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Webmatters : The First Battle of Ypres: End of the battle

Ypres 1914

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The end of the battle

Just before dawn on the 12th November the Germans launched an attack against the French IX Corps on Haig’s left near Broodseinde which pushed the French back and forced the British to swing back to keep in touch with them.

On the 14th November the German Guards’ Division once against tried to assault Major General Frederick Wing’s composite Division guarding the Menin Road but were once again driven off with severe loss.

Wing was killed during the Battle of Loos in September 1915.
He is buried in Noeux les Mines Communal Cemetery — I K 15.

That same evening Field Marshal Earl Roberts, who had foreseen the rise of Germany’s military power died at Saint Omer (British GHQ) whilst on his way for a tour of the front. A plaque on the wall marks the house.

To all intents and purposes the First Battle of Ypres was finished. Over the next week the French relieved Haig’s Corps and by the 22nd November the British front line ran from Wijtschate to the La BassĂ©e Canal at Givenchy.

The battle had been a close run thing in line with British military tradition !

In some ways it was this failure by the Germans that was to seal the fate of many Allied soldiers in the four years before 11th November 1918 would bring an end to it all. The Allied High Command would continue to press on with an attack in the worry that all they were up against were the cooks and bottle washers of a supposedly near beaten German Army.

Remarkably, the belief that infantry could break a well prepared position by force of numbers persisted for years, even though the Germans, with a supremacy in artillery support, had failed to crack unprepared positions.