Battle of La Bassée

The Battle of La Bassée was a battle between British and German forces in northern France in October 1914, and was part of the Race to the Sea.

The German 6th Army took Lille before the British force could secure the town, while the 4th Army arrived and attacked the exposed British flank at Ypres. The British were driven back; the German Army occupied La Bassée and Neuve Chapelle. Around the 15th of October, the British took over initiative and recaptured Givenchy. However, they failed to reach La Bassée. Meanwhile, the German troops got reinforcements, and retook the initiative. Thanks to the arrival of the Lahore Division of the Indian Corps, the British held off the further German attacks until early November, when both sides focused their interest on the battle of Ypres, so the battle around La Bassée died out and the line stabilized.

The battle of La Bassée, 10 October-2 November 1914, was part of the Race to the Sea, the series of battles that established the line of the Western Front from the Aisne to the North Sea. The BEF had been swept up in the great retreat that had ended at the first battle of the Marne. Once the situation east of Paris had stabilised, it was decided to move the BEF north to Flanders. This would greatly simplify the problems of supplying the British army in France by bringing the army closer to the channel ports. It was also still believed that it would be possible to get around the right flank of the German armies that had marched south to the Marne, and Flanders was seen as a good area for cavalry.