German postcard map of the Western Front in Flanders, looking south and including Lille, Arras, Calais, and Ostend. In the Battle of the Yser in October, 1914, the Belgian Army held the territory south of the Yser Canal, visible between Nieuport, Dixmude, and Ypres (Ypern). Further north is Passchendaele, which British forces took at great cost in 1917.

Der Kanal

Straße von Calais



The English Channel and the Strait of Calais



Reverse:

Panorama des westlichen Kriegsschauplatzes 1914/15 Von Arras bis Ostende.

Die Panorama-Postkartenreihe umfaßt mit ihren 9 Abschnitten Nr. 400 bis 408 den gesamten westlichen Kriegsschauplatz von der Schweizer Grenze bis zur Nordseeküste.



Panorama of the western theater of operations 1914/15 from Arras to Ostend. The panoramic postcard series includes nine sections, with their No. 400-408 the entire western battlefield from the Swiss border to the North Sea coast.



Nr. 408

Wenau-Postkarte Patentamtl. gesch.

Other views: Larger, Larger, Back

Tuesday, October 27, 1914

"On the 25th the Belgian Army was in line along the embankment. On the 26th the German bombardment was renewed with intense violence. It reached the railway and spread anxiety among its defenders. However, they put much reliance upon the rising inundation. On the evening of the 25th the Belgian Staff informed Admiral Ronarc'h at Dixmude that all arrangements had been made 'to flood the left bank of the Yser between the river and the line of the Dixmude-Nieuport railway.' Special measures had to be taken to prevent the water from reaching our troops, dam the culverts passing under the track and make them watertight, as well as to cut the banks of certain canals so as to let the seawater in.

It was only on the evening of the 27th [October 1914] that all this work was finished; then, at flood tide, the Nieuport locks were opened. They were shut again at low tide, and this manœuvre went on every day."

Quotation Context

Excerpt from the Memoirs of General (later Marshall) Ferdinand Foch. Exhausted, dejected, having been driven into a small corner of their country, the Belgian Army was being driven from its position on the Yser River, established on October 17, 1914. The railway line embankment between Nieuport on the North Sea coast and Dixmude 20 miles inland rose 3½ to 4½ feet above the Flanders plain. The land was between the high- and low-water line, so the flood had to be managed allowing it to flow in, but not out. The Belgians began the inundation on October 27. By the 31st, they had won the Battle of the Yser, part of the Battle of Flanders.

Source

The Memoirs of Marshal Foch, translated by Col. T. Bentley Mott by Ferdinand Foch, page 145, copyright © 1931 by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., publisher: Doubleday, Doran & Co., publication date: 1931

Tags

Foch, 1914, October, 1914-10-27, Yser, Battle of the Yser, Battle of Yser, Yser Canal, inundation