Fighting around Ypres would linger on until 22 November when the onset of winter weather forced a break in hostilities. The combat during this engagement was extremely confusing and unrelenting. After the fight, British survivors were content to say that they had been at "First Ypres"; no more information was necessary to explain what they endured.
One soldier, Private Donald Fraser, explained it this way: "one [a man] was not a soldier unless he had served on the Ypres front." Less than half of the 160,000 men the BEF sent to France came out of the encounter unscathed. After November 1914, the British would come to call these trenches 'the Salient" and would remain as Ypres' guardians for the rest of the war.
There were eventually three major battles at Ypres (click here to read a summary of the second; click here for the third, also known simply as Passchendaele), but the First Battle of Ypres was one of the most significant. First Ypres foreshadowed how the fighting on the Western Front would play out as the war progressed. Atrociously high casualty figures from each participating army combined with fighting and living in trenches would soon come to dominate the stalemate that was the Western Front.
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Battles: The Second Battle of Ypres, 1915
Updated - Saturday, 11 August, 2001
The Second Battle of Ypres comprised the only major attack launched by the German forces on the Western Front in 1915, Eric von Falkenhayn preferring to concentrate German efforts against the Russians on the Eastern Front.
Begun in April and used primarily as a means of diverting Allied attention from the Eastern Front, and as a means of testing the use of chlorine gas, it eventually concluded in failure in May. As a consequence of the failure of this attack the German army gave up its attempts to take the town, choosing instead to demolish it through constant bombardment. By the end of the war Ypres had been largely reduced to piles of rubble, the town’s magnificent Cloth Hall a wreck (although rebuilt to the original designs in the 1950’s).
Second Ypres is generally remembered today as marking the first use of gas on the Western Front. Although introduced with minimal effect on the Russian Eastern Front at Bolimov by the Germans earlier in the war (where it was so cold the gas had frozen), and in conflict with the Hague Convention which outlawed gas warfare, its impact during Second Ypres was startlingly effective.
5,700 canisters containing 168 tons of chlorine gas were released at sunrise on 22 April against French Algerian and territorial division troops following a brief preliminary bombardment by 17-inch howitzers. A veil of greenish-yellow mist could be clearly seen rolling across from the German front lines to the French positions.
Ruins of Ypres as seen from the airThe effectiveness of the gas attack was so complete that it surprised the German infantry who followed up the release of the chlorine gas. The stunned Allied troops fled in panic towards Ypres, the heavy gas settling and clogging the trenches where it gathered. (Click here to read the official German statement issued in the aftermath of the attack.)
Covering four miles of trench lines, the gas affected some 10,000 troops, half of whom died within ten minutes of the gas reaching the front line. Death was caused by asphyxiation. Those who lived were temporarily blinded and stumbled in confusion, coughing heavily. 2,000 of these troops were captured as prisoners of war.
The two advancing Germans corps wearing primitive respirators paced warily through a clear seven kilometre gap in the Allied lines, wary of traps. In planning the attack no reserves had been thought necessary, the German command considering it inconceivable that a major breakthrough could be achieved.
In consequence the actual breakthrough was not exploited to the full. After advancing three kilometres into Allied lines the Germans halted under the hail of a scrambled British General Smith-Dorrien’s Second Army counter-offensive. Even so, the loss of high ground to the north significantly weakened the Allied position.
Respiration drill at the frontThe Germans released a second batch of chlorine gas two days later, on 24 April, this time directed against Canadian troops situated north-east of Ypres and again prefaced by a sharp artillery bombardment.
Again the German forces gained ground against the unprotected Canadian troops, although fighting was fierce, spreading far south to Hill 60. The novelty of gas warfare was wearing off, and the advancing German infantry sustained heavy losses from the defending Canadians, who were relieved by arriving British troops on 3 May. During this time the Canadians had suffered heavily, with 5,975 casualties, including 1,000 fatalities.
General Smith-Dorrien proposed a two and a half mile withdrawal closer to Ypres. He felt that nothing short of a large-scale counter-offensive was likely to push the German forces back to their original positions. The idea was met coolly by the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), Sir John French, who effectively dismissed Smith-Dorrien by sending him home to England. (Click here to read Sir John French's reaction to the German use of poison gas.)
