6/11/17 Passchendaele taken

[PhilB]

Passchendaele village was taken on this day in 1917 by 6 Canadian Brigade. It was almost the end (Officially Nov 10) of the 3rd Ypres campaign. It was planned to free the coast of U-boat ports in a grand sweep. At the end, it had cost some 350,000 British and 250,000 German casualties for the capture of about 5 miles of swamp. It was all given up a few months later. Can anyone suggest a greater exercise in futility? Phil B

Remembering 11998 Pte J.Cowell, 1 Devons, KIA 6/11/17 in attack on Polderhoek Chateau.

Sorry, guys. I see this topic was covered in a recent thread

[David_Bluestein]

Also remembered today,

[David_Bluestein]

Toronto.

[Guest DNH]

David

That is some mount for the memorial plaque and regimental badge. Any idea who had it made and where they kept it in their house? Was WP Statham a relative of yours?

Interesting piece and unlike most less elaborate frames and mounts I have seen memorial plaques attached to.

Cheers

[Robert Dunlop]

At the end, it had cost some 350,000 British and 250,000 German casualties for the capture of about 5 miles of swamp.

Phil

Some of the ground was VERY swampy. But not the whole salient and not all of the time.

Here is a graph of the rainfall (in mm, not inches) for the period of Third Ypres. It did not take much rain to make the boggy areas deteriorate but there days of clear weather. It was not raining incessantly throughout the campaign.

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

And here are some photos of various parts of the salient at different time throughout the July/November 1917 period that contrast with the usual photographs that are used to illustrate Third Ypres.

The first photo is of Pilkem Ridge on July 31. These are soldiers of the Guards Division. Note how relatively dry the ground is.

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

Here is a bridge over the Yser Canal, near Boesinghe, on 9 August. This is a naturally wet area but notice how there is little mud on the bridge or on the horses' hooves.

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

The ruins of Poelcappelle village on 13 September.

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

Trenches near Wieltje, August 19.

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

Potizje Chateau, 20 September

[Robert Dunlop]

East of Zillebeke, September 22.

[Robert Dunlop]

Near St Julien, 12 October

[Robert Dunlop]

Frezenburg Ridge, October 22 (South African Scottish, 9th Division)

Robert

[PhilB]

The ridges would, I suppose, be the drier places. The valley of the Steenbeek was apparently the worse place. Any pics of that?

I`ve read that it usually rained when an attack was due and I tried to tie up the battle dates with the rainfall chart. Unfortunately september seems to be missing!

Phil B

[Robert Dunlop]

I will check. It would be nice to get pics from earlier and later in the campaign.

The bottom axis is not well labelled. There is only one day of July, then you get August ending in the A, September, then finally October and a bit of November.

Robert

[Robert Dunlop]

Battle of Pilckem (31 July) - 21.7 mm

Capture of Westhoek (10 August) - 1.5 mm

Battle of Langemarck (16 August) - 0 mm

Battle of the Menin Road (20 September) - 0 mm

Battle of Polygon Wood (26 September) - 0.5 mm

Battle of Broodseinde (4 October) - 4.6 mm

Battle of Poelcapelle (9 October) - 0 mm

First Battle of Passchendaele (12 October) - 7.9 mm

Second Battle of Passchendaele (26 October) - 7.8 mm

I do not know where the measures were taken from nor whether they were averages for the area. It is important to note that occasionally on 'dry' days, unit histories will mention a localised cloudburst.

Robert

[PhilB]

I can see the J,A,O & N, but not the S. I suspect they`ve made a hash of the date axis, which makes comparisons of dates with battles somewhat dubious. A for effort, though! Phil B

[PhilB]

Robert:- This is from www.westernfront.co.uk It`s the kind of article that has given me the impression of 3rd Ypres as the "Slough of Despond" Phil B

In planning the capture of Passchendaele Ridge, The Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, and his staff made two major errors of judgement.

Firstly, their anticipation of just how much seasonal rain there would be during the 1917 offensive was far too optimistic - a sort of 'God Only Knows' situation, that in the event went against them. They were warned of the potential heavy rains of autumn, and the unpredictability of the rainfall in the months of July and August, but chose, as usual, to err on the side of optimism. In fact, in four days at the beginning of August 1917 there were 76cm (3-inches) of incessant rain.

Secondly, the pre-offensive 10 days of shelling was completely inappropriate in view of the nature of the terrain, and the inevitable damage that would occur to the extensive drainage system.

