6/11/17 Passchendaele taken

[Robert Dunlop]

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

Phil

Yes, I think you are right. Remember that many previous campaigns, especially on the Somme but also in the Arras battles, were associated, at times, with atrocious weather conditions. So I don't think this would have put off Haig. It was all about the 'offensive spirit', dominating the enemy despite the conditions, yadda yadda. What is truly amazing is that, despite the conditions, the British and Dominion forces reached the top of the Passchendale ridge. When you stand on the ridge and look out over the plain beyond, it is quite a sight. Then you look back towards Ypres and shudder.

Robert

[Guest bonza]

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

Robert

Bean p375 ANZAC TO AMIENS

The Canadian Corps had lately been carrying out important diversion attacks at Lens; and in five operations between October 26th and November 10th that splendid corps achieved its task of capturing the Passchendale heights. 1 Anzac gave some support to the southern flank of the Canadians in the earlier of these operations. In this stage the German mustard-gas shelling was most severe; but by November 14th the last of the Australian divisions was withdrawn from the Ypres battlefield.

Pat

There is the scene in "ANZACS" where it is persistently raining and Flanagan sez

Hey you blokes, The Canadians have taken Passhendaele

[Guest bonza]

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.

A visit to the Dickeybush "Huts" cemetery, or the CWGC site, will certainly bear silent witness to that. Included are the Burgess brothers from Geelong whose adjacent graves were filled on the same day.

Pat

[Guest bonza]

Battle of the Menin Road (20 September) - 0 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

Robert.

To elaborate a little.

ANZAC to AMIENS

Rain, falling during the night march to the assembly tapes, caused much anxiety, but it ceased in early morning.

Then

In the clear, fine day, after digging in...

COBBERS IN KHAKI

By 8.30 pm on the 19th Sept the 8th had assembled on Zillebeke Bund... However, the heavy rain quickly churned the ground into mud and slowed the move to Clapham Junction.

AS ROUGH AS BAGS

On 19th, the 6th moved forward in heavy rain to its jumping off position

By 1.30 am the battalion was in position, its move not being noticed by the enemy due to the constant rain.

As the 6th moved into the shell shattered, muddy wood....

I also recall reading about the problems of the 7th Carrying Parties due to the wet slippery conditions, and vividly of the experience of 2 Signallers who took 12 hours to carry a stretcher case from near Clapham Junct to Ypres in the mud.

So the actual battle may not have been rained upon, but it might be fair to say that the weather made the fighting very difficult.

Incidently Would you have knowledge of Zillebeke Bund, "ON" which the 8th assembled. This doesn't appear to mean dugouts.

Pat

[Arnie]

Dear Dr Payne.

Could I mention a few points regarding your otherwise excellent message

In the event, the autumnal rains were both early and exceptionally copious.

Haig had no excuse the history of warfare in Flanders and the weather was against him. He was warned what the effect of shelling would have on the drainage system.

He did however, exacerbate the situation by continually delaying the start of the attack. Haig made a serious mistake, after Plummer had led the first phase at Messiness so successfully. Haig gave the next phase to a Gough, who apart from not knowing the ground and having a well know inefficient staff to organise the battle, took a long time to get things going.

Even Charteris that complained that the longest day of the year had passed before the attack was under way

to deprive the Germans of their Belgian Channel Ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge and to deny the German Navy its submarine bases located there.

The threat of the U-boat operating from the Channel ports was exaggerated by a somewhat doubtful Naval intelligence report. The doubtful validity of this report was know to both Haig and Robertson. However using this report and the intervention of Admiral Jellico they were able to persuade the War cabinet to agree to the Passchendaele attack. Jellico at the time was suffering a slough of despondency and pessimism, telling both Cabinet and the US Navy's representative that we would lose the war before the spring of 1918.

Others, in smaller numbers, actually mutinied, refused to take any orders from their officers and NCO's and deserted

Not true as, previously stated the French under the Guidance of Petain had recovered and were fighting well. Haig on one hand complained that the French

were no longer effective but at the same time had them included in his plan. On the first day of the second phase attack the French captured two miles with fewer casualties than Gough who only managed a few hundred yards.

During 1917 the French killed nearly as many Germans as the British.

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.

This was a dream, it could not become a reality after October the Ground was so bad the Cavalry could not cross it. When the river Steenbeek went into flood even the artillery could not get across leaving the Infantry at Passchendale very much at the mercy of the German artillery.

In fact Haig could not reduce the salient, there was no way he could recapture the Channel Ports and his cavalry would never break through. It left him with his favourite option a battle of attrition. Your thread sounds very much like the stuff that Haig was telling the newspapers and Cabinet in that order of course. I suppose if the cabinet had done simple arithmetic they would have worked out Haig's Battle was costing approx. 10 men per foot!

An influx of 12 divisions of German troops,

This must be wrong, the Germans sent 12 Divisions to Italy to prepare for the Cappereto battle. The troops from the eastern front had not started to arrive but the Germans were confident they could allow Haig to wear himself out, because it would help them later (The March offensive) Remember the German Losses were only in the ratio 1 to 2 Allied ones.

By the way the Official War Office records of 1922 give toll for Passendaele as 450,000 British, 50,000 French, and 250,000 Germans

See: Terraine 'The Great War',

Hart 'The Real War'

Keegan 'The First World War'

Wolff 'In Flanders Field'

[Mat McLachlan]

Just a quick comment on the weather situation during the Battle of Polygon Wood. As I recall from the Australian Official History, Bean describes the creeping barrage before the battle as throwing up a dense cloud of smoke and dust, which was very effective at concealing the attacking troops. It seems that if the shells were throwing up dust, the ground must have dried out substantially in spite of the sporadic rain that fell during the lead-up to the battle. Adds weight to the notion that Third Ypres wasn't a quagmire for the whole battle.

