the rest of the year. It is generally recognised that 1947 was the worst year of all
in the Salient. The surface was transformed into a million mud holes and before the year
a