In the event, the autumnal rains were both early and exceptionally copious. And the destruction of the drainage system by shelling was totally catastrophic. Lacking a gravel, or stone, sub-stratum, and bearing a high water table, the entire area, apart from the high ground, was a vast sponge. Accordingly, after the ground had been churned up by shelling, and the drainage network wrecked, it was quickly reduced to an almost impassable morass of glutinous mud and pools of stagnant water: it meant trench warfare without stable trench-works. In effect, it became a battle fought from shell holes whose only lines of communications were a zig-zag of treacherous wooden duck-boards. To stray, or slip, from these fragile pathways incurred a serious risk of drowning in mud and water.

The rationale for, and genesis of, the British offensive in Flanders

So why did the BEF commander, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and his staff, chose to fight a battle there? In response, one is tempted to quote the famous Irishman's reply to a request for directions to a particular village: 'If I were going there, I wouldn't start from here'.

In fact, Haig didn't start his offensive at Passchendaele; it was the fourth immediate objective in his overall objective to deprive the Germans of their Belgian Channel Ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge and to deny the German Navy its submarine bases located there. He considered that at a single stroke, this would curtail the depredations of the German U-boats on British and neutral shipping that, at this stage of the war, was so costly that it threatened the entire British war effort.

The genesis of the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele went back to a crucial strategic decision, earlier that year, made by the German commander in Chief, General Erich von Falkenhayn. After the heavy German losses on the Somme and at Verdun in 1916, Falkenhayn decided to withdraw from the battlefield to a new complex and extensive line of defences; called by the British, the Hindenburg Line. Eventually, this complex of entrenchments, strong points and barbed wire, extended across France and into the ridges of Messines and Passchendaele in Flanders. It was a formidable defence line from which the Germans felt able to repel any Allied advance, and one that allowed them to launch their own offensives at a place and time most suitable to them. Haig's riposte to this dramatic initiative was to plan a tentative offensive in Flanders 'sometime in 1917'.

But the Allies strategic position became even more uncertain as 1917 progressed. There were several causative factors.

Firstly, primarily as a result of General Robert Nivelle's catastrophic offensive in April 1917 by four French Armies (4th, 5th, 6th and 10th) in the Chemin des Dames Sector, elements of the French Army on the Western Front refused to take offensive action, whilst maintaining an effective defensive posture. Others, in smaller numbers, actually mutinied, refused to take any orders from their officers and NCO's and deserted. Certainly, after the traumas of the Verdun and Chemin des Dames Offensives, through which almost every man in the French Army had passed at some time, this option of collectively deserting the battlefield must have been a very seductive one. (Although this mutinous situation was not apparent at the time to the German commanders, or they chose for their own reasons to ignore it, it presented the Allied commanders with a problem of the highest order). Consequently, the burden of maintaining the pressure on the German Army in both Belgium and France had unequivocally passed to the British until such time as the French Army could re-energised and the Americans arrived in significant numbers with the promised large quantities of munitions and armaments.

Secondly, there was considerable political pressure on Haig from London over the previously mentioned U-boat threat that was aided by German possession of the Belgian ports.

Thirdly, there was Haig's ambition, despite opposition from the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, for a British 'breakthrough' before the American Army became fully effective on the Western Front. Haig knew, as did few others, just how large and significant the American contribution would be in 1918 and thereafter. He feared, unnecessarily as events turned out, that a British led victory on the Western Front would slip from his hands. Also, a breakout to the North and East would finally allow Haig to deploy his beloved cavalry. A largely thwarted ambition that had been nursed since the trench warfare began in late 1914, despite all the evidence that mounted cavalry would be unable to contend with the mechanised warfare of the Western Front.

And, finally, as the overall strategy and tactics were formulated, there was the small scale, but successful, preparatory action at Messines, in June 1917. This gave indications of how a British-led offensive could be achieved with new tactics and heavy artillery support and with relatively light casualties i.e. 17,000 at Messines.

Accordingly, in May 1917, Haig once again set his Headquarters staff the task of the development of a plan for an offensive in Flanders: an attack overland to meet up with troops at landed by sea at Nieuport on the Belgian coast.

The Third Ypres offensive

The plan that emerged from the British HQ was for the joint Anglo-French offensive out of the Ypres Salient led by General Gough's Fifth Army plus one Corps each of General Plumer's Second Army and General Anthoine's First French Army in support. A total of 12 Divisions were launched along an 18km front east of the town of Ypres. It was preceded on the 31st May 1917 by an unprecedented 10-day preliminary bombardment by 3,000 guns delivering over 4 million shells.