[Guest LauraEJT]

Hi to people who know infinitely more about this than me-I've had tremendous help on other threads but as it is obvious you guys are researching 3rd Ypres-

Could you tell me anything about the weather at Passchaendele 16-20/8/1917 OR around 17/9/1917? With the help of the kind people on the Forum I'm working out what was happening around the time my gt uncle was awarded his DCM (the date is still not certain)-however,I would be very interested!

Thanks,Laura

[CROONAERT]

There is the scene in "ANZACS" where it is persistently raining and Flanagan sez

Hey you blokes, The Canadians have taken Passhendaele

The answer to which (from Harris/Wallis who's more concerned with keeping himself dry) is "Hoo-bloody-ray!". "Hey, come on! It was a bloody good effort" says Flanagan. Sums it up pretty well, I thought.(If you think about it)

Dave.

[Robert Dunlop]

Could you tell me anything about the weather at Passchaendele 16-20/8/1917 OR around 17/9/1917?

Laura

From 'Passchendaele: The day-by-day account':

16th August - Temp: 68 degrees F; overcast. Rainfall: nil (the opening day of the Battle of Langemarck)

17th August - Temp: 72 degrees F; clear. Rainfall: nil

18th August - Temp: 74 degrees F; clear. Rainfall: nil

19th August - Temp: 69 degrees F; 50% cloud cover. Rainfall: nil

20th August - Temp: 71 degrees F; 50% cloud cover. Rainfall: nil

17th September - Temp: 67 degrees F; overcast. Rainfall: nil

Robert

[Guest LauraEJT]

Hi Robert,

Thanks very much indeed for that,

Cheers,Laura

[PhilB]

Robert, I`ve been doing a bit more thinking about Salient rainfall. There certainly were dry spells, especially through September. However, I couldn`t see how the 31/7 photo could show dry conditions when there were 21.7mm of rain that day, 9/8 when there were 10.2mm the previous day, 20/9 when there were 5.1mm the previous day and 12/10 when there`d been 15.3mm in the previous 3 days. It`s possible, of course, that the given dates were wrong, but I suspect that a major influence was the fact that the photographers wouldn`t have gone (with heavy equipment) into deep mud, especially when the Germans were active. Have you seen any shots of the Steenbeek at that time? Phil B

[Robert Dunlop]

Phil

Sorry I did not reply sooner. I am pleased you have raised this specific issue. My general intent was to illustrate that Third Ypres was not solely about an endless morass of slime-filled shell holes.

I was careful in how I described the conditions in the 31/7 photograph. 'Relatively dry' - I think the ground is still somewhat muddy but it is definitely not water-logged with the men up to their waists in water. There is a classic photograph from the same day where several stretcher bearers are struggling knee-deep in thick mud to carry out a casualty. This will no doubt have been taken on lower ground.

Your point about photographers is well made, although one might expect that as the front advanced, the previous front line areas would have looked a lot worse in photographs from the later dates than is actually the case.

I guess it is possible that the dates of the photographs are incorrect

Robert

[DrB]

Unfortunately, the public's opinion, or thoughts anyway, tend to see the Somme Offensive as day after day of useless slaughter, toy soldiers lined up in rows and pushed over from right to left by machine-guns.

Likewise, Passchendaele is thought by most to be another senseless slaughter, fought in miles of pouring rain and glutinous mud and filth for nothing of value, which culminated in the ruins of a little town.

We can either smile and nod in agreement or argue that both offensives featured both good and bad mini-operations. The learning curve for the general staff was being assaulted as well as the ridges and neither could not be conquered overnight.

Hindsight is Monday morning quarterbacking. Put yourself or that WWI critic ("Lions led by donkeys" chap) in Haigs place (in 1916 mind, not now) and come up with a quicker and least costly solution.

DrB

[Robert Dunlop]

Jim

You may ask me directly. I was specifically referring to the attacks around the Butte de Warlencourt and the le Transloy area. In this area, the ground conditions appeared to be something like the horror of the late October, early November conditions near Passchendaele.

I would not regard the Battle of the Ancre or the capture of Beaumont Hamel as a 'significantly' less achievement. But, from what I can tell, the ground conditions cannot be regarded as bad as Passchendaele ridge (though they were bad enough) and the Canadians advanced probably twice as far (a rough estimate) in taking Passchendaele compared with the Battle of the Ancre.

Robert

[Jim Gordon]

Robert

Thank you for your prompt reply.

I have certainly no wish to enter into a discussion comparing relative environmental conditions at the two battle sites in question. Such discussions comparing performances of troops etc. I heartily dislike and avoid if possible. I trust you will understand.

My main reason for making the post is because, in my opinion, the Battle of the Ancre generally receives an undeserved dismissive treatment in most books simply because it occurred at the tail end of the Somme. Such dismissiveness does no justice to the men of V and II Corps, Fifth Army who fought in that action and actually captured probably the most heavily defended German position on the Somme.

Regards

Jim Gordon

[Robert Dunlop]

Thanks Jim

I agree. It is interesting that successes on the Somme often receive less recognition than they ought. Even more so the strategic outcome of the battle where the Germans felt compelled to build and withdraw to the Hindenberg Line. My comments about Passchendaele were merely designed to challenge views about Third Ypres, which is often regarded in an even worse light, and not denigrate the oft-ignored facets of the last phase of the Somme.

Robert