Battle Story: Passchendaele 1917 E-Book

Chris McNab

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 185

Beschreibung

Passchendaele 1917 is the story of one of the most pitiless and iconic battles of the First World War, known today as Third Ypres. Fought over three tortuous months in 1917, the fighting raged through some of the worst physical conditions of the entire war, across battlefields collapsing into endless mud and blood. Eventually, more than 500,000 casualties bought front-line changes measured only in hundreds of yards. If you truly want to understand what happened and why – read Battle Story.

Leseprobe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thanks all those at The History Press involved with the production of this book. Special thanks go to Jo de Vries, Sophie Bradshaw and Declan Flynn.

CONTENTS

Title

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Timeline

Historical Background

First Ypres

The Ongoing Battle and Second Ypres

The Build-up to Third Ypres

The Armies

The British and Commonwealth Forces

The French Army

The German Army

Kit and Equipment

Weapons

Tactics

The Days Before Battle

Planning the Battle

Preparations

The Battlefield: What Actually Happened?

The Battle of Pilckem Ridge

Westhoek and Langemarck

Strategic Focus

Menin Road Ridge and Polygon Wood

Broodseinde and Poelcappelle

The Experience of Battle

The Battles of Passchendaele

After the Battle

The Offensives of 1918

The Legacy

Orders of Battle

Further Reading

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

The word ‘Passchendaele’ has a special and sombre resonance in British history. Like the Somme, Passchendaele is a kind of shorthand for the epic suffering of the ‘Great War’, a term that instantly evokes a picture of terrible human cost and gross destruction for little physical gain. Mention Passchendaele, and grainy images stir in the collective memory – a hopeless, tree-stripped landscape; a bottomless mud, sucking men and even horses to their doom; the rattle of the Vickers and the Maxim; the pounding destruction of shellfire; corpses littered like leaves, and soggy graves waiting to receive them.

The emotions are warranted. Passchendaele was indeed a battle of grievous suffering and questionable achievements. Yet we must be precise about what we mean by ‘Passchendaele’. It has become a single term for describing what is actually more properly known as the Third Battle of Ypres, fought in West Flanders between July and November 1917.

The village of Passchendaele itself sat on a strategic ridge to the east of Ypres, and in October–November was the focal point of two major battles at the culmination of the Ypres battle. Such was the horror of these engagements, both in terms of the fighting and the physical environment in which the men clashed, that Passchendaele came to represent more than just its individual actions, but embodied the wider struggle around Ypres in 1917.

In this book, we will look in detail at both the Third Battle of Ypres and the actions around Passchendaele, making a distinction between the two. The story, as we shall see, is as fascinating as it is tragic. Yet the scale of the suffering and loss experienced in those Flanders fields in 1917 means it is a story that makes repeated demands for its retelling.

Ypres

During conflict, it is often the special fate of certain locations to be focal points of unusual levels of prolonged destruction. Between 1914 and 1918, there were several such locations on the Western Front, including the Somme and Verdun, and ranked equally alongside them is the Belgian city of Ypres. An almost permanent battleground over four years of war, Ypres descended from a prosperous commercial town to a blackened, gutted ruin. Five major battles were fought around Ypres, and between those violent episodes shelling and raiding actions rumbled on incessantly.

Why this is so might not be immediately apparent. Ypres (now properly ‘leper’, its official Dutch-language name, although during the war it was known by its French title) sits in the north-western corner of Belgium, roughly 50 miles (80km) west of Brussels in the Flemish province of West Flanders. Ypres in its fullest definition is actually a municipality, consisting of the city of Ypres itself plus a host of outlying villages.

A cursory glance at the map reveals little about why Ypres should be of such strategic importance in the First World War. Ypres’ origins stretch back to Roman times and beyond, but it was during the Middle Ages that the city rose to influence, as a major centre for the production and trading of textiles. Through Ypres, cloth was distributed widely to foreign lands, either via overland routes across mainland Europe or sent by ship from the nearby ports of Ostend and Antwerp. On the back of this industry, Ypres grew to be a city of significance on the world stage, rivalling nearby Bruges and Ghent.

Ypres’ famous Cloth Hall, seen in pristine condition before the war. German shelling between 1914 and 1918 reduced it to an absolute ruin.

A combination of commercial power and a good strategic location near the Channel ports meant that over the centuries, Ypres became all too familiar with the politics and the bloodshed of war, a fact reflected in the city’s regular fortification between the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries.