The Germans, alerted by this extraordinarily long bombardment, reacted by deploying their now expert use of defence in depth and, in particular, paid attention to the concentration of their defences on Passchendaele Ridge. These defences left the potential avenues of advance for the British firmly located across the existing and potential treacherous marshlands.

A combination of the destructive effect of the artillery bombardment on the land drainage system, and unexpected torrential rain, quickly produced a churned up landscape of mud, water and the detritus of war. Any movement was inordinately difficult and exhausting for man, beast and machine alike; the anticipated decisive deployment of British tanks was an early casualty.

To add to the horrors inflicted on the Allied troops, on the 4th July 1917 the Germans added Mustard Gas to their armamentarium of war.

On the 16th August, after a few days respite in the weather, another attack was launched, this time in the Langemarck Sector over a four-day period but, again, territorial gains were limited and casualties high.

Lieutenant-General Sir Hubert Gough was effectively removed from command and General Sir Herbert Plumer's and his Second Army took the van, launching a new offensive on 20th September in the Menin Road Sector. It was exceptionally well supported by artillery and mortar fire. Plumer's plan was to make limited objective advances using Fourth Army's General Rawlinson's technique of 'bite and hold'. An advance of around 1,000m was achieved at the cost of 20,000 casualties.

Despite the apparently endless deluge of rain, Haig decided to launch two further attacks on the 26th September and 4th October on Polygon Wood and Broodseine Ridge respectively. A further territorial gain of 1,500m was achieved at the cost of 30,000 more casualties. This gave the British a hold on the on the ridge east of Ypres. It also produced in the British High Command a largely unwarranted sense of optimism that the German defences were crumbling. Haig decided to push on, despite the atrocious conditions, for the final few kilometres that would give him possession of Passchendaele Ridge and open up the way to the prize of the Belgian Channel Ports.

A successful attack was made on the 9th at Poelcappe, but the by now exhausted troops were quickly repulsed by German counterattacks.

The 'push' for Passchendaele Ridge

On the 12th October, at Poelcappe, the First Battle of Passchendale Ridge began. Still the casualty list rose and morale began to dip as the struggle ground remorselessly on. An influx of 12 divisions of German troops, who were diverted en route to the Italian Front, made the progress of the British and Dominion troops even slower and more costly.

Despite advice by his field commanders (both Plumer and Gough made personal representations for a cessation of the offensive) Haig persisted in carrying on the advance, bringing into the fray the Canadian Corps commanded by Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie.

On October 26th and 30th the 3rd Canadian Division continued the advance with 60% casualties and captured the town of Passchendaele.

The Canadians in the town were reinforced by two British Divisions and for five days repulsed repeated German attacks until reinforced by two more Canadian divisions.

Passchendaele Ridge finally fell to the Canadians and the British on the 6th November 1917. By the 10th November the surrounding slopes were also in Allied hands. But the British and Dominion troops were so exhausted that any further advance in Flanders in 1917 was out of the question. Effectively, it also reduced the feasibility of any other large-scale offensive elsewhere - hence the tactical debacle at Cambrai later that month when a shortage of reserves, combined with poor generalship, turned a potentially successful strategic initiative into a poor stalemate.

The toll

British, Australian and Canadian casualties for the Third Battle of Ypres totalled around 250,000 (some estimates - e.g. Winston S. Churchill - give totals as high as 400,000) of which 66,000 were killed; many of them top-grade Dominion troops. German losses were nearly double that at around 400,000.

Post scriptum

The total area gained in the Third Battles of Ypres was around 80 sq. km of which about a third was captured in the Battles of Passchendaele. Around 4,000 British and Dominion soldiers - equivalent to five infantry battalions - fell for each square kilometre of mud and mire that was wrested from the Germans. It is no coincidence that the largest Commonwealth war cemetery on the world - 12,000 graves and panels on the Memorial to the Missing recording another 34,000 - is located at Tyne Cot, on Passchendaele Ridge. The Menin Gate Memorial that records 55,000 British and Dominion soldiers with no known grave, is located only 10 km away on the outskirts of Ypres.

It may be reasonably conjectured that if the BEF was destined to mutiny or desert on the Western Front, Passchendaele was the point at which it was most likely to have taken place. But it did not mutiny. It was generally accepted by the troops involved that, despite its horrors, the Third Battle of Ypres was more of a victory for the British Army than was the First Battle of the Somme. Irrespective of all suffering that they had endured, this now war-hardened and mature army was destined to achieve even greater things in 1918.

