The First Battle of Ypres (19 October – 22 November) was a First World War battle fought around Ypres, in western Belgium during October and November 1914. The battle took place as part of the First Battle of Flanders (French: Première Bataille des Flandres German: Erste Flandernschlacht), in which German, French, Belgian and British armies fought from Arras in France to Nieuport on the Belgian coast, from 10 October to mid-November. The battles at Ypres began at the end of the Race to the Sea which involved attempts by the German and Franco-British armies to advance past the northern flank of their opponents. North of Ypres the fighting continued in the Battle of the Yser (16–31 October), fought between the German 4th Army and a largely-Belgian force.
The fighting has been divided into five stages, an encounter battle from 19–21 October, the Battle of Langemarck from 21–24 October, the battles at La Bassée and Armentières to 2 November, coincident with more Allied attacks at Ypres and the Battle of Gheluvelt (29–31 October), a fourth phase with the last big German offensive which culminated at the Battle of Nonne Bosschen on 11 November then local operations, which faded out in late November. J. E. Edmonds, the British Official Historian, wrote that the II Corps battle at La Bassée could be taken as separate but that the battles from Armentières to Messines and Ypres, were better understood as a battle in two parts, an offensive by III Corps and the Cavalry Corps from 12–18 October), against which the Germans retired and an offensive by the German 6th and 4th armies from (19 October – 2 November), which from 30 October took place mainly north of the Lys, when the battles of Armentières and Messines merged with the Battles of Ypres