The attackers were disorganised by the deep outpost line and pillboxes and strongpoints of the main line resistance. Harried by the artillery massed beyond the Gheluvelt, the British were now struck by specially trained counter divisions.
Then the rain began. It fell in torrents with the worst rain in Belgium for seventy-five years. This made the good weather beforehand seem like a cruel joke and brought the men’s morale crashing down. This first battlefield turned into a swamp and there was no clear winner at this stage. The British divisions had to endure appalling conditions to keep their lines supplied.
It was 10th August before any other attack was possible, and the only prize of the day was the village of Westhoek. During this, the rain continued to pour down. The mud became much worse and more and more divisions had to be supplied to the fifth army to keep up its manpower and defensive capability.
The morale of the army was now at its lowest point so far in the war. Many small attacks were made to try and, “improve the line” before Gough’s main attack was carried out. However, the Germans had other ideas for the battle. They launched their counter attacks to try and regain the Inverness Copse area.
On that very day, Haig handed back the battle to the command of Plumer and his staff. He immediately drew up some ‘bite and hold’ attack plans to take the Gheluvelt Plateau and the Broodseinde and Passchendaele Ridges.
Plumer requested, and got, a three-week period to perfect his attack plans and to ready the men. The infantry rehearsed this task until every man knew what he had to do and what was expected of him.
He planned a devastating 1000-yard creeping barrage to get them to their objectives, and three separate standing barrages to protect them while they prepared for the next attack. At the battle of Menin Road Ridge their attack was to be limited to the capabilities of the attacking formations, unlike Gough who would have taken as much land as possible and stretched the army too much. The Germans would also be allowed to carry out their counter attacks but the British would be dug in and waiting for them defended by heavy artillery fire. The battle, apart from a few small setbacks, was a huge victory for the British and it brought morale way up after beating what seemed to be an over confident enemy.
On 26th September Plumer delivered the second of his main attacks against the enemy lines. This day was surprising because the weather had become hot and dry, not wet and muddy as it was for most of the rest of the campaign. Many more of the German’s important defences were taken from them and their counter attacks were completely smashed. This also raised men’s morale to a very high level.
The British advance was now moving so quickly that their men occupying the German outposts could not be relieved or replaced. This was why Haig wanted to have the battle in Flanders because he could now draw on his supplies to keep the advance going.
The Germans were amazed at this development. Their own defence tactics had been used against them. The German commander, Lunendorff could only order a more determined defence of the main line and a closing up of the counter divisions. They launched a series of counter attacks at the end of September, which were foiled by the British artillery and machine gun fire.
When Plumer launched his next assault on 4th October he caught masses of the Germans by surprise as they were preparing for their next counter attack. This battle was yet another huge defeat for the Germans. The powerful defences of the Flandern I line had been thoroughly thrashed by Plumer and his staff.
After this Haig ordered the cavalry to advance. He thought that there would be a collapse of the German lines very soon. Both Plumer and Gough argued that this was very premature and the only way to secure the final ridge was to have a few small attacks with small objectives.
Unfortunately the weather had broken again. The ground turned into mud and most movement through it was difficult. The bombardments, by each side had now declined because the ground that each gun was planted on had become unstable. The battle of Poelcappelle was only a partial success with Gough’s fifth army getting better results than Plumer’s second army did. The British put their lack of success down to the weather. They didn’t take note that the German deployment of barbed wire had improved making it more difficult to reach the enemy trenches.
Passchendaele was reached in early October. The first battle was fought here on 12th October. This was nothing like the successes of September and very little ground was gained. The rain reduced the infantry to crawling speed because of the difficulty of moving through the mud.
As the rain continued, movement became more and more difficult. This is when the expression ‘sea of mud’ came into being and is how this battle is remembered. Duckboards were used to cross the mud and there were many reports of soldiers slipping off the boards and drowning in the mud. Sometimes the duckboards themselves sunk taking anybody, who was unfortunate enough to be on them, down to their deaths.
During this pause, while the rain continued to fall steadily and heavily, the Canadian Corps was brought in to try and secure the Passchendaele-Staden Ridge. The second battle of Passchendaele on 26th October resulted in even less success than the first one.
The Italian disaster at Corporetto now impinged on the fighting at Flanders. More soldiers were needed in Italy to keep up the campaign there. The 5th, 7th, 23rd, 41st and 48th divisions were sent to Italy with Plumer in command.
For both sides there was now no hope of any decisive result in 1917. Two further attempts by the British and Canadian army dragged the exhausted infantry to the highest points of the Ridge but they were unable to secure it. The campaign was now slowly drawn to a halt with neither side seeming to have won at all.
Both sides had lost huge numbers of soldiers and were exhausted from 4 months of fighting.
There are still many unanswered questions about this battle. One of these is why Haig waited six weeks before he started his assault. This would have meant much finer weather and easier fighting conditions. Another is why Haig chose the inexperienced Gough over Plumer who knew all of the German defences and how to get round them. What if the first few battles had been fought under Plumer rather than Gough? This could quite easily have made the battle a decisive victory for the Allies. Instead, neither side won and both sides considered this as a defeat.
The Germans probably suffered the worst out of this campaign. The British Divisions destroyed 88 of the German’s divisions, which would have served through the rest of France. All of their defences could not stop Plumer gouging huge chunks out of them. The Germans were also never able to find the weakness in the French defences and this was a huge plus for the Allies.
As a result, there are huge war memorials set in and around Passchendaele, each one holding thousands of memorials to the soldiers who died. Passchendaele is often thought of as the worst battle of the First World War due to the appalling conditions that the soldiers and the animals had to face. Many died of the weather conditions as well as being killed by the enemy.
Although Haig had learnt a lot since the start of the war but he still showed disrespect for the soldiers life’s. He still sent men into the battle with not nearly enough equipment for a hope of surviving. He also didn’t take into account the mud that covered all of the battlefield and in the trenches. I think that this was probably the worst battle of the First World War due the conditions the soldiers had to face and how they were allowed to face these dangers.
Bibliography
- Mr H. Mullarkey
- Microsoft Encarta 95
- Flanders, Now and Then
- The Great War
