100 Years Ago - Passchendaele 2

STRETCHER-BEARER PARTY COMING THROUGH THE MUD

A DUCKBOARD TRACK THROUGH THE WATERLOGGED GROUND

NORTH-COUNTRY TROOPS AWAITING IN RESERVE TRENCHES THE ORDER TO ATTACK VELDHOEK

YORKSHIRES MOVING UP IN THE TWILIGHT


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Ypres - 1917 and 1914

The struggle for the ridges is assuredly not yet over. We have still to eject the Germans from the villages of Gheluvelt and Becelaere and Passchendaele

October 8, 1917

The successes won in the Battle of Broodseinde on Thursday have proved to be solid and enduring, and the enemy have not recovered any portion of the valuable positions which were torn from them. They have not seriously tried to do so. Since their unsuccessful counter-attacks near Gravenstafel and north-east of Langemarck, and also south-east of Polygon Wood, on the afternoon of the battle, the German infantry have remained inactive.
It is refreshing to hear of a British raid “south-east of Broodseinde” on Saturday night, because it means “the other side of the hill”. Nevertheless if the enemy’s infantry are quiet, their guns are busy enough. They are pouring shells upon our new positions on the ridge from Broodseinde southwards, by night and by day, and a strong artillery duel is evidently in progress.
The struggle for the ridges is assuredly not yet over. We have still to eject the Germans from the villages of Gheluvelt and Becelaere and Passchendaele, as well as from the Keiberg spur, east of Broodseinde. The isolated “heights” of Zandvoorde and Kruiseecke and Moorslede have also to be reckoned with, and will doubtless receive attention at the right moment. If the weather is favourable there will probably be further heavy fighting, because every yard now relinquished by the enemy adds to the ultimate peril of their western front.
On the Somme and beyond Arras they could make fresh lines in their rear with some amount of confidence, but in West Flanders they have to think constantly of the thirty miles of coast on which their whole position in the West very largely depends. Since July 31 they have been steadily driven from the ridges on which their defensive operations rest, and we are glad to note the new and general recognition that here, as in nearly every other theatre of the war, the bulk of the work has been done by English troops.
The enemy have for some time been engaged in spreading the ridiculous fiction that the English have left the Scots and the Irish and the rest of the Empire to do the fighting. The omissions in the official reports have tended in the past to give currency to this preposterous slander. An official return just published explodes it altogether. Of the troops engaged in these great operations on the Ypres front 70 per cent are English, 16 per cent are from overseas, 8 per cent are Scots, and 6 per cent are Irish. As to casualties, the English have had even more than their share. The proportions are: English, 76 per cent; Oversea, 8 per cent; Scottish, 10 per cent; and Irish, 6 per cent. The fact is that the purely English contribution in manpower (and in money) in this war has been so greatly preponderant and all-pervasive that almost insensibly it became the complimentary custom to dwell chiefly upon the achievements of the other nations which make up the Empire. The share of the English was taken for granted.

Nor should it be forgotten that these low ridges on which our troops are fighting are already hallowed ground to the old British Army, as they will also be consecrated henceforth in the eyes of Australia and New Zealand, of Canada and Newfoundland. On these very slopes fifty thousand men of the original Expeditionary Force laid down their lives or were wounded in the epic conflict of October, 1914. The German plan was shattered at the Marne, but if the first Battle of Ypres had not been afterwards won the Marne would have been fought in vain. To France belongs the chief glory of the Marne, to Great Britain the deathless pride of Ypres - but to both nations the two victories are a common heritage, for if the little British Army joined in the immortal advance at the Marne, French units were flung into the strife around Ypres, and French artillery helped to stem the tide of the German invasion.

