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

Friday, April 30, 1915

". . . this meant leaving his troops exposed on three sides to artillery fire and suffering heavy wastage with little opportunity to reply.

During the evening, however, one relief was carried out: the 12th Brigade (4th Division) (Br.-General F.G. Anley) arrived, and, passing the canal under heavy fire, took over the left sector of the front of the 10th Brigade and the whole of that of the 13th Brigade. By this change the three infantry brigades of the 4th Division, re-united, occupied the left of the British line supported by the artillery of the Canadian Division, which still remained in action. Br.-General Wanless O'Gowan on relief withdrew the 13th Brigade west of the canal, eventually collecting it in the wood a mile north-west of Vlamertinghe. Its numbers, after its battles at Hill 60 and before Ypres, in spite of reinforcements totalled barely fourteen hundred of all ranks."

Quotation Context

British, including Canadian and Indian Commonwealth forces, had suffered heavily in their defense of Ypres since the April 22, 1915 German poison gas attack broke the French line on the British left and created a gap of as much as 8,000 yards which the British struggled to close. Preparing for their Artois offensive, the French provided little support. Limited by their lack of shells to as little as two shells per gun per day, the British struggled to respond to heavy German shelling or mount an offensive. Their salient having been compressed from the north, the British prepared to withdraw to a shortened line they could maintain. At the request of the French, they postponed their withdrawal.

Source

Military Operations France and Belgium, 1915, Vol. I, Winter 1914-15: Battle of Neuve Chappelle : Battle of Ypres [Second] by J. E. Edmonds, page 285, copyright © asserted, publisher: Macmillan and Co., Limited, publication date: 1927

Tags

1915-04-30, 1915, April, Second Battle of Ypres