November 22nd, 1914

- The readjustment of the position of the British Expeditionary Force on the line has been completed.  All British units are now together, and hold the front from Wytschaete, south of Ypres, to the La Bassée Canal at Givenchy, a stretch of 21 miles.  For their part the Belgians hold 15 miles of the front adjacent to the English Channel, and the French, responsible for everything else, covers 430 miles.  This graphically illustrates the extent to which the French army has shouldered the overwhelming burden of the fighting on the Western Front.  While the Belgians and the British have made vital contributions, and won deserved acclaim for their successful struggles along the Yser and around Ypres, in the end the great German attack in the west has been halted first and foremost by the French.  In saving themselves, they have preserved the hope of all in the Entente that ultimate victory may yet be achieved.

The Western Front on November 22nd, 1914, showing the position of
the BEF and the Belgian army; everything else is held by the French.

Though all three of the major combatants at Ypres consider the battle to have ended on different days, the British place its conclusion today with the end of their redeployment, which suffices as a moment to review the fighting in Flanders (incidentally, the French see the 13th and the Germans the 30th as the end).  Despite later claims by the Germans, the First Battle of Ypres has been a victory for the Entente.  The Germans had significant, sometimes near-overwhelming, numerical superiority in almost every phase of the fighting, but consistently failed to break through the British and French lines.  The failure to convert their numbers advantage into victory has been due not only to the strength of the defence in the context of the military technology of 1914, such as the machine gun, as they consistently repeated several tactical errors during the battle.  First, major German attacks were undertaken against long stretches of the Entente line in an effort to probe for weakness, as opposed to concentrating overwhelming force to break through at a place of their choosing.  Second, they consistently overestimated the size of the enemy confronting them, not realizing at several key moments how close they were to breaking through.  Third, they would use all available infantry in their attacks, leaving no reserves that could be sent to exploit the successes they achieved on several occasions.  Fourth, when they did break the British lines, in particular on October 31st and November 11th, the unit that did so did not advance further, being exhausted from their efforts and unaware of what they had accomplished, giving time for British reserves to arrive and counterattack.  Some of these mistakes could be rectified in future battles, but they pointed to one of the greatest difficulties attackers faced in the First World War - it would be consistently easier for the defender to send reserves to restore their lines than it was for the attacker to exploit any breakthrough they could achieve.

The conclusion of the First Battle of Ypres signals the end of the movement phase of the first months of the war.  Both sides are now committed to entrenching, and the rudimentary trenches dug hastily during the fighting are increasingly converted to more substantial trench systems.  The fighting at Ypres itself reflected the transition from mobile to static fighting.  Artillery did not yet dominate the battlefield as it would do so in future - foot soldiers played a vital role and the climactic moments were decided by infantry charges, not artillery bombardments.  First Ypres was also a battle still largely decided by junior officers responding to sudden circumstances, as with the British brigade commanders who ordered forward reserves at the critical moments, as opposed to the increasingly orchestrated and detailed assault plans of later set-piece battles.  Cavalry also had a role to play at Ypres, fighting in the front line and using their horses to rapidly redeploy on the battlefield.  On the other hand, First Ypres clearly indicated that small defensive forces could hold off attackers even when overwhelmingly outnumbered, and the Kindermord in particular demonstrated that no amount of spirit or elan among advancing infantry could allow them to carry a position in the face of sustained rifle and especially machine gun fire.

An exact accounting of the losses suffered by both sides is impossible, given the incompleteness of records, especially on the German side.  At minimum, the Germans suffered 134 000 casualties in the First Battle of Ypres, but possibly much more.  Of the four reserve corps thrown into the fighting in late October, each lost about half of their infantry.  French casualties were between 50 000 and 80 000, which comprised a majority of the 104 000 losses sustained by the entire French army in October and November 1914.  For the Belgians, approximately a third of those who escaped Antwerp before its fall on October 10th were lost by the end of October in the fighting along the Yser River.  British losses were calculated after the war to have been 58155, of whom 7960 were dead and 17 873 missing, most of the latter consisting of fallen soldiers whose bodies could not be recovered to verify their death.

