Passchendaele

The Battle of Passchendaele, otherwise known as the Third Battle of Ypres, was one of the major battles of World War I, fought by British, ANZAC, and Canadian soldiers against the German army near Ypres (Ieper in Flemish) in West Flanders, southwestern Belgium over the control of the village of Passchendaele. The plan was to drive a hole in the German lines and advance clear through to the Belgian coast. The idea being that the offensive would have a two-fold benefit if succcesful. Not only would it allow for a decisive corridor to be opened in a crucial area of the front but it would meanwhile take pressure off of the French forces who, after suffering a series of disastrous defeats were suffering from extremely low morale, which resulted in an alarming increase in cases of mutiny and misconduct. The land on which the battle took place was largely reclaimed bog-land, swampy even without rains. Then it rained from August onwards almost without cease. Add to that the ceaseless, and senseless, preparatory bombardment by the British and the result was a terrain so impassable with deep "liquid mud" that not only the heavy tanks and the men inside them, and the heavy artillery, but countless numbers of unfortunate and doomed foot soldiers were drowned in the mud before they even had a chance to get shot by the Germans. So, being forced to advance through this deadly mud against row after row of heavily armed and manned German pill-boxes meant that when the town of Paschendaele was finally taken by the Canadians allied forces had sufffered almost a quarter million casualties, with about the same number of men lost by the germans by the battle's end, while the original strategic purpose of the battle had long-been forfeited. It was in fact the use of massed tanks which effected the breakthrough, and the Tank Corps finally broke through, quite un-expectedly at Cambrai, east of the old Somme sector, in November. The breakthrough was so un-expected in fact that the British and Canadian high command had no plan in place to capitalize on it and the territory was soon mostly re-captured by the Germans. So while utterly senseless in and of itself, the battle did have very consequential effects. First it convinced Churchill, who had long had serious doubts (see the Dardanelles campaign) that the war could be won on the Western front, and it greatly influenced strategists who began to see the benefits of massed tank warfare in the European theatre, Heinz Guderian in particular, whose ideas came to striking fruition in the Blitzkrieg tactics used some 21 years later.

Aftermath

Haig, remembering the failure to follow through at previous battles, determined to continue the attack, believing that the Germans were ready to break. The attacks achieved at least part of their aims of mutual attrition, reducing the German strength and morale in preparation for attacks elsewhere.

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In August and September, 140,000 allies had been killed or wounded, with a further 110,000 in October. Total allied casualties on the Western Front in this period were 600,000; the Germans in this period suffered 280,000 casualties in Flandres alone.

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Haig's view was too optimistic though, and the Germans counter-attacked in a major offensive aimed at Paris on March 21 1918. A subsequent German offensive in the north on April 9–April 29 (the Battle of the Lys, or the Fourth Battle of Ypres) regained almost all of the ground, an advance of up to six miles (10 km) taken by the allies in the Third Battle of Ypres/Passchendaele.

Related Topics:
March 21 - 1918 - April 9 - April 29

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These battles, and those British and Commonwealth soldiers who gave their lives, are commemorated at the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing, and at the Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in the world with nearly 12,000 graves.

Related Topics:
Menin Gate Memorial - Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing - Commonwealth War Graves Commission

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Passchendaele is frequently mentioned as an example of the horrific number of soldiers killed, maimed or lost in action that occurred in numerous battles of World War I, and the name itself has come to be used as a synonym for pointless slaughter. The Germans lost approximately 250,000 men, while the British Empire forces lost about 300,000, including 36,500 Australians; 90,000 British and Australian bodies were never identified, and 42,000 were never recovered. An aerial photograph of Passchendaele taken after the battle showed over half a million shell holes in one half square mile (1.3 km²) area.

Related Topics:
World War I - Germans - British Empire - Australia

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