Retention of Ypres - Politically Important

[PhilB]

It seems to have been an article of faith that Ypres should be defended and retained as it was "politically important". But to whom? The French probably didn`t care one way or the other. To the BEF, military factors were more important. Which leaves the Belgians who probably did want it retained as their last major town but I can`t see why that should have greatly influenced the BEF. So what were the overriding political reasons?

[Clio]

There is another dimension to this argument. Its strategic value may well have been questionable but as far as the newspapers (and by extension the British public) was concerned, oceans of British blood had been spilled in its defence - some might argue to a profligate degree. Given the cost incurred in holding it, had Britain been willing to cede Ypres, that same British public which had so enthusiastically sent its sons, would surely at the very least question the value of the War. The very basis of British democracy itself might even be threatened. Think of the chaotic impulses unleashed within British society in the years 1919-26. What if the ceding of Ypres had acted as a catalyst and this social dislocation had boiled over while Britain was at war...?

By late 1917 too much blood had been invested in the Salient. The political price for the British Government inherent in any loss of Ypres would have been incalculable. For the British elite, retention of Ypres was not merely a study in strategy or emotional leverage. It had become, rather, a matter of realpolitik.

Thats not to say Smith-Dorrien had not been right !

[GlenBanna]

If the British had lost Ypres the ports of Dunkirk and Calais would have been threatened with disastrous results in terms of supplies and means of retreat if necessary. Also the Hazebrouk rail centre was nearby.

Glen

[bruce]

We went to war to safeguard Belgium. Giving up the last sizeable town in Belgium would have given all the wrong messages.

What is more, our associations with Ypres go back to the Middle Ages. The Cloth Hall was, at least in part, built for the sale of English woollen cloth, our major export.

Had Ypres fallen in 1914, there would have been little to stop the Germans getting to the Channel coast, and we may have had an earlier Dunkirk. By 1917, so much British blood had been spilt there that to give it all up had become almost unthinkable.

Bruce

[John_Hartley]

Wot Bruce said.

[truthergw]

I agree with Bruce and John but there is also a tactical question here. Assuming we gave up our toehold on the hills around Ypres, where would we form our next front? It would have to be out of artillery range and it would have to be secure against what would have been a very strong attack as the Germans followed up the retreat with a really determined advance on the Channel ports. I believe Ypres was the best place to hold the Germans and the next best place was the eastern side of the high ground. The attack in 1917 was long overdue and had been mooted since early in the war. The solution to holding Ypres was to push the Germans back, not fall back ourselves.

[bruce]

Thanks John and Tom.

IIRC, Haig went to the Chantilly Conference in late 1915 with a plan for an attack in Flanders. there he was forced into agreeing to the Anglo-French attack on the Somme. Those undependable Germans scuppered it by, who'd have thought it?, attacking at verdun. Haig had to bring forward the attack on the Somme, and take over most of it, so the Flanders idea went onto the back burner.

Then came Nivelle....with his answer for everything,and so the Flanders idea went backwards in the plans again.

By mid-1917, the French were in no state to attack anything, and so Haig took the plans out,dusted them off.....added a few bits, like maybe the sort of possibility of an amphibious assault on the coast, the need to capture Roulers, etc.

The result was Messines (hooray!) and then Passchendaele (boo!).

By Christmas 1917, the British were exhausted, and the French little better than they had been, so it was over to you Bill.....your turn.

He also wasted his men in attacking strategically unimportant areas (like the old Somme battlefields), ran out of steam, used up all his reserves.....and then the 100 Days.

There......WW1 in ten lines!

Bruce

[phil andrade]

The Ypres Salient was hallowed ground, we are told...too much blood spilt to allow for withdrawal without unthinkable repurcussions. Smith Dorrien didn't think so, and he was sacked. Three years later a large part of the ground which it had taken a hundred days and a quarter of a million casualties to wrest from the Germans was relinquished in a few hours as a tactical/ strategic necessity. Verdun held similar sway over the French. What was so important about Ypres...its symbolic value, or its actual position en route to the Channel Ports? Was it the high ground around it, the railways near it, or the town itself that gave it such value ?

Phil.

[PhilB]

The Ypres Salient was hallowed ground, we are told.

When did that come about?

Haig`s diary, 30/4/15:-

"Sir John French came to see me.... to ask my opinion regarding withdrawal from the Ypres Salient.......

I said that I had no doubts as to the wisdom of such a step if the French did not regain the old front but continued in their present position."

Clearly French and Haig had no sentimental attachment to Ypres at that stage.

[Clio]

I rather think the people paying their wages might have arrived at a different conclusion by the end of May 1915. Never underestimate the power of the press.

[phil andrade]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ May 31 2009, 04:35 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When did that come about?

Haig`s diary, 30/4/15:-

"Sir John French came to see me.... to ask my opinion regarding withdrawal from the Ypres Salient.......

I said that I had no doubts as to the wisdom of such a step if the French did not regain the old front but continued in their present position."