Given that the First Battle of Ypres signals the end of the war of movement, an accounting can also be made of the losses suffered by the two sides since the outbreak of war itself.  The numbers are staggering - total French casualties are nearly one million, and include approximately 265 000 dead, while the comparable German numbers are over 700 000 losses, among which are about 241 000 dead.  The titanic and climactic battles that both sides expected have been fought, especially at the Marne, but the clashes have not brought the decisive outcome that all anticipated.  Instead, the casualty lists are merely the first installment of the ever-growing butcher's bill.

Total casualties for the British Expeditionary Force in the war to date have been 89 864.  Remarkably, the original strength of the first seven divisions to have been deployed in France had been only 84 000 - the BEF is only able to remain in the field due to replacements sent from home.  For all intents and purposes, the original British Expeditionary Force dispatched to France in early August had ceased to exist.  In most regiments an average of a single officer and thirty other ranks have survived since the first fighting at Mons on August 23rd.  The future of the BEF rests with soldiers recruited since the outbreak of the war, as the last of the BEF's original strength had been expended in the Ypres salient, fighting beyond the point of exhaustion to prevent a German breakthrough that might have had decisive results.  Ypres thus takes on an emotive significance to the British, the area becoming known as the 'Immortal Salient'.  The land is seen as consecrated by their dead, and no British commander can countenance yielding ground that had been so dearly bought.  It reflects another of the paradoxes of the First World War that will appear in future - sacrifices made on an earlier occasion become the justification for further losses to preserve what had been gained by the earlier casualties.

The lessons drawn from the battle by the British leadership, and General Haig in particular, will also have future reverberations.  Haig is well aware how close the Germans came to shattering his lines at Gheluvelt and Nonneboschen, and concludes that the Germans failed because they did not persevere in their attacks when just one more big push would have brought decisive victory.  Haig is determined that when the roles are reversed, no British attack he commands will ever fail because it was not pushed hard enough and long enough to achieve success.  It is, of course, the absolute wrong lesson to be drawn from First Ypres, and thousands of soldiers in the years to come will pay for this error with their lives.

Finally there is the contrast between the original BEF, the 'Old Contemptibles' as they referred to themselves, and the German volunteers of the reserve corps.  Both had made a conscious decision to join the army, as opposed to being forced to fight by conscription, and both were largely destroyed at Ypres.  Here, though, the similarity ends.  The German volunteers of August 1914 were motivated primarily by nationalist enthusiasm - they fought and died in the belief their service and sacrifice would benefit the German people for all time.  The soldiers of the old BEF were not driven by such high ideals - instead, each had made a deliberate and much more mundane choice to pursue, for whatever reason, a career in the army.  They had spent years, in some cases decades, honing their skills; the army was their livelihood, and when the day came for them to put their training to work they did not shirk their responsibilities and were equal to the task.  At Ypres the German volunteers died for their nation; the British soldiers because it was their job.

- Though the German effort to seize Ypres has been called off, the suffering of the town is only beginning.  It has been the target of enemy artillery fire before, but today the Germans deliberately target the magnificent Cloth Hall, symbol of the town's rich medieval heritage.  The bombardment begins at 6am, and by 9am shells are falling on the Cloth Hall, the first striking the tower and the third destroying the clock.  Within two hours the entire building is in flames and ruins.  The Germans claim that the British and French were using the Hall's tower to direct artillery fire, arguing later that 'German life is more precious than the finest Gothic architecture.'  The Germans are wrong - their lines are hidden from the tower's sights by various hills and valleys - and the destruction of the Cloth Hall is seen in much of the world as yet another example of German barbarity, that having been defeated in their efforts to take the town, they destroy it out of spite.  Its ruins become one of the iconic symbols of the destruction wrought by the First World War.