However, the question must be posed of how much better things may have been, if the generals and their planning staff had:

Carried out a more careful study of the terrain of the proposed battlefield as detailed in their own ordnance maps.

Made the effort to understand a little more the vagaries of a continental climate and its potential effect on the terrain.

Appreciated that even small a disruption of the drainage systems of low -lying and reclaimed land could have a highly disproportionate effect on its suitability as a modern battlefield.

Had the moral courage to cut their losses once it became obvious to all concerned, that to struggle on in the increasingly atrocious conditions with enormous casualties was a strategic error of the first order.

In the final analysis, perhaps the Irishman was right; they shouldn't have started from there!

Dr David Payne

[Robert Dunlop]

I can see the J,A,O & N, but not the S. I suspect they`ve made a hash of the date axis, which makes comparisons of dates with battles somewhat dubious. A for effort, though! Phil B

Phil

I created the graph. The date axis is correct; it is the labels that got screwed up when I formatted the bottom axis. The tall spike above J is the 31st July. From J to A is August. From A to O is September. From O to N is October. The rest is November. When I first created the chart, I saw the letters but didn't take time to check that they were all there (they are in the relevant column of the spreadsheet). Sorry about that.

Robert

[robbie]

Passchendaele village was taken on this day in 1917 by 6 Canadian Brigade. It was almost the end (Officially Nov 10) of the 3rd Ypres campaign. It was planned to free the coast of U-boat ports in a grand sweep. At the end, it had cost some 350,000 British and 250,000 German casualties for the capture of about 5 miles of swamp. It was all given up a few months later.

My grandfather was wounded on that day. I thought the AIF were there also - 2nd division 5th FAB. Am I incorrect?

Robbie

[jhill]

My grandfather was wounded on that day. I thought the AIF were there also - 2nd division 5th FAB. Am I incorrect?

Robbie

I believe this is correct. The I ANZAC Corps (I think!) was on the right of the Canadians. Australian infantry did not participate in these last operations, but their artillery did.

The British, Canadian, and Australian artillery was grouped in a few easy-to-find and poorly protected "clumps", so the enemy's counter battery fire was quite effective. The Germans also used a lot of gas in this sector, and the British and Dominion artillery suffered accordingly. Bean reports that the Australian Field Artillery suffered 526 gas casualties in November.

[Robert Dunlop]

The attack on 6 November was made by 5th Division, XIX Corps (95th Brigade), 2nd Canadian Division, Canadian Corps (6th Canadian Brigade), and the 1st Canadian Division (1st Canadian Brigade).

I think I ANZAC were still in the line but not directly involved in the capture of Passchendaele.

Robert

[robbie]

J and Robert,

Thanks to both of you.

His record states: Report from: 3AFAMB. SW face, admitted Carniers - Remarks - AK1872/125.

Does this mean he was actually in 3A that day?

His earlier record states he was taken on strength to 5th FAB on 8.9.1917.

Robbie

[Robert Dunlop]

It`s the kind of article that has given me the impression of 3rd Ypres as the "Slough of Despond"

Phil

Thanks. Much of the article is a good summary. I just want to pick up on a few points in the article. The previous thread you mentioned provides some alternate views of Third Ypres, so I don't intend to cover that ground again.

In planning the capture of Passchendaele Ridge, The Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, and his staff made two major errors of judgement.

Firstly, their anticipation of just how much seasonal rain there would be during the 1917 offensive was far too optimistic

Actually, there were misgivings about the late start of the campaign. Charteris, Haig's Chief of Intelligence, wrote:

'July 30 [1917] - Before this reaches you [Charteris' wife], we shall have attacked again, the most important attack and, indeed, the only one that now matters for this year's fighting on this theatre. It is impossible to forecast the result. The only thing that is certain, is that most unfortunate of all things, a big casualty list. All the preparations are, I think, as good and as well advanced as those of our two big attacks this year, and if we get as much success in this as in the others, great things will happen. My one fear is the weather. We have most carefully prepared statistics of previous years - there are records of eighty years to refer to - and I do not think we can hope for more than a fortnight, or, at best, three weeks of really fine weather. There has been a great deal of hot discussion, almost controversy, as regards the time of attack.'

In fact, in four days at the beginning of August 1917 there were 76cm (3-inches) of incessant rain.