Ironically Smith-Dorrien’s replacement, General Herbert Plumer (later famed for his successful Messines Offensive), also recommended a general withdrawal to French. The suggestion was this time accepted, taking place following a failed Allied counter-attack by two divisions presided over by French General Ferdinand Foch on 29 April. French executed the planned withdrawal on 1-3 May 1915.
General Herbert PlumerFighting renewed around Ypres on 8 May and continued until 13 May, and then again from 24-25 May, with repeated use of gas attacks. Still the Allied lines held, although German forces secured additional high ground to the east of the town from 8-12 May.
On 24 May a heavy German assault forced a further Allied withdrawal, although little extra ground was ceded. A want of supplies and manpower obliged the Germans to call off the offensive; all that they could do was to bombard the town. Even so, the German attacks had considerably reduced the size of the Allied salient. The highest ground had been lost and it was no more than three miles across and five miles deep.
Losses during the Second Battle of Ypres are estimated at 69,000 Allied troops (59,000 British, 10,000 French), against 35,000 German, the difference in numbers explained by the use of chlorine gas. The Germans’ innovative use of gas set the trend for the rest of the war.
Although roundly condemned by the Allies as barbaric and reprehensible, sentiments echoed by many neutral nations, the Allies quickly developed their own form of gas warfare, with the British releasing gas canisters at Loos at the end of September 1915 (although the prevailing wind turned and wafted the gas back into the British trenches). All the allied countries had made extensive use of poison gas by the close of the war.
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Battles: The Third Battle of Ypres, 1917
Updated - Saturday, 11 August, 2001
Whereas the first and second battles of Ypres were launched by the Germans in 1914 and 1915 respectively, Third Ypres was intended as Sir Douglas Haig’s Allied forces breakthrough in Flanders in 1917.
Haig had long mulled the idea of launching a major offensive in Flanders. It was his preferred choice for 1916, although in the event the Battle of the Somme took precedence that summer.
Meticulously planned, Third Ypres was launched on 31 July 1917 and continued until the fall of Passchendaele village on 6 November. The offensive resulted in gains for the Allies but was by no means the breakthrough Haig intended, and such gains as were made came at great cost in human terms.
Today commonly referred to simply as ‘Passchendaele’, the tactics employed at the Third Battle of Ypres are as controversial as those executed at the Battle of the Somme a little over a year earlier, and was the final great battle of attrition of the war.
British troops in YpresOnce the French Nivelle Offensive had ended in disastrous failure in May, with mutiny spreading throughout the French army, Haig determined to press ahead with plans for a major British offensive in late summer.
The ostensible aim of the campaign was to be the destruction of German submarine bases on the Belgian coast, following a warning issued by British Admiral Jellicoe that the current level of shipping losses would prevent the British from sustaining the war into 1918, thus requiring clearance of the bases on the Belgian coast.
Haig, whilst recognising the urgency of this requirement, was at least as interested in finally breaking the will of the German army, which he believed was near to collapse – a faulty view that he similarly held at the height of the Somme offensive a year earlier.
British Prime Minister David Lloyd George was opposed to the Passchendaele offensive, and later came out highly critical of Haig’s strategy and tactics in his published memoirs, but in the absence of a credible alternative to Haig he felt obliged to sanction Haig’s plans.
He was however encouraged by arguably the greatest local success of the war earlier that summer, on 7 June, at Messines Ridge, when the Battle of Messines resulted in the complete capture of the Messines-Wytschaete ridge under General Plumer. The capture of the ridge was a necessary precursor to an offensive aimed at capturing Passchendaele ridge.
Plumer advocated continuing the attack immediately into Passchendaele ridge, arguing that the morale of the German troops was, for the present at least, broken, and that this combined with a shortage of forces would virtually guarantee Allied capture of the ridge. Haig however disagreed, choosing not to bring forward his plans from the end of July.
British stretcher bearers on Pilckem Ridge, August 1917With the patent instability of Russian forces in the field, and the possibility of a Russian withdrawal from the war, action certainly appeared to be mandated in the summer of 1917. Were the Russians to leave the war it would enable Germany to draft its Eastern forces into the battle on the Western Front, dramatically increasing German reserve strength.
The Third Battle of Ypres was opened by Sir Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army, with 1 Corps of Sir Herbert Plumer’s Second Army joining on its right and a corps of the French First Amy led by Anthoine to its left: a total of twelve divisions.
