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The dwindling of the action around Arras, from October 4 onward, was immediately followed by back-and-forth combat around the major industrial city of Lille farther north, which the French occupied on the 4th (using mostly Territorial soldiers from their overseas colonies), but were eventually pushed out by the Germans after a week of close-quarters fighting in which Lille suffered significant damage. The loss of the city, which finally fell on October 12, was a significant but not a fatal blow to the French war economy.
The dwindling of the action around Arras, from October 4 onward, was immediately followed by back-and-forth combat around the major industrial city of Lille farther north, which the French occupied on the 4th (using mostly Territorial soldiers from their overseas colonies), but were eventually pushed out by the Germans after a week of close-quarters fighting in which Lille suffered significant damage. The loss of the city, which finally fell on October 12, was a significant but not a fatal blow to the French war economy.
===Battle of La Bassée===
As the front extended northward beyond the Arras-Lens sector, the opposing armies entered the historical region of [[Flanders]] in northeastern France and western Belgium, characterized by a flat, low-lying plain composed of heavy clay soils, cut by a number of streams and canals. On the one hand, the topography made flanking maneuvers and even (given the relative lack of high ground) frontal attacks significantly easier; on the other, the boggy ground often rendered large-scale movements impossible except along the roads.
At the beginning of October, the only Allied force available to defend Flanders against German attacks was the Belgian army, falling back westward after having been forced to evacuate the port of [[Antwerp]]. Doubting whether it would be enough to prevent a sustained assault, Joffre secured Sir John French's agreement to move the BEF into the region, creating a new line extending from the left flank of Maud'huy's 10th Army north to the Belgian city of Ypres. The British began arriving on October 8 and over the next two days reached positions immediately east and north of the city of Béthune. By this time, the Germans had organized some of their reserve units and the detachments which had taken Antwerp into a new formation, the Fourth Army, and Falkenhayn sent it into Flanders to match the Allied move.
Beginning on October 9, some of the Fourth Army troops began clashing with French cavalry around the town of La Bassée and the adjoining canal of the same name. The Germans were eventually driven off, and as the BEF arrived, it succeeded in advancing to a point some 10 miles east of Béthune, both north and south of the La Bassée canal. The British began digging in along this line on the 12th, but for the next several days endured repeated German attacks, especially around Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée, which was lost and then recaptured. This was followed by an assault on the BEF's northern flank around Ypres itself, but eventually its own reinforcements (in this case arriving from India) were able to stem the tide. Fighting in the La Bassée sector continued into early November, eventually segueing into the First Battle of Ypres.
===End of the Race===
The failure of either side to achieve a breakthrough around Ypres effectively marked the end of any real chance for the Allies or the Germans to outflank each other before running out of room to maneuver. The remaining strip of territory was a narrow coastal belt along the North Sea in westernmost Belgium, prone to flooding and thus not very passable. By October 19, the Belgian army, completing its westward withdrawal from Antwerp, had reached this ground and began to entrench, its flanks resting on the North Sea to its left and the BEF line to its right. This brought the "Race to the Sea" to an end.
==References==
==References==