Back to Richard Tobin and his Royal Naval Division mates in the ‘trenches’ at Antwerp.

Antwerp

Antwerp is a lost cause. The Belgian field army is evacuating as quickly as possible down every west road. The Royal Naval Division remain in their scrapes in the ground and continue to wait. They’re not even coming under attack. The Germans have chosen to concentrate their fire on areas held by the local garrison troops, left behind to cover the army’s retirement. They’ve now advanced far enough for their heaviest guns to fire on the city itself. All the Royal Naval Division can do is keep their heads down and wait for orders. They’ve now gone from feeling neglected to feeling useless as Antwerp burns behind them.

Other

Meanwhile, the 7th Division has arrived at Zeebrugge, and marches towards Bruges. The Channel ports are no longer wide open, although the Allies are still many miles from winning what’s often (inaccurately; it completely mischaracterises the nature of the battles) referred to as the Race to the Sea. So, where’s everyone else?

The Royal Naval Division and Marines are still mouldering in Antwerp. The original BEF is divided many ways as it crawls north; the ones making the best time are just crossing the River Somme at Abbeville. The Germans are still trying to push the French off Vimy Ridge. A line has established itself east of Arras, but the French can’t move enough men north quickly enough to stop the Germans installing themselves in Lens, and the line begins to form just west of the city.

To the north, a critical Belgian railway line runs from Bruges through Roulers and Mouscron to Lille and then into Lens. From Lille, even in 1914 you can get everywhere; including places like St Quentin, now firmly in German hands, where reserves might be usefully kept for maximum flexibility in travel. If the Allies can seize and hold that railway, they will likewise be able to reinforce the area as needed while keeping their reserves in a more flexible position. It could all go either way.

Actions in Progress

Siege of Antwerp
Battle of the Vistula

Further Reading

The Daily Telegraph is republishing its archives from the war day-by-day. In today’s paper: The archivist gives a nice pencil-sketch of the sort of things that might appear in a typical day’s paper, which I hope they won’t mind me reproducing.

By now the Telegraph has pretty much settled into a pattern with its war reportage, with whatever official news comes out from France, Russia and Serbia taken at face value, German reports denigrated, articles about how dreadful the Germans have been in Belgium/France, plus any opportunity we can take to have a pop at the enemy armies, reports culled from letters from our soldiers home, articles from a number of reporters mainly somewhere around the western front, and analysis from some writers, such as Archibald Hurd’s “British Navy and Its Work” column, and today is a pretty typical example of such a paper.

There’s also an amusing story on Page 4, about an actor’s prosecution for actual bodily harm after assaulting the director of his current play with a stage dagger. By the time it gets to court, the two are now friends again, and the magistrate contents himself with binding over the actor to keep the peace. On the same page, Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells complains that someone (most likely himself) can’t get served in a pub while wearing his army uniform, a highly interesting manifestation of the traditional British suspicion of uniformed soldiers and standing armies.

On Tumblr, Today in World War I looks at the arrival of 7th Division in Belgium.