Flanders was a well-trodden battleground during the medieval period, fated with clashes such as the Battle of the Golden Spurs (1302) and sieges such as that conducted between May and August 1383, part of the Henry le Despenser’s ‘Norwich Crusade’. The city was also caught up in the dynastic and religious turmoil of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It was conquered by the French in 1678, passed to the Spanish in 1697 and became part of the Austrian Netherlands in 1713. The French Revolutionary Wars broke the grip of the Habsburgs on the Low Countries, and the Belgian Revolution of 1830 put Ypres under the authority of an independent Belgium.

So, by the time the match of war was struck in Europe in 1914, Ypres had seen and survived centuries of upheaval and continental violence. Yet nothing in its long history would contextualise Ypres’ experience of the First World War, for it was Ypres’ misfortune to come to occupy a vital strategic spot on the trench-locked Western Front.

To begin with, it stood directly in the path of the German advance delineated by the infamous pre-war Schlieffen Plan. This plan, set down by chief of the imperial German general staff, Count Alfred von Schlieffen in 1904/1905, and later modified by his replacement, Helmuth von Moltke, was nothing less than a German blueprint for a military conquest of Europe. The challenge faced by the Germans was how to handle a two-front war, trapped in a vice between France and Britain to the west and Russia to the east. Schlieffen’s solution was essentially to use neutral Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands as a through-route for rapid victory in the west. German forces would invade in a vast and powerful sweep from the north, cutting down through the neutral territories and driving south to encircle Paris and crush the British and French armies. Take France within six weeks, the plan theorised, and Russia would not have enough time to mobilise before the German forces could switch their attention to the Eastern Front.

Count Alfred von Schlieffen, the mastermind of Germany’s plan to win a two-front war against Western Europe and Russia. The plan failed in practice when executed in 1914.

In 1906, von Moltke modified the plan somewhat. While keeping the strong sweep from the north, he reduced its strength, focusing more troops into reinforcing border positions, especially in Alsace-Lorraine. He would also avoid using the Netherlands as a route of advance – Belgium and Luxembourg would instead bear the brunt of the initial German thrusts. Ypres sat at the outer extremity of the German push, just to the west of the intended invasion route of von Kluck’s First Army of 320,000 men.

After a series of runaway political emergencies in Europe, following the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, Germany finally had the chance to put the Schlieffen Plan into effect with the opening of hostilities in Western Europe on 2 August. For Ypres, the war at first swept past to the east, the Germans driving south through central Belgium, taking Brussels on 20 August, and pushing on into northern France against the French Fifth Army and the newly deployed British Expeditionary Force (BEF).

General Helmuth von Moltke, who served as the chief of the German general staff between 1906 and 1914, and who took responsibility for strategic adjustments to the Schlieffen Plan.

But the Schlieffen Plan, so carefully modelled in peacetime, unravelled under the realities of conflict. Logistical failures sapped the energy from the German advance, and valuable manpower that could have been devoted to the advance was filtered off for various consolidation or defensive exigencies along the way. As they drove down towards the Marne, the German armies did not have the required strength or tactical position to swing west of Paris, so went south-east instead, attempting to close the gap that had developed between the First and Second Armies. Yet, then came the ‘Miracle on the Marne’ – an attack by the French Sixth Army from Paris, stabbing into the German right flank. Combined with a subsequent counter-attack by the BEF and the French Fifth Army on 9 September, the result was that the German forces began a general retreat northwards.

From this point the war took a crucial turn, one that would define its character for the next four years. The German forces eventually stopped their retreat around the Aisne, and put down basic trench systems that blocked British attempts to eject the Axis forces. Yet both sides now saw that there was an open flank to the west, and so began the ‘Race to the Sea’. Each side scrambled to outflank the other to the west, extending the defended line of entrenchments as they progressed. Neither side managed to outflank the other, and the eventual outcome – realised in the ground by the end of 1914 – was a front line progressively snaking up towards the Belgian coast. What this meant for the citizens of Ypres was that the war was heading their way in earnest.

TIMELINE

1914

1 August

Germany declares war on Russia

2–3 August

Germany enacts the Schlieffen Plan, invading Luxembourg and Belgium and declaring war on France

5–10 September

German invasion of France stopped at the First Battle of the Marne

September–December

German, British and French forces establish trench networks running from the Channel coast down to Switzerland

19 October–22 November

First Battle of Ypres. Germany fails to take Ypres, and the British maintain a prominent salient around the town

1915

10–13 March

Failed British offensive at Neuve Chapelle

22 April– 25 May

Second Battle of Ypres. German forces make offensive against Ypres, forcing the reduction of the salient but failing to take it or the city. The battle also saw the extensive use of poison gas by the Germans

25 September– 14 October

First Battle of Loos. Major British offensive that includes British use of poison gas and of the ‘creeping’ artillery barrage. Costs 50,000 British casualties