Ypres' Cloth Hall prior to the First World War.

The Cloth Hall burning under German artillery bombardment, November 22nd, 1914.

The ruins of the Cloth Hall later in the war.

- At Lodz the situation continues to deteriorate for the German 9th Army.  Its supply lines stretched to the breaking point, German units are running out of shells for their artillery.  To the east, General Rennenkampf of the Russian 1st Army has sent a force consisting of one and a half infantry and two cavalry divisions and named the Lovitch detachment southwestward towards the northern escape route for the German XXV Reserve Corps and Guards Division.  When an element of the Lovitch detachment occupies Brzeziny today, it appears the German corps and division are doomed - the Russian General Staff orders trains brought to Lodz to take the expected fifty thousand prisoners back to camps in Russia.

- The Yugoslav Committee is formed today in Florence by Ante Trumbic, a Croatian deputy in the Austrian Parliament.  The aim of the Committee is to unite all South Slavs, inside and outside Austria-Hungary, into a single independent state.

- In the Caucasus the Ottoman 3rd Army, suffering from ammunition shortages and command confusion, breaks off its operations against the Russian I Turkestan Corps and concentrates at Köprüköy.  Nevertheless, 3rd Army's attacks have stymied the Russian advance, giving the engagement the impression of being a notable Ottoman victory.  Enver Pasha in particular draws an out-sized belief in the fighting ability of 3rd Army, which will have fatal ramifications in the coming months.

- In Mesopotamia the main force of Indian Expeditionary Force D arrives at Basra shortly after midday.  They secure British control over the city and put an end to the looting of the past two days.  The trials of IEF D do not end, however - the bridges in Basra have to be reinforced before they can be used by any significant detachment of infantry, and the 'indescribably filthy condition of the town,' in the words of IEF D's commander, means the British have to set up camp outside Basra.

November 11th, 1914

- The pre-dawn hours at Ypres give no hint of the impending German attack, while the first rays of light reveal a think grey fog covering the battlefield.  However, at 630am the German artillery opened fire - they had been stockpiling shells for today, and the resulting bombardment was the most intensive of the war to date.  At 9am the fire reaches its crescendo, which clearly indicates to the British defenders that an infantry attack is imminent.  Along much of the British line, many of the defenders had withdrawn from the front line to support positions to avoid the worst of the bombardment, as the primitive state of the trenches offered no real protection from such intensive artillery fire.  It was only when the bombardment shifted to the support positions that the British infantry would rush back forward to repel the German attack.

In theory the German attack was to extend from Zonnebeke to Messines, and include the forces of Army Groups Fabeck and Linsingen, as well as 54th Reserve Division of XXVII Reserve Corps to the north of Plettenberg's Corps of Army Group Linsingen.  In practice, the intensity of the infantry attacks were related to the amount of time they had already spent in the line at Ypres.  Opposite Messines 26th Division and 11th Landswehr Brigade of Army Group Fabeck never even left their trenches - the German history excuses this by noting the intensity of British artillery fire.  On the other end of the line, 54th Reserve Division made no attempt to advance either, which had, as will be seen, a significant impact on the operations of its neighbour to the south.

South of the Comines Canal, five German divisions assault the line held by most of four French divisions, but despite heavy fighting are able to make no progress whatsoever.  North of the Canal, the French line is pushed back to Hill 60 at noon by 30th Division.  The retreat threatened the rear of the British I Corps and French IX Corps, but a counterattack by a regiment of cavalry advancing on foot manages to re-establish the line by 630pm.  East of the French position six British battalions grouped under Lord Cavan defended against twelve German battalions, primarily of 39th Division.  Twice the Germans managed to close up to the British line, and twice counterattacks drove them off, and the line held.

The Battle of Ypres, November 10th and 11th, 1914.