We were fighting in those days, as now, for an issue which directly concerned both countries in almost equal degree. Had the Germans broken the line and reached Boulogne, Paris would once more have been endangered and the war in the west might have taken a different course; while the use which the Germans have made of the Belgian coast shows quite clearly how deep would have been the menace to Great Britain if the French Channel ports had gone. The two successive Commanders in Chief upon the Western front share in the renown of those great days. It was Lord French who made the desperate decision to leave the rest of his weak line unsupported, and to throw in the First Corps on the left of the battered Seventh Division in order to prevent his flank from being turned. It was Sir Douglas Haig who struck with the First Corps towards Passchendaele and Poelcappelle, and stanchly held the line from Gheluvelt through Zonnebeke and beyond, the very ground where he is fighting now; and it was he who dammed the flood and broke the final attack of the Prussian Guard north of the Menin road.
The world still knows far too little about the first battle of Ypres, in which British forces which never numbered more than 150,000 men, helped by unconquerable French troops and by the Belgians on the coast defeated, in a conflict which lasted for many days, an army of over 600,000 Germans. The critical day, when for a few hours it seemed as though the Germans must break through, was October 31, 1914, a day on which the British Empire was in greater peril than it has ever been before or since. How many people know the story of the 2nd Worcesters, who filled the hole in the dyke at Gheluvelt at a moment when all seemed lost? How many have heard of Brigadier-General FitzClarence, killed twelve days afterwards, “the man who turned the tide” by ordering on his own responsibility the attack by the Worcesters which saved the line? The story of Ypres is full of such episodes. Even India had a share in it, and the adventures of the Ferozepore Brigade are as marvellous as the rest.
Is it not time that the country did something to bear annually in remembrance the deeds of the heroes who in 1914 made Ypres a name which will shine forever in our history! The battle may be said to have lasted from October 21 to November 11, but the day of days, the day to commemorate with thanksgiving, is October 31. We agree with Lord Selborne, who said not a word too much when he declared at Birmingham last Wednesday that “the 31st of October, 1914, was the day of our fate, and not only of our Empire, but of the whole world.” Now that we are beginning at last to take notice of our national achievements, it is an anniversary which should be worthily celebrated.

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Battle of the Ridge

Almost all along the line there was hard fighting from the start, and our men had more chance to use the bayonet today than often comes to them

October 13, 1917

Desperate fighting has been going on since morning, and still rages, along the Passchendaele Ridge and in the swamp wilderness below its western slopes. Yesterday was clear and cold, but during the night storm-clouds drifted up, and soon after midnight it commenced to rain in torrents, and the wind blew with almost hurricane strength. In spite of the dreadful conditions, we again pushed forward at about half-past 5 this morning, while it was only half light, while the wind still blew and the rain fell. How far we have gone is yet uncertain. On both the right and left of the attack we know that, before the end of the morning, we had reached our final line. In the central area, where the flooded valleys of the Lekkerboterbeek and Ravenbeek have been rendered by rain more flooded than before, progress is slower and infinitely more difficult.
Along the desolate stricken roads batches of prisoners are coming down, and I have talked with wounded men who, when they were hit, had reached beyond the halfway point of our advance. We hear that some of our men, fighting their way along the higher ground of the Ridge from the right, have reached a point close on the edge of Passchendaele itself. Whether it is possible to be there still, and, still more, to stay there, unless their comrades on their left can force their way through the morasses of the Ravenbeek and protect them from that side, it is impossible to say. I know that their comrades are doing all that it is possible for human strength and courage and endurance to do, but I dare not yet say how much we have won today.
OUR WONDERFUL MEN
I have met and talked with many of the men who came back from this morning’s fighting, and they are all alike and, except with themselves, incomparable. Muddied beyond description, with clothing torn, haggard, after such a night and morning as man can hardly imagine, dragging painfully a wounded leg, nursing a shattered arm, or with torn face, from which the blood has soaked the tunic’s front, they are stout-hearted beyond words. Their own wounds hardly seem to interest them, but only what their pals did, how far they had got when they were stopped, and how “the boys” were going when they were stopped. Among them, at a forward dressing station, I found a Padre today, and it was he who said to me: “God, how the Germans must admire and fear these men!” They arrive at a dressing station after having limped, it may be, for three hours through the unspeakable slime and horrors. There tenderness and care - and no praise can be too high for the devotion of the officers and men of the RAMC - and hot tea and coffee to drink and food and things to smoke await them. So unconcerned for their own wounds are they that, save for the mud and blood upon them, they might almost be casual customers at a tea-shop in London as the healthy colour comes back to their young faces. And, save a few who remain too hurt and dazed to talk, they laugh and talk and exchange reminiscences of the morning.
I know I have said all this before, but every day the wonder of the quality of our men, as one sees them behind the front, after the swirl and exhilaration and terror of a day of battle, is like a new thing, and can never be told often enough. We know that the Germans expected this morning’s attack. Prisoners have told us so, and we would have known it from the enemy’s behaviour. During the night his artillery was very active. Soon after 2 in the morning he bombarded very heavily with ordinary shells, with gas shells, and with machine-gun barrage, all the area where he thought he would catch troops assembling. His fire was still heavy at the time of the attack, and everywhere it was evident that he was ready for us.