19 December

Douglas Haig becomes commander-in-chief of the BEF

1916

21 February–18 December

The Battle of Verdun. This battle of attrition eventually costs the Germans as many casualties as the French, and by December the German forces had lost all their initial gains

1 July–18 November

The Battle of the Somme, a British offensive launched to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun. For limited gains the British suffer more than 600,000 casualties. Tanks used for first time in combat

1917

February

German forces on the Western Front, weakened by fighting in 1916, are forced to withdraw back to the Hindenburg Line

6 April

The United States declares war on Germany

April–May

A British offensive at Arras and French attack at Chemin des Dames bring little change to the front line positions on the Western Front

31 July–10 November

Third Battle of Ypres. A major British offensive runs aground in appalling weather and in the face of terrible casualties – 250,000 men are killed or wounded. The German Fourth Army suffers similar casualties. The campaign consists of the following major engagements:

31 July– 2 August

The Battle of Pilckem Ridge

16–18 August

Battle of Langemarck

20–25 September

Battle of Menin Road Ridge

26 September– 3 October

Battle of Polygon Wood

1917

4 October

Battle of Broodseinde

9 October

Battle of Poelcappelle

12 October

First Passchendaele

26 October– 10 November

Second Passchendaele

20 November

The British Flanders campaign is officially brought to an end

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In 1914, as war crept across the Flanders landscape, few people in Ypres could have conceived that their streets and fields would remain a battlefield for the next four years. The Third Battle of Ypres, as its name implies, was one of just a series of clashes fought for the same locale, events separated by time but not by distance. To comprehend the battle that occurred in 1917, we also need to understand the major battles for Ypres that preceded it.

First Ypres

The First Battle of Ypres (more commonly known by its compressed form, ‘First Ypres’) was in many ways the culmination of the Race to the Sea (roughly 17 September–19 October 1914). As the scramble unfolded, the area around Ypres was in Allied hands, held by a combined force of French cavalry and also V Corps of the BEF.

Fighting started south of Ypres, at La Bassée, on 10 October, and on 16 October the Allied Ypres forces began to probe out against three corps of the German Fourth Army, while the German Sixth Army was pushing forward against positions around Armentières, situated between La Bassée and Ypres itself. Then on the 18th, the combined might of the German Fourth and Sixth Armies began a thrust against Ypres, in an attempt to break through the city and secure the Channel ports to the west.

We need a sense of both the geography of the region plus the emotions behind the strategic decisions made in 1914. Ypres was in many ways a backstop for the British, and not an altogether logical one at that. During the geographical jostling of that bloody autumn, the British found themselves in position of a salient that arced out into German lines and had a perimeter of roughly 16 miles (26km). The eastern perimeter of the salient was inscribed by a series of ridges, described in military nomenclature as hills but actually gently rolling undulations, the highest of which, Hill 60, was only 197ft (60m) above sea level. Ypres itself was in the centre of the base of the salient, set on the Menin Road along which the Germans attacked in their attempt to cut out the salient and reach the coast.

During October, it appeared to many, that Ypres would fall to the German thrust. A reinforced Sixth Army made a renewed push between Messines and the Menin Road, and the next day Gheluvelt – a key village just 8 miles (13km) from the centre of Ypres – fell to the Germans. Yet this was no easy victory for the Germans. Some 1,000 British soldiers inflicted hefty losses on thirteen battalions of German troops, shattering the offensive momentum of the Germans in the process. The line had moved but was holding for the British, and such consolidation was supported by the fact that the French were also cementing their defensive lines around Ypres. The Germans summoned their strength once more, and, on 11 November, unleashed twelve and a half divisions against the Allied lines, striking between Dixmude and Messines. Despite the ferocity of the assault, and the fact that the Germans had a superiority of four divisions compared to the enemy who opposed them, the attack was blunted with devastating losses.

The French general, Joseph Joffre, later recounted the steps of the German collapse at First Ypres, while also looking ahead to the subsequent style of warfare that bedevilled the sector:

By the 14th [November] our troops had again begun to progress, barring the road to Ypres against the German attacks, and inflicting on the enemy, who advanced in massed formation, losses which were especially terrible in consequence of the fact that the French and British artillery had crowded nearly 300 guns on to these few kilometres of front.

Thus the main mass of the Germans sustained the same defeat as the detachments operating further to the north along the coast. The support which, according to the idea of the German General Staff, the attack on Ypres was to render to the coastal attack, was as futile as that attack itself had been.

During the second half of November the enemy, exhausted and having lost in the Battle of Ypres alone more than 150,000 men, did not attempt to renew his effort, but confined himself to an intermittent cannonade.

