The Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, was fought from 31 July to 10 November 1917 on the Western Front of World War I. The battle saw both the Entente and the Central Powers suffer heavy losses, and the German General Staff claimed that "Germany had been brought near to certain destruction by the Flanders battle of 1917," while Prime Minister David Lloyd George called it "one of the greatest disasters of the war" and a "senseless campaign".
Background[]
British commander-in-chief Field Marshal Douglas Haig had long wanted to mount a major offensive in Flanders. In summer 1917, he decided the time to attack had arrived. The First and Second Battles of Ypres in 1914 and 1915 had left the British dug into a salient around the ruined Belgian town. After the failure of the French Nivelle Offensive in spring 1917, Haig began planning a major operation at Ypres that would relieve pressure on the French and support offensives by Britain's Italian and Russian allies. The success of new British tactics at the Battle of Messines in June 1917 encouraged Haig's offensive plans.
Battle[]
British plans for an offensive at the Ypres salient in summer 1917 were bold and strategically coherent. The declared aim was to capture ports in occupied Belgium that were being used as bases for German U-boats attacks on British merchant shipping.
Supported by the French, the British intended to break through the German defenses in front of Ypres, and then join up with other British troops to make an amphibious landing on the Belgian coast behind the German lines. From the outset, however, British commander-in-chief Field Marshal Douglas Haig evaded commitment to the second part of the plan, arguing that an offensive at Ypres alone might crack the morale of the Imperial German Army. Haig believed German resources were strained to the breaking point, due to its commitments on other fronts.
British Prime Minister David Lloyd George tried to oppose plans for an offensive at Ypres, but his suggestions for alternative uses of military resources, such as transferring troops to Italy, carried little weight. Backed by the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General William Robertson, Haig was allowed to go on ahead, although Lloyd George only grudgingly withdrew his veto.
At the Ypres salient, the Germans held the higher ground and had spent almost three years organizing their defenses in depth. Haig assigned the lead role in attacking this position to the British 5th Army commanded by General Hubert Gough, a thrusting cavalry officer. Gough planned to advance 6,000 yards on the first day, to reach the third line of German defenses.
Hurricane of fire[]
In preparation for the assault, some 3,000 guns bombarded the German positions for a fortnight, firing four times the number of shells expended in preparation for the Somme Offensive the previous year. The damage inflicted on German positions was considerable. The bombardment rose to a climax in the early hours of 31 July. German General Hermann von Kuhl described the bombardment as "a hurricane of fire" in which "the whole earth of Flanders rocked."
Advancing behind a creeping barrage of artillery, the Allied infantry went "over the top" at dawn. They made considerable gains in places, with the British Guards Division, for example, progressing some 4,000 yards. Tanks aided the infantry, lumbering forward over reasonably dry ground. But in accordance with their doctrine of "flexible defense", the Germand had held back their main strength for counterattacks, which soon began to have an impact on exhausted Allied troops. It also started to rain. Ground churned up by massed artillery fire turned to deep mud punctuated by water-filled shell craters. Wounded men from both sides crawled into these craters for shelter. As the water rose, the most seriously injured drowned.
By 3 August, the initial offensive had petered out far short of its objectives. The maximum advance in some sectors was just 500 yards. Haig reported to the British War Cabinet that the operation had so far been "highly satisfactory" and losses had been "slight" - in fact, there were around 35,000 Allied casualties in four days. Crown Prince Rupprecht, the German Army Group commander at Ypres, also described himself as "very satisfied" with the results of the fighting, despite similar losses on the German side.
