Qualla: Battle of the Lys and the Escaut https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:32 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Battle of the Lys and the Escaut https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut Battle of the Lys and the Escaut: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut/ On the night of 1 November 1918, the 37th US Division reached the Escaut river at Oudenaarde. The orders were simple: get across. Engineers tried repeatedly to build a bridge under German machine-gun fire that swept the water from the eastern bank. Most attempts failed. One company finally got a footbridge over and a bridgehead established. Ten days later the war ended. That bridgehead, gained at heavy cost by American soldiers most of whom would not know what they had achieved until they were already on their way home, was effectively the last forward inch of the Western Front in Flanders. The Battle of the Lys and the Escaut was the closing chapter of four years of trench warfare in the country it had ravaged longest.

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/4/9/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut-wp/u149-battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of the Lys and the Escaut: The Last Belgian Front https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut/ By autumn 1918 the German army was being pushed back along the entire Western Front in what the Allies called the Hundred Days Offensive. In Belgium, King Albert I of Belgium commanded a combined formation called the Groupe d'Armees des Flandres, with French General Jean Degoutte...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/4/9/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut-wp/u149-battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut-the-last-belgian-front.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of the Lys and the Escaut: Three Rivers, Three Weeks https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut/ The third phase opened on 20 October 1918 with the goal of pushing the Germans east of the Escaut, also known as the Scheldt, the river that runs from northern France through Belgium to the North Sea. In the north, Belgian forces attacked positions behind the Deinze-Bruges Canal....

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/4/9/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut-wp/u149-battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut-three-rivers-three-weeks.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of the Lys and the Escaut: The Bridgeheads at Oudenaarde and Melden https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut/ On the night of 1-2 November, units along the entire central sector tried to cross the Escaut. Most attempts were broken by the machine-gun teams the Germans had positioned along the eastern bank - mobile units the German command called Maschinen Gewehr Kompanien, which were used...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/4/9/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut-wp/u149-battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut-the-bridgeheads-at-oudenaarde-and-melden.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of the Lys and the Escaut: The Cost and What Came After https://qualla.com/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut/ The German retreat was orderly rather than a rout, and it inflicted heavy casualties on the advancing Allies. The Belgian Army alone lost one-fifth of its strength between 4 October and 11 November 1918 - one-third of all the casualties it suffered in the entire war, compressed i...

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]]> Sun, 17 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/4/9/battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut-wp/u149-battle-of-the-lys-and-the-escaut-the-cost-and-what-came-after.mp3 0:06 5 full