As was the norm for any major Allied offensive, on 18 July a heavy preliminary artillery bombardment was effected for the ten days prior to the launch of the attack at 03:50 on 31 July. The bombardment made use of 3,000 guns which expended four and a quarter million shells. Given such an onslaught the German Fourth Army, led by Arnim, fully expected an imminent offensive: the element of surprise was entirely absent.
Thus when the attack was launched across an 18 kilometre front, Fourth Army was in place to hold off the main British advance around the Menin Road, and restricted the Allies to fairly small gains to the left of the line around Pilckem Ridge. Similarly the French were halted further north by the German Fifth Army under Gallwitz.
Ypres in late 1917British attempts to renew the offensive over the course of the next few days were severely hampered by the onset of heavy rains, the heaviest in 30 years, which churned the Flanders lowland soil into a thick muddy swamp. Tanks found themselves immobile, stuck fast in the mud. Similarly the infantry found their mobility severely limited. Ironically the very force of the preliminary bombardment had itself destroyed drainage systems, exacerbating the problem. In addition, the artillery shells that had rained down in the days prior to the attack’s launch had peppered the very ground that needed to be traversed by the advancing Allied forces.
As a consequence no renewed major offensive could be contemplated until 16 August, when the Battle of Langemarck saw four days of fierce fighting which resulted in small gains for the British, but heavy casualties.
Dissatisfied with progress the British Commander-in-Chief, Haig, replaced Sir Hubert Gough (by moving him and his forces further north) with Herbert Plumer. Whereas Gough favoured sweeping aggression, Plumer planned a series of small gains rather than an all-out breakthrough. The attacks began afresh on 20 September with the Battle of the Menin Road Bridge. This was followed by the Battle of Polygon Wood on 26 September and the Battle of Broodseinde on 4 October. Taken together these established British possession of the ridge east of Ypres.
Encouraged by Plumer’s small gains – while constantly pushing him to do more – Haig decided to continue the offensive towards Passchendaele Ridge some ten kilometres from Ypres, by now certain that the German army was approaching collapse.
Water-filled trench at Passchendaele, 1917Little progress towards this end was made at the Battle of Poelcappelle and the First Battle of Passchendaele, on 9 October and 12 October respectively.
The Allied attackers were themselves nearing exhaustion as German reserves released from the Eastern Front were poured into the ridge. To aid in their defence the Germans made full use of mustard gas (as opposed to chlorine gas in The Second Battle of Ypres), which resulted in chemical burns.
Unwilling to concede the failure of the breakthrough, Haig pressed on with a further three assaults on the ridge in late October. The eventual capture of Passchendaele village by British and Canadian forces on 6 November finally gave Haig an excuse to call off the offensive claiming success.
The Third Battle of Ypres was, like its predecessors, a costly exercise. The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) incurred some 310,000 casualties, with a similar, lower, number of German casualties: 260,000. The salient had been re-widened by several kilometres.
Haig came under intense criticism both in 1917, and since, for persisting with the offensive after it became clear that a breakthrough was unlikely. Critics have argued that the main launch pad for the attack should have been sited at Messines Ridge, captured by Plumer in June; but Haig’s original plans precluded this, viewing the capture of the ridge as a necessary diversion, and he declined to modify his plans: evidence, some say, of an inflexible strategy.
No Man's Land, Flanders 1919However, numerous factors are cited to support the decision taken to continue the offensive into the autumn. With the Russian withdrawal from the war, British vulnerability to submarine attacks launched from the Belgian coast, and weakened French morale which manifested itself in widespread mutiny, it seemed clear that a decisive strike must be attempted before the Allied war effort collapsed.
It is further argued that the disastrous turn in the climate could not have been predicted: that the rainfall was by far the heaviest for many years. Indeed, fighting had taken place around Ypres since 1914 without the kind of problems experienced during Third Ypres.
Haig himself argued that when regarded as a battle of attrition, the German forces could less afford the loss of men than the Allies, who by this time were being supplemented by the entry into the war of the U.S. This view is shared by a number of German contemporaries.
Needless to say, the controversy continues today; however most historians continue to question Haig’s decision not to call off the offensive earlier than November, when at least a number of the core objectives had been attained, and it became clear that the French forces would remain in the field.