The battles at Ypres began at the end of the Race to the Sea, reciprocal attempts by the German and Franco-British armies to advance past the northern flank of their opponents.

The defensive firepower of artillery and machine guns dominated the battlefield and the ability of the armies to supply themselves and replace casualties prolonged battles for weeks.

Over the winter, Falkenhayn reconsidered Germany strategy because Vernichtungsstrategie and the imposition of a dictated peace on France and Russia had exceeded German resources.

[5][4] Small detachments of the Belgian, French and British armies conducted operations in Belgium and northern France, against German cavalry and Jäger.

[6] On 27 August, a squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) flew to Ostend, for reconnaissance sorties between Bruges, Ghent and Ypres.

II Corps arrived around Abbeville from 8 to 9 October and concentrated to the north-east around Gennes-Ivergny, Gueschart, Le Boisle and Raye, preparatory to an advance on Béthune.

As BEF units arrived, operations began piecemeal on the northern flank; the Belgian army refused a request by Joffre to leave the National redoubt of Belgium and sortie against German communications.

East of the line, the land declines in a series of spurs into the Flanders plain, bounded by canals linking Douai, Béthune, Saint-Omer and Calais.

From Kemmel, a low ridge lies to the north-east, declining in elevation past Ypres through Wytschaete (Wijtschate), Gheluvelt and Passchendaele (Passendale), curving north then north-west to Diksmuide where it merges with the plain.

The Lys, Yser and upper Scheldt are canalised and between them, the water level underground is close to the surface, rises further in the autumn and fills any dip, the sides of which then collapse.

The terrain was difficult for infantry operations because of the lack of observation, impossible for mounted action because of the many obstructions and awkward for artillery because of the limited view.

South of La Bassée Canal around Lens and Béthune was a coal-mining district full of slagheaps, pitheads (fosses) and miners' houses (corons).

North of the canal, the city of Lille, Tourcoing and Roubaix formed a manufacturing complex, with outlying industries at Armentières, Comines, Halluin and Menin (Menen), along the Lys river, with isolated sugar beet and alcohol refineries and a steelworks near Aire-sur-la-Lys.

In France, the roads were closed by the local authorities during thaws to preserve the surface and marked by Barrières fermėes signs, which were ignored by British lorry drivers.

As the contending armies moved north into Flanders, the flat terrain and obstructed view, caused by the number of buildings, industrial concerns, tree foliage and field boundaries, forced changes in British artillery methods.

Lack of observation was remedied in part by decentralising artillery to infantry brigades and by locating the guns in the front line but this made them more vulnerable and several batteries were overrun in the fighting between Arras and Ypres.

Devolving control of the guns made concentrated artillery-fire difficult to arrange, because of a lack of field telephones and the obscuring of signal flags by mists and fog.

As the fighting moved north into Belgian Flanders, the artillery found that Shrapnel shells had little effect on buildings and called for high explosive ammunition.

German accounts stress the accuracy of Allied sniper fire, which led troops to remove the spike from Pickelhaube helmets and for officers to carry rifles to be less conspicuous.

The German reserve corps infantry were poorly trained and ill-equipped but on 10 October, Falkenhayn issued a directive that the 4th Army was to cross the Yser, advance regardless of losses and isolate Dunkirk and Calais, then turn south towards Saint-Omer.

Next day sluice gates on the coast at Nieuwpoort were opened, which flooded the area between the Yser and the railway embankment, running north from Diksmuide.

[39] Further north, French cavalry was pushed back to the Yser by the XXIII Reserve Corps and by nightfall was dug in from the junction with the British at Steenstraat to the vicinity of Diksmuide, the boundary with the Belgian army.

Strict economies were imposed on the 6th Army formations further south, to provide artillery ammunition for 250 heavy guns supporting an attack to the north-west, between Gheluvelt and Messines.

On 10 November, 12+1⁄2 German divisions of the 4th and 6th Armies, Armeegruppe Fabeck and XXVII Reserve Corps attacked from Nonne Bosschen (Nun's Copse) and the edge of Polygon Wood, to Gheluvelt and across the Menin Road to Shrewsbury Forest in the south.

[51] Both sides had tried to advance after the "open" northern flank had disappeared, the Franco-British towards Lille in October, followed by attacks by the BEF, Belgians and a new French Eighth Army in Belgium.

Neither side had moved forces to Flanders fast enough to obtain a decisive victory and both were exhausted, short of ammunition and suffering from collapses in morale, with some infantry units refusing orders.

Field fortifications had neutralised many classes of offensive weapon and the defensive firepower of artillery and machine-guns had dominated the battlefield; the ability of the armies to supply themselves and replace casualties kept battles going for weeks.

This was a false notion, picked out of a translation of Die Schlacht an der Yser und bei Ypern im Herbst 1914 (1918), which the official historians used, in lieu of authoritative sources, during the writing of the 1914 volumes of the British History of the Great War, the first editions of which were published in 1922 and 1925.

Claims that up to 75 per cent of the manpower of the reserve corps were student volunteers, who attacked while singing Deutschland über alles began a myth.

[65] A reorganisation of the defence of Flanders had been carried out by the Franco-British from 15 to 22 November, which left the BEF holding a homogeneous front from Givenchy to Wytschaete 21 mi (34 km) to the north.