We, on the contrary, achieved appreciable progress to the north and south of Ypres, and insured definitely by a powerful defensive organization of the position the inviolability of our front.

Joseph Joffre, in Source Records of the Great War, Vol. II, ed. Charles F. Horne (National Alumni, 1923).

By 22 November, First Ypres had run its course. The perimeter of the salient had shrunk to 11 miles (18km), but Ypres stood safe. As with almost all calculations of the First World War battle casualties, the true cost of First Ypres will never be known. The losses were definitely heavy – an educated estimation is around 58,000 British, up to 85,000 French (reminding us of the dominant French role in First Ypres) and 21,500 Belgians. Yet German losses were almost certainly north of 100,000, likely to be around 134,000, and in the brutal calculus of attrition that dominated military thinking during the First World War, this made First Ypres an Allied victory.

Yet we have to ask, was Ypres itself worth holding? Salients are typically costly places to hold, being on the receiving end of numerous attacks and heavy artillery fire. The classic military thinking is that lines should be straightened to make them more defendable. For this, and other reasons, many military historians have questioned the value of holding the salient; such as Lyn MacDonald in her highly recommended book Passchendaele: The Story of the Third Battle of Ypres 1917:

The sensible thing would have been to withdraw from the salient, abandoning Ypres, and establish a stronger line in the rear beyond the canal bank [the Ypres Canal, which ran north–south through the city], a tactical possibility which had indeed been earlier considered. But emotion was riding high, at least in Britain, where the flags waved and the drums beat and the newspapers trumpeted forth glory in every edition. Public opinion, like Queen Victoria during the Crimean War, was not interested in the possibility of defeat.

Lyn MacDonald, Passchendaele (London: Penguin, 2013) p.8.

MacDonald, here speaking about the Ypres situation in 1915, sees the key reasons for holding Ypres as emotional rather than tactical – the Allies simply didn’t want to see any more land fall into German hands, or the losses sustained in defending Ypres being made pointless by withdrawal. Indeed, MacDonald goes on to point out that General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, of the British Second Army, did indeed propose a reduction of the salient in 1915, but was removed from command for his temerity.

Yet for the all the costliness of the Ypres Salient, a case for its military merit can be made. For example, even allowing for the depth of the salient, the distance between the front line and the coastal ports was less than 18 miles (30km), and any lessening of that distance raised the future prospect of a concerted German push reaching the sea. Also, just west of Ypres were major British logistical centres, including twenty-seven railheads and seven ammunition dumps. The range of German field artillery at this time was between 6,000 and (at the extreme end) 20,000 yards (5,486m and 18,288m), so reducing the depth of the salient could have brought more vital supply bases within gun range. Shortening the salient also meant that the British and Allies would have further to cover in future offensives to reach the strategic ridgelines. The vital German railhead at Roulers lay behind the German front line, pushing arms and men into battle directly from the Ruhr. Keeping the salient meant that the British would have a better shot in the future at severing this vital communication hub.

So Ypres was not necessarily a strategic folly – whatever its status, however, it would be a costly acquisition.

The Ongoing Battle and Second Ypres

First Ypres had cost the BEF dearly. The fighting had reduced some of the British battalions to little more than an officer and fewer than 100 men. Furthermore, Ypres itself was now the subject of a steady German bombardment, which would roll on with sluggish brutality for much of the rest of the war. Ypres itself would be gutted by high-explosive, its once-beautiful medieval civic centre reduced to shattered angles and gaunt ruins.

Yet the salient, as blasted as it would become, was to be held. Manpower was required, and the encouragement of volunteerism in Britain ultimately filled the gaps. Encouraged by jingoistic newspapers, posters and cinema reels, some 2.6 million British men joined up in 1915. The recruitment was also supplemented by the ingress of soldiery from across the British Empire. Ypres received a strong contingent of Canadians plus a regiment from the Indian Army. The Canadians in particular would go on to have a ferocious and bloody relationship with Ypres.

In terms of the wider war, 1915 broke with both sides unhappy with the stalemate and looking for offensive means of breaking through the enemy’s lines. The French had launched a costly and inconsequential campaign in Artois in December 1914, and this sputtered on in fits and starts until March 1915, by which time the German front line had scarcely moved and the French had lost 240,000 men.

As winter turned to spring, the British also made an offensive move, launching a major attack at Neuve Chapelle in the Artois on 10 March. This effort was a moderate success. The initial thrust, supported by a short but stunning artillery barrage, took Neuve Chapelle in the initial assault, and broke open the German lines. Yet the casualties suffered during the first phase of the attack, and British problems in transferring reserves to the front, meant that the attack petered out within three days, the British repelling a German counter-attack but unable to push further on and secure the Aubers Ridge.

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