Followed by periods of sunshine when there was significant drying out of some of the ground. To some extent, the inclement weather followed a similar pattern to the Somme. In fact, the Canadians did far better at the end of Third Ypres, in worse conditions, than the final 'attacks' on the Somme.

Accordingly, after the ground had been churned up by shelling, and the drainage network wrecked, it was quickly reduced to an almost impassable morass of glutinous mud and pools of stagnant water: it meant trench warfare without stable trench-works. In effect, it became a battle fought from shell holes whose only lines of communications were a zig-zag of treacherous wooden duck-boards. To stray, or slip, from these fragile pathways incurred a serious risk of drowning in mud and water.

Part of the reason why I wanted to show some alternate views. I don't wish to minimise the horrendous conditions that existing in some places at some times. But not always and not everywhere.

The genesis of the 1917 Battle of Passchendaele went back to a crucial strategic decision, earlier that year, made by the German commander in Chief, General Erich von Falkenhayn. After the heavy German losses on the Somme and at Verdun in 1916, Falkenhayn decided to withdraw from the battlefield to a new complex and extensive line of defences; called by the British, the Hindenburg Line.

It was Hindenburg and Ludendorff who gave the actual order to build the Hindenburg Line, soon after they took over from Falkenhayn.

elements of the French Army on the Western Front refused to take offensive action, whilst maintaining an effective defensive posture.

After a period of reforms, the French army did resume offensive operations in 1917, leaving aside the fact that the French contributed significantly to the left flank of Third Ypres. There were at least three examples that I know of, the most successful of which was the Battle of Malmaison (23-26 October, 1917). This battle was extremely costly to the Germans and forced them to abandon part of the Chemin des Dames defensive position. The artillery plan and infantry tactics were very similar to those used in Third Ypres.

Accordingly, in May 1917, Haig once again set his Headquarters staff the task of the development of a plan for an offensive in Flanders: an attack overland to meet up with troops at landed by sea at Nieuport on the Belgian coast.

Not strictly true. The breakout from the Ypres salient would have provided the conditions for a German withdrawal. This situation was to be exploited by the landing at Middelkerke and the simultaneous breakthrough from Nieuport.

The Germans, alerted by this extraordinarily long bombardment, reacted by deploying their now expert use of defence in depth and, in particular, paid attention to the concentration of their defences on Passchendaele Ridge. These defences left the potential avenues of advance for the British firmly located across the existing and potential treacherous marshlands.

This was inevitable and was not caused by the way the Germans set out their defences. Rather, it was determined by the nature of the geography, which the Germans exploited extremely well.

Despite the apparently endless deluge of rain, Haig decided to launch two further attacks on the 26th September and 4th October on Polygon Wood and Broodseine Ridge respectively.

Again, the comments about the weather are not strictly true.

A successful attack was made on the 9th at Poelcappe, but the by now exhausted troops were quickly repulsed by German counterattacks.

This is only partially correct. The Guards and 4th Divisions made important gains on the left flank, again with the assistance of the French.

An influx of 12 divisions of German troops, who were diverted en route to the Italian Front, made the progress of the British and Dominion troops even slower and more costly.

As a result of the weather and the ground conditions, the artillery support for the First Battle of Passchendaele was very inadequate, partly because the guns were affected by the mud and partly because the ground conditions in the bottom of the last valley before Passchendaele ridge nullified the HE to some extent.

I don't know if 12 divisions were diverted from the Italian Front. If so, then this may have saved Italy from being totally taken out of the war. As it was, the Austro-German offensive nearly succeeded, with the wonderful dogged defence of the Grappa region preventing the Germans from sweeping down behind the newly formed Piave line. Twelve more divisions might have seen the all important breakout in this region as well, leading to the total destruction of the Italian Army.

Effectively, it also reduced the feasibility of any other large-scale offensive elsewhere - hence the tactical debacle at Cambrai later that month when a shortage of reserves, combined with poor generalship, turned a potentially successful strategic initiative into a poor stalemate.

This is only partially true (see previous thread).

Robert

[PhilB]

Robert:-

Quote:- My one fear is the weather. We have most carefully prepared statistics of previous years - there are records of eighty years to refer to - and I do not think we can hope for more than a fortnight, or, at best, three weeks of really fine weather.

But this was a 3 month campaign, so it looks like they had correctly forecast that the weather would be bad!

Anyway, thanks for your efforts at balance, Robert. You should have my avatar! Phil B