Clearly French and Haig had no sentimental attachment to Ypres at that stage.

A few lines of elegaic poetry cited in A.F.Pollard's history of The Great War ( 1920) made an impact on me, and persuaded me to accept the notion that The Salient had assumed a kind of hallowed status in the eyes of the British people. Pollard describes the Second Battle of Ypres, and its outcome, and pitched this reference into his summary:

" an acre sown indeed

With the richest and royallest seed

That the earth did e'er suck in."

In view of your post, I must now reconsider this !

Phil.

[dycer]

In the military sense,I would suggest it was pointless to hold the Salient.The Germans could fire from three sides.Shortening the Line would have reduced this by two sides,saved casualties,reserves,etc.

I take the point about the threat to the Channel Ports,but by giving up the Salient,would not have given the Germans that much territory,and the British defences,would have been that much stronger.

From what little I have read,about the Somme,Haig saw no strategic advantage in an attack in this area and would have preferred to attack through the Ypres area.

Perhaps the deeper question,from my point.Accepting,the Germans had invaded Belgium and France,What were the defenders aims to combat this.Did they wish to recover Belgian and French territory lost.or did they wish,in turn,to invade Germany?

George

[truthergw]

Thing is George, you can't just march into the middle of a flooded field and say, " We'll have a new line here. Tell the men to abandon the Ypres positions and its supporting structures and start digging". Once we abandoned Ypres, we would have had to move way back. The one thing an army needs when up against tough opposition, is room to manoeuvre. In the North West end of the line, Haig was short of that which is why the April attack was so serious. Ypres was a lynch pin. The whole British line north of La Bassee Canal was anchored on it. To voluntarily give it up was unthinkable from a tactical point of view. Why do we suppose the Germans fought for 4 years to try to force the British off it? They even accepted the losses of IIIYpres and still clung on to what they could. Ypres was a symbol and it was a political statement but above all that, it was a strong point and the side that lost it lost the Channel, all the way to Holland.

[Chris_Baker]

What were the defenders aims to combat this.Did they wish to recover Belgian and French territory lost.or did they wish,in turn,to invade Germany?

That is the big question about the war, to me. What indeed were the war aims of that Allies? By 1918, that intelligence and questioning man, staff officer Sir Hereward Wake who was on the British staff at Versailles, was moved to submit a paper titled "Strategy without policy". He could see, as could many others, that there was no collectively agreed Allied policy - and without that, how do any decisions about holding Ypres make sense? The only policy that Wake could recognise - and bear in mind he mixed with the most senior figures, both political and military, of all Allied nations - was that the Allies wanted (quote) "to beat the Boche".

[Wake's papers are held at Northamptonshire Record Office and are a truly insightful and extraordinary collection. You need Wake family permission to access them]

[dycer]

Tom,

I am not into strategic warfare, nor do I immediately comprehend where one particular part of the line folds into another.

Surely the point is, that, in answer to the original question,Ypres was seen as a Town to be held for political advantage,but not necessarily for a military advantage.

George

[phil andrade]

To save me from having to trawl through my books, a quick response to this question would be appreciated.

Was Ypres pre-selected as an objective for purposes of defense and/or offense, or did its importance develop as a result of the encounter battles of the Race to the Sea ?

When the two sides were trying to outflank each other as they edged northward in the autumn of 1914, did Ypres act like a magnet, rather as Gettysburg had done with its confluence of roads, or did it possess a strategic significance in its own right that made its possession an objective ?

Am I right when I recollect that German cavalry patrols entered it and then withdrew before the BEF arrived there in October 1914 ?

Flanders is so flat that such ridges and hills as there are have immense significance. It was surely the retention of these prominent positions that mattered....why the need to hold the town itself ?

Phil.

[PhilB]

But if holding Ypres was militarily essential, did the BEF fortify it as the Germans did in places like Mouquet Farm? Was Ypres a fortress designed to be defended? I`ve seen no signs of that when there?

[Alan Tucker]

That is the big question about the war, to me. What indeed were the war aims of that Allies? By 1918, that intelligence and questioning man, staff officer Sir Hereward Wake who was on the British staff at Versailles, was moved to submit a paper titled "Strategy without policy". He could see, as could many others, that there was no collectively agreed Allied policy - and without that, how do any decisions about holding Ypres make sense? The only policy that Wake could recognise - and bear in mind he mixed with the most senior figures, both political and military, of all Allied nations - was that the Allies wanted (quote) "to beat the Boche".

[Wake's papers are held at Northamptonshire Record Office and are a truly insightful and extraordinary collection. You need Wake family permission to access them]

British war aims were made clear by Lloyd George in his 'War Aims' speech of January 1918. Given the Allied divisions which surfaced at Versailles beating the Boche was the essential first step.

[phil andrade]

QUOTE (Phil_B @ May 31 2009, 07:32 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But if holding Ypres was militarily essential, did the BEF fortify it as the Germans did in places like Mouquet Farm? Was Ypres a fortress designed to be defended? I`ve seen no signs of that when there?