As Winckler's Division and 4th Division of Plettenberg's Corps had arrived in the line less than forty-eight hours ago, they launch their attacks with resolution and determination.  The advance of 4th Division meets very heavy British fire, and the ranks of the attackers are swept away by rifle, machine-gun, and artillery fire.  The German line breaks, and subsequent efforts to reform and advance again are repeatedly halted by British fire, and a final effort at 4pm makes no headway.

Thus the burden of the offensive falls on the four Guards regiments of Winckler's Division - north to south, 3rd Guard, 1st Guard, 2nd Grenadier Guards, and 4th Grenadier Guards Regiments.  They advance along the Menin Road, the first three to the north and the last just to the south.  The British line is held by various battalions and companies thrown together in the fighting of the past several weeks under 1st Division, I Corps.  In the thick mist the Guards advance jogging in neat rows, officers at the front with swords unsheathed.  4th Guards almost reaches the British position, but at the last momemt a British artillery observer, following his broken telephone line back to his battery, orders shrapnel fire, which cuts through the German ranks and forces 4th Guards to retire.  2nd Guards, however, manages to squeeze through a gap in the British line, as they reach the British trench almost simultaneously with the British infantry returning from support positions after the German artillery bombardment.  The British retreat into the woods west of the village of Veldhoek.  A German Fusilier battalion pursues them into the trees, but as it now has no support on either flank, it comes under attack from three sides and is annhilated.  A further counterattack recovers the reserve trenches, though 2nd Guards is able to hold the original British front line.

The most serious situation occurs to north.  When 1st and 3rd Guards attack at 9am, they are able to reach the British trench line before it can be fully manned, and within ten minutes they have overrun the three British battalions opposing them and have opened a thousand-yard gap in the British line.  As 3rd Guard pushes forward, however, it comes under heavy fire from Polygon Wood on its northern flank, which was supposed to have been cleared by the attack of 54th Reserve Division.  The failure of the latter means that 3rd Guard finds itself pulled northward as it attempts to dislodge the British.  Having suffered heavy losses, 1st Guard pushes forward into Nonnebosschen (Nun's Wood), as much as to escape the fire of the British in Polygon Wood as to outflank it.

The German Guards have broken through the British line and are in position to threaten the position of I Corps and indeed the entire Entente position in the Ypres salient.  At the moment 1st Guards enters Nonnebosschen, the only British between them and Ypres are several artillery batteries and a divisional headquarters.  As news of the breakthrough spreads, Haig orders what little reserves he has forward.  In the rear headquarters staff and cooks are handed weapons and move into makeshift defensive positions in the expectation of the Germans sweeping forward.  The commander of 2nd Division sends forward 2nd Battalion, Oxford and Bucks, his last reserve, and it is ordered to recover Nonnebosschen.  Just after 2pm its four companies sprint forward and crash into the woods.

Just under a thousand survivors of 1st Guards were in Nonnebosschen when the British counterattacked.  Once again, the Germans had been unaware of what they had actually accomplished - almost every officer and NCO had been killed, infantry milling about Nonneboschen in confusion, and German prisoners taken from 1st Guards are aghast when they learn how close they had been shattering the entire line.  Instead, the counterattack of 2nd Battalion, Oxford and Bucks finds 1st Guards surprised and leaderless, and the latter immediately break and retreat out of Nonnebosschen.  Further, 3rd Guards has broken on the British line in Polygon Wood - in the dense mist the defenders see a bank of grey in the distance, and expect a further German attack, only to find when the mist clears that it is hundreds of German corpses cut down by their fire.  By late afternoon the British have recovered the support line east of Nonnebosschen, though similar to the situation just to the south the Germans hold the original British trench line.  The most serious breach of the day has been closed, and the German attacks have failed.

The attack of the German Guards regiments, November 11th, 1914.  The thick red line is the front at nightfall;
Nonneboschen, captured and lost by 1st Guards during the day, is to the west (left) of the inverted 'U'.