Renewed attack[]
After a two-week ause, the British resumed their offensive with attacks at Langemarck and the Gheluvelt plateau. To the south, the Canadian Corps assaulted a posiiton known as Hill 70 outside the town of Lens. Their aim was to stop the Germans from transferring troops to Ypres. The Canadian operation went well. Hill 70 was taken and then held against large-scale German counterattacks. Gough's attacks, by contrast, were inadequate in planning and execution, achieving small gains for high losses. At the end of August, Haig sidelined Gough and Fifth Army, and handled chief responsibility for the Ypres offensive to General Herbert Plumer and the Second Army, the victors at Messines Ridge in June. Plumer had a clear strategy for the battle. There would be a seriers of rigorously prepared attacks, each designed to take a limited objective that would then be held against counterattacks. The strategy was called "bite and hold." Plumer relaunched the offensive at the Menin Road on 20 September and followed up with successful attacks on Polygon Wood on 26 September and Broodseinde Ridge on 6 October. Each attack was carried out in a limited sector with massive artillery support - guns firing both high-explosive and gas shells. The infantry had plentiful Lewis guns and rifle grenades among itsa rmory. The ground was firm enough for tanks to move forward. The advance was halted before the infantry outran their artillery support, so that German attempts at counterattacks ran into a curtain of shell fire. Overhead, Allied aircraft, defying German antiaircraft guns, spotted targets for the arillery and machine-gunned German positions. The Germans suffered notably heavy losses at Broodseinde, where German troops massed in the front line in preparation for an attack of their own were bombarded by British artillery. Large numbers of Germans were taken prisoner, reinforcing Haig's belief that German morale was approaching the breaking point.
Waist-deep in mud[]
After 4 October, the weather changed. A return to heavy rain made the ground a sea of omud. Troops struggled to move forward along duckboards - wooden paths laid by engineers over the muddy morass. Where the duckboards ended, men could find themselves waist-deep in mud. Artillery could only be brought up along narrow plank roads, and engineers had to build platforms for the guns to stop them from sinking.
In these appalling conditions, renewed attacks at Poelcappelle on 9 October and toward Passchendaele Ridge three days later were a failure. The Australians and New Zealanders suffered particularly heavy casualties. Their artillery support was inadequate because guns could not be maneuvered into position. Many shells were simply absorbed into the deep mud without exploding. Floundering troops were cut down by flanking machine gun fire from German concrete pillboxes.
For the New Zealand forces, 9 October was the costliest day of the entire war, with 2,700 casualties trapped in front of uncut barbed wire at Poelcappelle. The Australian 3rd Division, under General John Monash, experienced even heavier losses attacking at Passchendaele on 12 October. The first attack on Passchendaele was a costly debacle for British and Commonwealth forces. Meanwhile, the Germans were under almost intolerable pressure. Crown Prince Rupprecht was seriously considering a full-scale wtihdrawal from positions in front of Ypres.
In reality, however, the British offensive had worn itself out. German reinforcements were arriving from the Eastern Front, where the Imperial Russian Army had ceased to be a serious threat. The Germans also had increasing supplies of mustard gas shells. Above all, the terrible mud made a decisive Allied breakthrough unthinkable.
The last push[]
Although the British had abandoned plans for an amphibious landing behind German lines, Haig would not give up on his offensive. The morale of many units of the British Army had been badly shaken, so Haig turned to the Canadian Corps. He bullied and pleaded with its commander, General Arthur Currie, to lead a final push to take Passchendaele. Despite expressing coherent objections to the proposed operation, which he believed would be too costly to justify any advantage it might bring, Currie finally succumbed to pressure from Haig and accepted the task, with the promise of extra artillery. The Canadian-led assault on Passchendaele proceeded methodically in three phases. On 26 October, a limited advance broke through key German defensive positions; further advances were made on 30 October; and on 6 November the ruins of Passchendaele fell to the Canadians. It cost 16,000 casualties to take the villages. A final assault on 10 November cleared the ridge of its remaining German presernce and brought Third Ypres to a close.
The final count[]
There is no certainty about the casualty figures on either side in the battle, but it is probable that, between 31 July and 10 November, about 70,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers died at Third Ypres, with another 200,000 wounded or taken prisoner. German losses are even harder to establish, but they may have been broadly similar to Allied casualties.
The battle in the mud was severely demoralizing for soldierson both sides, but perhaps especially for the British, many of whom learned a bitter distrust of their high command. The distinguished military historian John Keegan wrote: "on the Somme [Haig] had sent the flower of British youth to death or malnutrition; at Passchendaele he had tipped the survivors into the slough of despond."
Aftermath[]
By the end of Third Ypres, the course of the war was being altered by events elsewhere. On the Western Front, the British achieved a shortlived breakthrough at Cambrai in November, ending Allied offensive operations for the winter. In March 1918, the German army launched the first of a series of offensives that, among other gains, retook Passchendaele.
On the Italian front, German and Austrian forces achieved a breakthrough at Caporetto in the last week of October 1917. Haig was forced to transfer troops from the Western Front to Italy. In Russia, the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin seized power during the last days of Third Ypres. Lenin sought an armistice with the Central Powers.