all of Antwerp to the Beginning of the Battle for Warsaw

When it became apparent to General French that the line of the Aisne,
to which the Germans had retreated after the battle of the Marne, was
too strong to be forced, he withdrew his troops, about 100,000 men,
from the line, his place being filled by the French reserves. The
object of the withdrawal was another flanking movement against the
German right. The idea seems to have been that by withdrawing and
entraining at night the movement would be entirely concealed from the
Germans until the British were actually in Belgium, and that an
advance along the left bank of the Scheldt would turn the flank of the
whole German army in France, compelling a general retreat. The
movement was discovered by German air scouts, however, and the troops
that had been before Antwerp met and checked the British, who took up
finally the line along the Yser Canal, through Ypres to La Bassee,
opposed by three German army corps.

But one thing saved the British from another defeat and prevented a
more disastrous retreat than that from Mons and Charleroi. When the
Germans took Antwerp the Belgian garrison of about 50,000 men escaped
and by a brilliant retreat retired to a line from Nieuport to Dixmude.
They thus guarded the left flank of the British line and by a
stubborn resistance prevented this flank from being turned and the
British driven south toward Paris. Nothing else prevented Dunkirk,
Calais, and Boulogne from falling into German hands at this time.

As it afterward turned out, the German plan, after the fall of
Antwerp, was a sudden drive to Calais. The plan was conceived and the
movement begun at the same time General French put into execution his
attempt to outflank the German position. These forces met on the
Ypres-La Bassee line, and both were halted. It was a fortuitous
chance, then, that the Germans were held back from the coast, as well
as deprived of an opportunity to strike at Paris from the north. For
three weeks the Germans battled fiercely, with almost total disregard
for the loss of life involved. Finally the attack died out, and with
its death the whole line from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier
settled down to trench warfare.

While the armies in the west were checking each other until the status
of a "stalemate" had been reached, affairs in the eastern theatre had
been moving rapidly. Persuaded by German money, a temptation the Turk
has ever been powerles