- The German 9th Army begins its advance southeast from the line Thorn-Poznan towards Lodz.  Advancing to the south of the Vistula River, three of 9th Army's corps collide with the V Siberian Corps of the Russian 1st Army.  Outnumbered five to one in artillery, the latter is shattered, with two-thirds of its men becoming prisoners.  The remnants of V Siberian Corps retreats along the Vistula, and the German 9th Army advances through a thirty kilometre gap it has blasted between the river and the Russian 2nd Army.  The Russian command structure, meanwhile, has no idea what has happened - General Ruzski of North-West Front, believing V Siberian Corps to be a second-rate formation anyway, ascribes its defeat to a mere two German divisions, and still believes 9th Army to be to the southwest, not northwest, of the main advance of 2nd and 5th Armies.

The Battle of Lodz, November 11th to 16th, 1914.

- In the Caucasus the Ottoman 3rd Army launches a second counterattack against the Russian I Turkestan Corps.  This operation is better-directed than the earlier advance of the 6th, and Russian artillery is unable to elevate sufficiently to hit Ottoman positions higher in the mountains.  By the end of the day the Russians have been driven back from Köprüköy to a line Horsan-Sanamer, still inside Ottoman territory.

The Battle of Köprüköy, November 1914.

- On the Shatt al-Arab an Ottoman force of about three hundred attacks the main British encampment at Sanniya.  The enemy advance is easily held, and a counterattack inflicts eighty casualties on the Ottomans for ten British and Indian killed or wounded.  Despite the victory, the British commander decides to hold his current position until reinforcements can arrive from India.

- Glasgow today arrives at the River Plate, where it is met by the armoured cruiser Defence, and together the two sail for Abrolhos Rocks, off the Brazilian coast, where British warships in the South Atlantic are to rendezvous.  The pre-dreadnought Canopus is not with them, however - it broke down again after leaving the Falkland Islands, and the First Sea Lord ordered it to return to Port Stanley and run itself aground in shallow water at the eastern end of the harbour, so that it could serve as a stationary gun platform to protect the Falklands.

The British pre-dreadnought Canopus grounded at Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, November 1914.

Meanwhile, at 4pm the battlecruisers Invincible and Inflexible depart Plymouth for the South Atlantic.  Initially the head of the dockyard wanted to hold the ships until the 13th for further maintenance work, but Admiral Fisher was having none of that, ordering them prepared to sail today.  Work continued right up to departure, and Inflexible takes with it several dozen workmen whose tasks have not yet been completed.  The two battlecruisers are commanded by Vice-Admiral Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee, formerly Chief of Staff of the Admiralty.  He has also been appointed Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic and Pacific, with orders to find and sink the German East Asiatic Squadron above all else.

November 6th, 1914

- At Ypres German attacks are concentrated along the front on both sides of the Ypres-Comines Canal on the southeastern face of the salient, while elsewhere there was the now-regular steady artillery bombardment.  Taking advantage of a thick morning fog, the Germans attack into the woods west of Hollebeke, pre-empting a French attack scheduled for later today.  In the confusion caused by the fog several French cavalry battalions panic, and the Germans are able to advance almost a mile, seizing the entire woods west of Hollebeke, allowing the Germans to advance to within three thousand yards of Ypres.  On the north side of the Canal, the Germans take the French by surprise and pierce the line in three places, allowing the Germans to seize the village of Zwarteleen a mile southeast of Zillebeke.  It takes a counterattack by the British 7th Cavalry Brigade to restore the line.  Though the Germans have not broken through, they have driven a wedge into the junction of the French and British lines, and Haig is now concerned that his I Corps is at risk of having its southern flank turned.

