History — Military history — List of battles — World War I

The First Battle of Ypres was the last major battle of the first year (1914) of World War I.

This battle and the Battle of the Yser marked the end of the race for the sea where the Germans tried to reach the French Channel ports of Calais and Dunkerque, which were the main supply routes for the British Expeditionary Force. Major German advances would not resume until the Spring Offensive of 1918.

Outnumbered and exhausted, the British Expeditionary Force, under the command of General Sir John French, raced north from the mobile fighting of the first two months of the war to join two divisions of reinforcements recently landed in Belgium. They advanced east from St Omer, met and halted the German army at the Passchendaele Ridge to the east of the Belgian town of Ypres. Both sides dug in for trench warfare. The town of Ypres was rapidly demolished by artillery and air attack.

The Germans called the battle "The Massacre of the Innocents" (German "kindermorden"). Many of the German units conisted of enthuisiastic students. Their offensive had been stopped by a British force, which although outnumbered was highly professional having learned many lessons from the Boer War.