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.

Messines Ridge

The Messines ridge, just south of Ypres had been lost to the Germans in the first battle of Ypres, leaving Ypres as a salient, sticking out into the German position and overlooked by higher ground on the German side. Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, the allied commander, decided to use the salient as a launch point for an offensive into Flanders, designed to break through the front and capture the German submarine bases on the Belgian coast. A successful action would not only put the submarines out of action, but shorten the allied lines and potentially trap a number of German troops behind the new lines.

Related Topics:
Salient - Douglas Haig - Flanders - Submarine

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Engineers from both sides had been tunnelling under the Messines ridge since 1915, until, by the spring of 1917, 21 huge mines had been laid under it totalling 450 tonnes of the high explosive Ammonal. At zero hour at 03:10 on 7 June 1917, after 4 days of artillery bombardment, the most intense bombardment of the entire war, 19 of the allied mines were detonated killing 10,000 German troops in half a minute. The detonation of the mines was the loudest man-made noise ever made to that date, audible as far away as Dublin. Nine allied infantry divisions attacked and were supported by 72 Mark IV tanks. They managed to achieve the initial objectives due to the huge mines and the fact that the German reserves were too far back to intervene. Of the two remaining caches, one exploded during a thunderstorm on 17 July 1955, fortunately only killing one cow; the location of the 21st cache is believed to have been found in recent years, but no attempt has been made to remove it.

Related Topics:
1915 - 1917 - Mine - Ammonal - 7 June - Dublin - Division - Mark IV - Tank - 17 July - 1955

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Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, ordered General Herbert Plumer, the allied commander, to continue the battle immediately, but was persuaded to delay further attacks until preparations could be made.

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