The First Battle of Ypres
On 28 July 1914, one month to the day after Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife were killed by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. A few days later, Germany declared war on Russia and Britain declared war on Germany. After advancing relatively quickly through Belgium and eastern France during the first weeks of the war, the Germans suffered defeat in September in the Battle of the Marne. In that month, all German nationals were expelled from Belgium.1 In the Benedictine Abbey in Ypres, four members of the community were German. They had to leave the country immediately, travelling first from Ypres to Bruges; the Bishop assisted their passage from there to Holland.2 The remaining fifteen nuns (fourteen professed and one novice) had expected that their German sisters would return within a few weeks but, on 7 October, a German aeroplane passed over the town and shortly afterwards, at about 1.30 p.m., everyone was startled by the sound of firing close by. Dame Columban Plomer wrote: ‘In the Monastery, it was the spiritual-reading hour, so we were not able to communicate our fears; but, instead of receding, the sound came nearer, till, at 2 o’clock, the shots from the guns literally made the house shake.’.3 The nuns did not know what was happening until ‘Reverend Mother Prioress announced … [that] the Germans were in the town.’.4
The strategy of both sides in the war after that was to secure the ports on the English Channel, beginning what became known as the ‘Race to the Sea’. German forces launched a major offensive that aimed to push forward to the Channel ports of Dunkirk and Calais. Ypres, located on the northeast corner of Belgium bordering France, was in an extremely important position strategically, as it was effectively the fortress blocking their route. To achieve their objectives, it was necessary for Germany to take Ypres; for the Entente it was essential to ensure that they failed. This resulted in the First Battle of Ypres, which lasted until late November, and was described as ‘the centre of the most terrible fighting in the War’.5
By the end of October, it had become apparent that the fighting was not going to end as soon as had at first been widely believed. The burgomaster sent round word that from henceforward until further orders, no strong lights should be visible from outside the monastery and no bells should be rung from six in the evening until the following day. Consequently, when night fell, the monastery remained in darkness, each nun contenting herself with the minimum of light. A few strokes of a little handbell summoned the community to hours of regular observance, instead of the familiar sound of the belfry-bell, which had, for two and a half centuries, rung out each succeeding hour. Inside the monastery, the nuns ‘were no longer able to say the office in the choir, as on one side the windows looked on the street, and on the other to the garden, the light being thus clearly visible from the ramparts’.6 Instead, they ‘said compline and matins, first in the workroom and afterwards in the chapter-house, placing a double set of curtains on the windows to prevent the least little glimmer of light from being seen from the outside’.7
The Irish Dames Leave Ypres
Many of the inhabitants of the town were forced to leave as ‘dwelling places and public buildings had been destroyed’.8 It was therefore decided that, in case of emergency, each nun should prepare a parcel of what was most necessary, ‘lest the worst should come, and [they] should be obliged to fly’.9 At first, it was felt that only their Abbess, Dame Bergé, should be removed and sent to Poperinge for her safety. She left the enclosure reluctantly: she had not stepped outside the Abbey in sixty years. Some days later, the nuns ‘managed to gather some things, which were needed, and to get out of the town just as the guns were beginning again’.10 Prioress Ostyn, with the last of the Irish Dames of Ypres, left the Abbey and walked the nine miles to Poperinge, where they were given shelter by a community of La Sainte Union nuns. For two weeks they stayed in Poperinge until they secured transport to Boulogne.
On the last day of October, German cavalry units had begun a more concentrated attack. Over the next three weeks, the fighting was chaotic, with casualty figures on both sides mounting as the weather grew cold and blustery. On 22 November, amid high winds and blizzards, fighting was suspended completely and the First Battle of Ypres came to an end. Both sides suffered heavy losses. Germany lost approximately 130,000 men compared with Entente losses of around 100,000 soldiers. Casualties amongst the British Expeditionary Force effectively destroyed Britain’s highly trained pre-war army.11 On that same day, the nuns left Boulogne and sailed for England. After a short stay in London, they made their way to the Benedictine Abbey in Oulton, Staffordshire, in response to a pressing invitation from the Abbess. This generous gesture of hospitality reflected the longstanding relationship between these two great abbeys.
The Ypres Benedictines remained at Oulton for six months. However, they knew this was a temporary home for them and that they would have to find a more permanent one. The Mother Prioress hoped to revisit Ypres in order to recover some valuables.12 However, that trip did not happen as the nuns failed to get passports for Belgium. They travelled from Oulton to Highfield House, in Golders Green, London, where they were given hospitality by the Daughters of Wisdom for a further nine months. This community had belonged to the convent of La Sagesse, which had been suppressed and the nuns expelled by the French government a decade earlier. Having settled in London, the Daughters of Wisdom were now in charge of Highfield House, where they were looking after Belgian refugees. To the Benedictines, Highfield House seemed ‘large and commodious … [with] a little chapel in the grounds’.13 Later, the nuns ‘learned that it was really Protestant and only blessed and made fit for our use since the outbreak of the war’.14 When they said goodbye to the Lady Abbess and all the community at Oulton, they were ‘loaded with so many presents that they were obliged to [take] a small trunk to put them in!’.15
All the while, they still hoped to return to Ypres. To this end, a national fund was set up ‘with the support of John Redmond and others, to help the nuns during their stay in England and to finance any future restoration work at Ypres’.16 However, the war continued with no signs of abating and all hopes of returning to Ypres began to diminish. An account from Henry V. Gill SJ, who was Catholic chaplain to the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles in France from November 1914, provides some insight into the fate of the Benedictine Abbey at Ypres during the First World War. In January 1915, Gill made his first visit to Ypres two months after the Dames had left the convent:
At this time the convent was by no means a complete wreck. The upper rooms appeared to be intact. They were locked up and were filled with the nuns’ belongings. Notices in French were attached to the doors, signed by military authorities, forbidding anyone to enter.17
In May 1915, Gill visited Ypres for the second time. Continuous gas attacks and incendiary shells had reduced Ypres to ‘a city of the dead’.18 The Benedictine convent did not escape the destruction; it was ‘completely gutted by fire. All the inner rooms and flooring [were] burnt away. The walls still remained, but nothing else. With a sad exception, the cellars had escaped.’.19
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