Halen 2
Today the battlefield is still pretty pristine. It is much today similar to how it was in 1914. There has not been a huge amount of urban encroachment, this is not at all like Waterloo. You can still stand in the middle of the battlefield and easily envision what transpired. Today the roads are mostly paved bicycle paths. Some are paved and big enough to drive on. Field division by wire fencing is not obvious. But what is are the rivers. These ranged in width substantially with some small enough to literally step over. All of them have extremely sharp, deep banks. One would have to take special care not to step in it with your horse. The other extreme terrain feature are sunken roads. We all identify them as roads that have been worn down by centuries of wagons going down the road. Many of these from the American Civil War can almost be waist deep. Here at Halen they are much much deeper than the height of a man. If you approach it from a perpendicular angle the road is totally non visible.
Hydrographically, the wetlands and rivers formed a natural defense. The Gete River had only an existing bridge along the main road at Halen. “The bridge we can see well at our right hand side is four to five meters long. Three meters below the bridge was a river with two feet of water.” The only passage towards the west was through Halen, via the Gete and Velp Bridges. There is a Gete crossing on the east side of Halen, and the first buildings in the town stood across the bridge. On the south was a mill house; on the north, the Wauters family’s brewery. Other bridges were more than five kilometers to the south, near Geetbets. However, these already had been blown up by 10 August.
North of Halen, approximately 1.4 kilometers from the center of the village, the Demer and Herk Rivers flowed in a meadow wetland. East of Halen, the Gete River flowed from south to north. North of Halen, it flowed into the Herk River; after about 100 meters, the Demer River absorbed them both. Downstream, the river was ten meters wide and two meters deep. The Velp Creek ran though Halen from the south, turned northwest near Zelk and emptied into the Demer River. The banks of the Velp were soggy in many places, but it was far less wide than the Gete River. West of the Velp Creek was dry ground and a third very small creek with dry banks known as the IJzerbeek Creek. The Gete River, an obstacle in its own right, provided a perfect location for a quick defense against any follow-on German forces.
All terrain north of Halen was wet and marshy from the Velp until past the Demer River, approximately five kilometers north of Halen. Wetlands stretched out along the Gete River as well. Rows of trees and hedges interrupted the visibility, and many of the fields and built-up areas contained dividers of wire fences.
Just behind the river, the Drieslinter-Halen railroad track cut the landscape. The railroad track came from the south, from Geetbets. As this track crossed the Velp, it turned northwest towards Diest. The Halen railroad station was located southwest of the village, about 500 meters from the church on the Halen-Loksbergen Road. This was also the terminus for a tramway connecting Halen and Herk-de-Stad. There was not a significantly elevated berm for the track, so it did not present a movement barrier as modern European railways might. The telephone poles along the railroad track showed from a distance where the railroad track was.
Halen is about twenty-five meters above sea level, and the road towards Diest is fairly flat. Between the Velp Creek and the Gete River, the terrain slowly climbs towards the south about four meters per kilometer. The terrain is dominated by two hills: Mettenberg and Bokkenberg. Starting from Halen, the terrain climbs up to a thirty-meter plateau near Velpen. This plateau is situated between the Velp and the IJzerbeek Creeks. In the Loksbergen region, it climbs up to forty-four meters. Then, continuing towards the west is Klein Frankrijk, Little France Hill, at fifty-four meters. From the IJzerwinning Farm, the terrain climbs again, to fifty-five meters at the Mettenberg Hill. Between the Mettenberg Hill and Loksbergen in the tiny IJzerbeek Valley, the terrain is flat with a slight inclination from Halen up to Loksbergen. The Diest road to Zelk is also flat. But 800 meters before Zelk, the terrain climbs steeply to sixty or seventy meters. This is the Bokkenberg Hill. The Loksbergen Wood is located south of Loksbergen; south of the Velp stood the Provincial Wood (Provinciebossen). In 1914, both woods were quite large.
From Velpen to the Vogelzang Farm, the Betserbaan Road cut the battlefield about halfway between Halen and the IJzerwinning Farm. This road has several deep, sunken parts. Just in front of the IJzerwinning Farm is another stretch of shallow, hollow track. The Kannonierstraat from Halen to the Mettenberg Hill was a sunken road as well. The whole area was agricultural, with wire-fenced pastures, fields, and hedges in some places. This was especially true along the Halen-Zelk Road; around the village of Halen; and north, east, and southwest of Velpen. Many poplar trees were concentrated in small plantations or bordered the pastures; most of the poplars and hedges were concentrated east of the railroad station toward Velpen.
North of Loksbergen, Mettenberg Hill, and Liebroek up to Halen were practically without a visible obstacle. From a distance, the future field of battle looked fairly flat and clear, but it would become quite treacherous when galloping, as sunken tracks and wire fences cut through the seeming pastoral landscape. The net effect of this terrain was to constrict the German Cavalry to the roads—cavalry units considered riding cross-country in the face of rivers, canals, and fences intolerable.