- The Admiralty issues a public statement today on the Battle of Coronel.  It emphasizes that the engagement appears to have been fought with the most bravery, but that without Canopus Craddock’s squadron would have been significantly outgunned.  It establishes what will be the Admiralty line on Coronel - depicting Craddock as epitomizing the bravery and courage of Royal Navy officers, while simultaneously implying that he alone bears responsibility for the defeat by deciding to accept battle without Canopus present.  This, not coincidentally, absolves the Admiralty leadership themselves of responsibility by denying the very significant role their confused signals to Craddock played in the weeks leading up to Coronel.

- General Oskar Potiorek issues orders today for another attempt at invading Serbia, the third of the war to date.  The continued existance of Serbia, to say nothing of the terrible defeats the Austro-Hungarians have suffered at their hands, have undermined the prestige of the Dual Monarchy, potentially decisive in the ongoing efforts to convince the other Balkan states to join the war on their side.  Potiorek's plan is similar to the first two invasions - 5th and 6th Armies will cross the Drina River in the northwest of Serbia, with the aim of advancing to initially Valjevo and ultimately Niš, dividing Serbia in two.

One advantage the Austro-Hungarians would have is that the condition of the Serbian army was deteriorating.  The soldiers were exhausted, food was in short supply, and munitions were even scarcer, such that most of the time the Serbian infantry was fighting with no artillery support at all.  While Britain and France were eager to aid the Serbian defence, the difficulties of sending supplies to a landlocked combatant prevented significant aid from getting through.  General Putnik's strategy was thus to place 'the Serbian national mud between the enemy's fighting line and his supplies.'  Even before the invasion, he has withdrawn his forces in the northwest of the country to the foothills of the Cer mountain range, so as to be out of range of Austro-Hungarian artillery fire.

The third Austro-Hungarian Invasion of Serbia, November to December 1914.

- The Ottoman frontier with Russia is guarded by 3rd Army, consisting of three corps - IX covers the northern portion of the border and XI the southern, with X in reserve further west.  Today elements of XI Corps assembling at Hasankale and Köprüköy launch a counterattack against the Russian column advancing on the former.  However, given the heavy snow and rain and the lack of reconnaissance, they were unable to turn the Russians back.

- From August the Admiralty has been expressing concern about the security of its oil supply from Persia, which reaches the Persian Gulf by pipeline at Abadan Island and where the major refinery is located.  Abadan Island is on the far western portion of Persia's coast, adjacent to the Ottomen Empire's outlet to the Persian Gulf at the Shatt al-Arab.  In the event of war with the Ottomans, Abadan Island would be an obvious target.  Moreover, concern had also been raised by the India Office regarding the importance of demonstrating British hegemony in the Gulf and not allowing an Ottoman challenge to undermine the authority of British rule over its Muslim subjects.  As such, Indian Expeditionary Force D had been formed, consisting of an infantry brigade, and was dispatched to the Gulf in October, arriving in Bahrein on the 23rd.  As war became increasingly likely, it planned to undertake a landing at the Ottoman fort of Fao on the Shatt al-Arab where it meets the Persian Gulf.

This morning the transports carrying IEF D are off Fao, escorted by the pre-dreadnought Ocean.  The small Ottoman garrison puts up a brief resistance, exchanging fire with Ocean for an hour before, being heavily outnumbered, they withdraw northwards from Fao.  By this afternoon landing parties have secured the village and fort at Fao, the first step in the Mesopotamian Campaign.

The opening moves of the Mesopotamian Campaign, 1914.

- The British landing at Fao is not the only Entente move of concern to Persia.  Today Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov states that Russia will continue to occupy Persian Azerbaijan, suggesting that the easiest route by which the Ottomans can invade the Russian Caucasus is through Azerbaijan, as opposed to the mountain passes on the Ottoman-Russian frontier.  The war thus makes Russian involvement in Persia even more essential in the view of Petrograd.

- The German East Asiatic Squadron returns to Más Afuera in the Pacific.  While Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Nürnberg had called at Valparaíso, Leipzig had stayed offshore, and had managed to seize a French merchant with 3600 tons of Cardiff coal.  The sailors start working on distributing the coal to each of the warships of the squadron.