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Fought in several phases around the city of Ypres itself and along the Yser River to the north and south, the battle chiefly involved the German Fourth and Sixth Armies against the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), the French 8th Army, and units of the Belgian Army. Consisting largely of massed infantry attacks against increasingly fortified defensive positions, backed by artillery and machine guns, it resulted in very heavy casualties on both sides, but especially for the Germans, who did the majority of the attacking. This, and the inability to break through the lines of the western Allies, would be a factor in the subsequent decision of the German leadership to avoid seeking a decisive battle and instead focus on a strategy of attrition; thus cementing the shift to [[trench warfare]] on the [[Western Front]].
Fought in several phases around the city of Ypres itself and along the Yser River to the north and south, the battle chiefly involved the German Fourth and Sixth Armies against the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), the French 8th Army, and units of the Belgian Army. Consisting largely of massed infantry attacks against increasingly fortified defensive positions, backed by artillery and machine guns, it resulted in very heavy casualties on both sides, but especially for the Germans, who did the majority of the attacking. This, and the inability to break through the lines of the western Allies, would be a factor in the subsequent decision of the German leadership to avoid seeking a decisive battle and instead focus on a strategy of attrition; thus cementing the shift to [[trench warfare]] on the [[Western Front]].
==Background==
Following the [[First Battle of the Marne]] in early September 1914, in which the Franco-British armies checked the German advance toward [[Paris]], neither side held a clear strategic advantage: the Germans' attempt to quickly win the war in the west with a knockout blow against [[France]] had failed and they were now on the defensive, but the Allies had suffered heavy casualties in the battle and were able to advance only slowly. The German armies retreated a short distance to the Aisne River in northeastern France, where they entrenched and repulsed Allied attacks in the First Battle of the Aisne (September 13-28).
By this point, it was clear to both sides that a frontal assault against fixed enemy positions could only succeed at great cost to themselves; therefore, they began attempting to turn each other's northern flank, in the open country of northern France and western Belgium between the Aisne and the [[North Sea]]. The [[Race to the Sea]], as this period of maneuvering was called (inaccurately: the goal was not to reach the sea before the enemy, but to take advantage of the undefended terrain in between), unfolded between late September and late October in a series of pitched battles, as the armies extended their lines farther and farther northward to protect their own flank and search for a weakness in that of the enemy. These efforts ultimately proved fruitless, however; by mid-October, the front lines extended almost all the way to the sea. The last stretch of open country was plugged by the Belgian army around October 17-19 as it retreated from [[Antwerp]], marking the effective end of the "race."<ref>John Keegan, ''The First World War'' (1998), p. 123-29.</ref>
==References==
{{reflist}}
[[Category:World War I Battles]]
[[Category:World War I Battles]]