BAYONET WORK

Almost all along the line there was hard fighting from the start, and our men had more chance to use the bayonet today than often comes to them. One man with a broken forearm told me how he had seen his pal kill one German with the bayonet and then charge another, when at the moment he did so, a great shell exploded on the very spot, and British and German together disappeared. It was a bit of the same shell which had broken this man’s arm. I asked him if he had had any bayonet work, and he was rather shamefaced as he replied, “I only ‘did in’ one, sir.” At some places batches of the enemy surrendered without fighting, and a sergeant told me how he saw another sergeant go quite alone for a party of 30 or so of the enemy with the bayonet and the whole party dropped their weapons and held up their hands.
In general, however, there has been very hard fighting. Where there were many very young men among the troops they fought poorly, but the elder men fought well. But it is not and never is the hard fighting that makes our progress slow. The really formidable obstructions here are the floods and mud. I talked this morning with one man who was wounded after dawn, yet he was not in the attack. He was one of a carrying party who had gone out at 10 o’clock last night with certain supplies for a unit in the front line. They had not far to go, but all night they had floundered in the mud, losing direction, falling into shell-holes and one dragging the other out. Dawn came and the attack was launched, and this man, with others of the party, was wounded in the enemy’s counter-barrage without ever having found the unit he was hunting for. This shows the kind of battlefield on which we are fighting.
It is too early yet to give any details of the fighting, and I am sorry to say that though the rain ceased during the morning and the sun shone awhile, the weather has again closed down. It has been raining since noon, and a clammy, white mist now shrouds everything, making communication and intelligence extremely difficult.
A STREET OF CONCRETE.
On the extreme left of our line, about the Broenbeek and south-east of it, we know that the attack went admirably, and that we have done precisely all we tried to do. The stream there was not the same formidable obstacle to our advance as it was lower down to the westward; because it no longer runs across our line of advance, and, instead of having to cross it, we are now pushing along both sides. Here, as elsewhere, the attack was expected, but the enemy resistance was simply smothered, and among the booty captured are four German 7.7 field guns.
Immediately below here there was hard fighting in the early morning north-east and cast of Poelcappelle, where there are great clusters of concrete positions. One such position was described to me by a wounded man as consisting of 19 separate concrete buildings, all of which were held in strength, and a multitude of machine-guns. Other defences here are built like a street, or long continuous tunnel, of thick concrete, with chambers opening out into solid concrete towards the side of our advance, which side is banked up with earth, so as to offer no target, while the rear side, which is sheer, is loopholed for machine-guns. The concrete defences, indeed, are of a great variety of patterns, so that the problem of attack is never the same. In spite of everything, it is known that early this morning we were well east from Poelcappelle to the halfway line marking the end of the first stage of the advance, and our men were pushing on to the final objective.
CLOSE TO PASSCHENDAELE.
Below here is the region which I have already described in former dispatches, where complicated defences, based on the former Zonnebeke-Staden trench line, run along the slopes of the low spur of the ridge by Bellevue over the valley of the Ravenbeek, the permanent character of which is sufficiently indicated by the name, Marsh Bottom. Through and over this marshland and mud it is necessary to go if we would force our way direct up the face of the Passchendaele Ridge.
Nearly six weeks ago I described the village of Passchendaele, which stands on the summit of the ridge, as even then we could see it, with many of its red-roofed buildings still more or less intact among the uninjured trees. Since then it has changed. Our shells have stripped and splintered the trees, and only here and there bits of pink roofs remain over the area of tumbled masonry. While our men are fighting in the awful swamp region directly under and before this end of the ridge, to the right the topmost ridge is in our hands, and it is from this direction it seems that, as I have told, we have forced our way to positions close to the outskirts of the village itself.
There is no possible question that our men are fighting with desperate determination to do all they set out to do, and if they fail in any detail it will be the weather and the mud that stop them. A short distance below the Ravenbeek is a ruined patch of woodland, known as Augustus Wood, which is full of concrete posts, and also numerous machine-guns, barricaded behind trees. We know that men have been through that wood, and I heard one tale of a captain who charged a machine-gun there and shot the gunner with his revolver. There is no guessing yet at the number of prisoners, but batches have come down from all directions, especially considerable numbers of Jagers and men of the 233rd Division. As to the German casualties, more than one wounded man today estimated them at three times our own.


