The successful Allied defence of the Ypres sector – from Givenchy in the south, past the city of Ypres and along the River Yser to the Channel coast – represented the final act of the battle of the Marne. The German strategic plan to achieve a decisive military victory against the Allies in the West had failed. The Germans would now be forced to wage a war of attrition, where Allied advantages in the economic and diplomatic spheres would ultimately overcome German military strength. For their part, however, the French, British and Belgian armies of 1914 had been unable to defeat the German Army, thereby condemning both sides to years of trench warfare.
The overall performance of the BEF during the 1914 campaign was uneven. The peacetime failings in command and control had been ruthlessly exposed on many occasions, and the vital necessity for the separate arms to work closely together was a lesson that was painfully and sometimes inadequately learned. The morale of the other ranks had proved too dependent on the inspirational qualities of their officers; when officers became casualties, or otherwise failed as leaders, the men fell back from exposed front-line positions with alarming frequency. Good leadership at all levels was a precursor to battlefield success.
The accomplishments of I Corps compared favourably with those of other corps formations, most notably Smith-Dorrien’s II Corps. Smith-Dorrien was popular among his troops and gained widespread public sympathy for his dignified response to the vindictive post-war campaign waged against him by Sir John French, but this should not obscure his flaws as a general. Whether at Le Cateau, the Aisne or in the battles fought to the south of Ypres he repeatedly failed to impose himself on the battlefield. The passive nature of his style of command seems to have passed down to his subordinates who so often made a virtue of inaction. At brigade level, for example, the sheer lack of grip found among II Corps brigadiers like Gleichen and McCracken, during both the Aisne and Ypres battles, made a poor contrast with the energy and decisiveness of Bulfin, Cavan, FitzClarence and others in I Corps.
But whatever the overall shortcomings of the BEF, during the fight against the German Sixth and Fourth Armies, the line held. And in the battle to defend the Ypres salient, the British Army made its first great contribution to the Allied cause, displaying a steely determination against great odds that won the respect of both Germans and French. But it had come at a price. BEF casualties at Ypres amounted to 58,155 soldiers killed, wounded and missing, a sizable proportion of the total casualty figure of 89, 864 for the whole 1914 campaign.1
Casualties were not spread evenly, with some battalions losing more than their full peacetime strength in the battle. Of the long-suffering 1st Loyal North Lancashires, Lieutenant Hyndson wrote: ‘During 23 days’ continuous fighting we have lost 30 officers and 1,000 other ranks killed, wounded and missing – an appalling figure, including as it does all the trained officers and men in the regiment whom we shall never be able to replace.’2 These losses of experienced officers and men would affect the BEF in the forthcoming year’s fighting, but many of the wounded would return to their units, and the better battalions demonstrated the greatest combat resilience.
The survivors of the 1914 campaign who were still with their units at the end of the year certainly felt a profound sense of loss. The officers, NCOs and regular other ranks had developed a close esprit de corps in the years leading up to 1914, which in many units had been brutally and irrevocably destroyed.
At the end of November, Cyril Helm, the MO of the 2nd KOYLI, was shocked to find that, apart from the quartermaster, he was the only original officer remaining in the battalion: ‘Many new officers had been sent up to replace casualties but had themselves been killed or wounded. It had been appalling seeing one’s friends picked off one after the other, and I can only marvel now that I survived. At times, when I realised all my pals had gone, I nearly went off my head.’3
The remnants of the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles departed the front line at Ypres on 19 November. As he prepared to march out, Corporal John Lucy looked back at his old position:
My eyes weakened, wandered, and rested on the half-hidden corpses of men and youths. Near and far they looked calm, and even handsome, in death. Their strong young bodies thickly garlanded the edge of a wood in the rear, a wood called Sanctuary. A dead sentry at his post, leaned back in a standing position, against a blasted tree, keeping watch over them. Proudly and sorrowfully I looked at them, the Macs and the O’s, and the hardy Ulster boys joined together in death on a foreign field. My dead chums.4
The British government recognized the contribution made by the soldiers of 1914, issuing a special medal for those officers and men who had served in France and Belgium between the declaration of war and midnight on 22/23 November. Some 365,622 individuals were eligible for this award – colloquially known as the Mons Star – an indication of the already substantial British involvement in the war to date.
The soldiers were proud to call themselves Old Contemptibles, after Kaiser Wilhelm’s pronouncement of the BEF as a ‘contemptibly small army’. Like many of his fellow veterans, John Lucy saw himself as a witness to the end of an era in the British Army’s history. ‘The old army was finished’, he wrote at the close of 1914. ‘We remnants stuck to each other in a necessary form of freemasonry. We drew nearer to each other than ever before in our lives, and we got to know and love each other as men never do in peace time.’5