All those old moats and ramparts testify to its strategic significance, I suppose....even if they appertain to Medieaval times. But, to revert to a more fundamental question, was it more important as a defensive bastion to stop the Germans moving forward, or as a jumping off point to launch attacks designed to expel them from their positions in Flanders?

In general terms, it must have been anathema to the Entente to yield up any more Franco-Belgian ground to an enemy that had already conquered so much of it.

Phil.

[Robert Dunlop]

Ypres, the town, was not like Moquet Farm. There were plenty of 'Moquet Farms' around Ypres that were defended by the British, in much the same way as Moquet Farm was part of a defensive system that protected major centres, such as Bapaume, further to the rear.

From the British perspective, the major consideration was the coast of Belgium. German occupation of the coast, and thereby the Belgian coastal ports, posed a direct threat to the Royal Navy and to resupply routes across the Channel. The capture of Ypres, given that the Messines/Wytschaete ridge was already in German hands, would have meant that the Germans occupied all of the dominant high ground as well. This is because the key to defending Ypres was not the town itself, but the high ground to the south and east. Had both been lost, the innundations to the north would have been indefensible. The Germans would have turned these positions without any major difficulty. A significant length of the French coast would have been lost, including additional major ports as has been mentioned. New German coastal batteries would have dominated the areas between ports, for tens of miles into the Channel.

I agree that it would have been difficult to find a similar line of defense, ie a line that was difficult for the Germans to take, for some considerable distance further west. The history of Ypres shows that it was an ideal defensive position for the Allies. Its position in history was determined the way that the Race to the Sea played out, particularly the flooding east of the Yser by the Belgians, who protected the line to the north of Ypres in association with the French.

It should be noted that the Germans faced a similar problem with respect to the strategic location of Ypres. If the British had been able to capture the Passchendaele-Staden ridge earlier in the Battle of Third Ypres, then their hold on the Belgian coastal ports would have come under significant threat. I have seen comments from German commanders noting how close they came to ordering a significant withdrawal had the British offensive been maintained in 1917.

Ypres was, therefore, both a location that needed to defended and a potential jumping off point.

It was not necessary to hold all of the high ground around Ypres in order to defend it. More specifically, to defend what Ypres represented, ie the key to unlocking the defense of the innundations to the north, and thereby the protection of the coastal ports in Allied hands. Ceding some of the high ground, as eventually happened during Second Ypres and in the Spring of 1918, was not the same as abandoning Ypres totally.

Inevitably, there had to be salients and re-entrants along the Western Front. Geography dictated this. Equally inevitably, one or more of the salients had to be of such vital importance that they became the focus of significant military actions, and therefore casualties. There is absolutely no way, IMHO, that the British could have considered a withdrawal from Ypres just because they were suffering more casualties in this area compared to 'quieter' parts of the line. Leaving aside any other considerations, such a withdrawal would have exposed some other part, previously 'quiet', to the same attention.

Casualties are the inevitable consequence of war. The Great War illustrated that when determined enemies collide, and neither wants to give up, then casualties continue, no matter what is done. When combined with the effects of total war, eg blockades, the general effects on societies, etc, then casualties form part of a total cost that ultimately proves too much for one side to bear before the other. Neither side 'wins', however. Temporarily reducing the casualty rate in one location would not have changed the total for the duration, again IMHO. War is not forgiving; it does not permit any such self-indulgence, not on any lasting basis.

Robert

[squirrel]

Very interesting and enlightening thread with excellent contributions -

Robert,

your post #20 is superbly written and explained. I wish I could write with such eloquence.

[Alan Tucker]

if preventing German access to the Channel ports by holding the Salient was a strategic necessity in military terms it was the same in political terms because the main reason we went to war was to prevent the German Navy having Channel ports and therefore posing a threat to the UK itself.

[Clio]

Like Zeebrugge and Ostende...?

[PhilB]

Robert`s reply prompts a few question:-

When French/Haig considered abandoning the Salient, where did they intend to retire to?

Why was it necessary to defend the inundations if they were impassible?

The Germans did at times hold the high ground to the east & south - why wasn`t that critical?

To what extent was Ypres town fortified for defence by the BEF?

[Robert Dunlop]

It is important not to confuse 'abandoning the salient' with 'abandoning Ypres'. They are not the same thing. Essentially, the idea was to shorten the lines and pull back to the GHQ line, which was still east of Ypres.

The inundations were not impassable. But they were difficult to pass through. This meant that German troops, and more importantly their support weapons, struggled to get across the inundations. In turn, this meant that the stretched Belgian Army (in late 1914) could actually hold on - the inundations negated the significant superiority in German troop numbers and artillery.

The Germans never held all of the high ground east and south of Ypres. The Battle of Third Ypres was launched from positions across the ridge near Stirling Castle. The British were able to hold this higher (but not always highest) area because it was so difficult to attack it, precisely the problem they ran into when attacking towards Passchendaele.

Robert