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The Fight for Passchendaele

The principal obstacles which confront our gallant troops, however, are not the Germans or their concrete shelters, but the mud and the floods

October 13, 1917

The operations north-east of Ypres were resumed yesterday morning almost before dawn in very unfavourable conditions and after a night of heavy rain. The present phase of the battle tends to develop more and more into a struggle for the village of Passchendaele, or for that portion of the ridge upon which the ruins of the village stand. Although yesterday’s attack was made upon a six-mile front, the heaviest fighting occurred in the area between Passchendaele and the village of Poelcappelle, which has been fully in our possession for some days. It was on this part of the front that the enemy were able to force our line back a short distance on Tuesday evening, after our advance earlier in the day.
The dispatch we publish today from our Special Correspondent indicates why the German resistance is so determined on the lower western slopes of the ridge. He says that north-east and east of Poelcappelle there are whole clusters of concrete positions, and at one point alone nineteen concrete buildings were counted. All these positions serve as shelters for “a multitude of machine-guns”, and there need be no wonder that our progress is deliberate.
The Germans are evidently determined to cling to Passchendaele and the western side of the ridge until the last gasp. If Passchendaele goes, the important portion of the ridge will be fairly won. The surprising thing is that, by one of those chances of battle which continually occur even in such solid hammering as our troops are now engaged in, a party of Lancashire Territorials actually entered Passchendaele on Tuesday. The latest reports were that for the last two or three days we have been within a thousand yards of the edge of the village. It may be noted that the ridge really extends northward for about four miles beyond Passchendaele, and outflanks the formidable strongholds in the forest of Houthulst. Complete possession of the ridge should therefore very quickly render the forest untenable; but meanwhile we are holding the better part of two miles of the crest, and the subjugation of the remaining portion should not be long delayed.. The strong defences beyond Poelcappelle are a serious obstacle, but worse positions have been carried in the earlier stages of these protracted and difficult operations, and the completion of the task may be awaited without anxiety.
The principal obstacles which confront our gallant troops, however, are not the Germans or their concrete shelters, but the mud and the floods. The very perfection and intensity of our artillery fire increases the disadvantages which the infantry have to face. Even in comparatively dry weather, advances over ground which has been subjected to a terrific primary bombardment tend to become more troublesome. When the shells have been falling on swampy ground, after many days of rain, the infantry have almost to wade through the mud.
The artillery preparation, which is both a protection and a help, nowadays produces conditions which are also a hindrance. It must have required very great determination to renew the attack yesterday, after an interval of only two days; and the rapidity with which the advance was recommended is a clear proof of the increasing efficiency of the British organization. Still more is it a proof of the indomitable spirit of our soldiers, who preserve their unfailing good-humour and courage in the most adverse circumstances.

The dispatches from the front dwell continually upon the astonishing exploits of the rank and file, because in a battle of this kind the work of the men in the ranks is a continual marvel. They go forward time after time with an eagerness which never flags, and every fresh attack yields additional successes. We must again point out that, in spite of the present bad weather, campaigning in Flanders should still be possible for another month. Although much of the high ground has now been won, a good deal remains to be done in order to round off the operations now in progress. The swiftness with which one hammer-stroke after another is being dealt at the Germans signifies that they are to be given no rest. They have never in any battle of the war had to confront so many organized blows as in the last three weeks. In this battle, as in the whole war, the final strokes will probably tell most, and with a recurrence of fine weather we may expect to see our front firmly established on a line which will be exceedingly favourable for the later phases of the deliverance of Belgium.