The Battle of Passchendaele or the 3rd Battle of Ypres was a battle that had taken place
on the village of Passchendaele, though strategically inconclusive, the Battle of Pachendaele was
a tactical victory to the allied army, as the Germans had taken unraplaceable losses.
History The official name of the battle is "3rd Battle
of Ypres", but is universally known as the Battle of Passchendaele, because it was a
series of skirmishes with one goal, taking the village of Passchendaele and the high
ground around them. It began on July 31, 1917 with the attack in the northern plains at
Pilcken on the left and ravine Gheluvelt at right. The troops would be supported in Pilcken
by massive formations of tanks and attack proved initially successful but, unfortunately,
the troops of the right flank were blocked and failed to achieve his goal: conquesting
the ravine Gheluvelt.
At four o'clock the rain began. The weather remained wet for days and floods on the terrain
don't allowed operations with tanks. Although the Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig had proposed
a short battle in order to penetrate the German lines, it was patently impossible now, he
still insisted on continuing to Battle of Langemark at north. General Humbert Gough,
chosen by Haig as one of the most aggressive of his generals of division, warned Haig that
it would be wiser to stop the battle, but the inflexibility of the Commander in Chief
of the Allied Forces decided that it would continue for another three weeks until 26
August, despite the casualties suffered crippling.
Haig decided to shift the focus of the battle for the North East and when the good weather
finally arrived, ordering the assault in the ravine itself. He also changed his staff,
and General Herbert Plumer was appointed to lead the next offensive. Plumer, one of the
most astute British generals, was a staunch advocate of advances in small scale, under
the protection of portentous artillery barrages, that would prevent German counterattacks.
Such a philosophy would lead to a tremendous concentration of power in a relatively small
front, which facilitates the exchange of tired men and the distribution of food and ammunition.
Men should go behind the shelter of bullets and the enemy would be obscured by smoke and
debris from the barrage, however, this would be impossible if, by chance, it rained and
the ground became a mass of mud. The Battle of Menim Road on 20 September, was the first
of three famous victories using a new tactic advocated by Plumer. At dawn of day, after
a saturation bombing of five days, the Anzacs were able to perform an attack with two victorious
Australian divisions side by side and supported by a Scottish division to its left.
The Australians reached the bottom, the Polygon wood, the deed has cost 5,000 casualties to
the troops, and then the forest was captured. The land seized was consolidated and backed
by a railway line and secondary roads were quickly opened to allow the rapid arrival
of new supplies to the front.
On September 26 the weather was still good and the ground had dried up, that day the
saturation barrage of Plumer worked well and the Anzacs could proceed under such coverage,
very quickly. The 4th Australian Division then took the rest of the Polygon wood area,
or what was left of it. They had then reached a position that would strike the main ravine
Broodseinde. The Battle of Broodseinde took place at dawn on October 3. Australian troops
on standby were bombarded with heavy mortars in their trenches and, as reached the top,
were overtaken by German troops advancing under cover of the barrage, by coincidence
the enemy troops had launched an assault at the same time. The Germans were eventually
driven back by charging with fixed bayonets of Australians, however the German machine
guns were causing increasing casualties and retained part of the attack.
After the Australian charge, the Germans retreated to where their trenches where, together with
their reserves, they were struck by intensive English artillery, which caused heavy casualties
to the Germans. The artillery barrage was directed deep into German lines, and then
turned to the Australian position, which, under cover, stepped forward and captured
the hill later on October 4, a day described by Ludendorff as "the german black day." As
the Australians reached the top of the ravine, has enabled them to see behind German lines
just in front, the only obstacle to their success was the occupied village of Passchendaele
to the north. Those three wins were credited to the overwhelming success of the technique
step-by-step guide on Plumer and were possible only because the weather had been dry enough
to allow the mud to dry. But it began to rain on October 5, the next day.
It was not a torrencial rain, but a fine persistent rain. Sir Douglas Haig, however, encouraged
by three wins, had ignored the rain and decided to make one more attempt to break the German
lines on the mountain, to warn that the cavalry to be ready to follow the rush and start the
chase. He ordered the Anzacs in the taking of Passchendaele on October 9, even with the
increase in rainfall intensity. Apparently he did not know the very weak conditions on
the ground, that the barbed wire had not been cut and that the Germans had replaced their
troops by new men, rested on its "relatively dry" bunkers. His reasons were to continue
to allow their troops to winter in the ravine, without which the Germans might be able to
target and "drier", once the front line would be beyond the swamp.
The Australians attacked at the August Forest, near Tyne Cot, Captain Clarence Jeffres organized
a group and raided one of the bunkers, capturing four machine guns and 35 prisoners. He also
led another charge, the next fort, but was killed by shrapnel fire. He was presented
the Victoria Cross posthumously. According to Lieutenant John Laffin, all officers in
his battalion were killed or wounded that day. Incredibly, and especially the bravery
of Captain Jeffres, 20 men reached the wreckage that were part of the church of Passchendaele.
Unfortunately the British on the right failed to support them and escort them and the Australians
were forced to withdraw for the entire journey, until the slough of their original front line.
At this point their artillery was almost out of ammunition and its projectile, when fired,
were buried in mud, causing very little impact on the enemy
Haig was still clung to the battle, even with the rain and cold that came on Oct. 12. His
crazely has ordered a further assault, which was destined to fail miserably, with men struggling
to come up with mud on the heights of their hips and with jammed rifles. This attack cost
7000 casualties to allied forces, only the 3rd Australian Division lost 3,199 men in
the first 24 hours of the offensive. The Australians finally fell exhausted, but Haig was pathologically
obsessed with the capture of the village of Passchendaele and ordered to Canadians to
assume the battle. However the General Elliot, one of the few state-of higher Haig who still
had the good sense, refused to move the troops did not improve as time and adequate supplies
were not available. Eventually, on November 12, Canadians took Passchendaele, or what
remained of the village, and the battle finally ended. Aerial photographs were taken after
the battle of Passchendaele, an estimated half a million bullets holes could be seen
in half a square mile of the city. It was there that, presumably, Haig hoped that his
troops spent the winter. Even reaching the goal, he was useless in terms of the original
plan: the attack by sea to Nieuport was abandoned and there were hopes of advancing against
the German ports of La Mancha, which were subsequently blocked by the Admiralty through
the sinking ship at Zeebrugge.
Casualites Passchendaele cost half a million lives in
its three months. The Germans lost approximately 250,000 to 400.000 men and the allies lost
300,000 Britons, of whom 36,500 were Australian. 90,000 British or Australian bodies were never
identified, 42,000 were never recovered, they were blown to pieces or were submerged in
deadly mud. Many of the drowned were exhausted or wounded men who fainted or fell from the
boards and could not escape the mass, sinking to their deaths as they struggled to survive.
Passchendaele certainly sums up the extraordinary bravery of soldiers who attempted it was obviously
impossible, but by superhuman efforts succeeded in fulfilling its objectives. Even though
their efforts may be rendered useless by the excesses of the High Command, they should
never be minimized or forgotten.
Trivia In 2003, the British band Iron Maiden paid
tribute to the men who died on the battlefields of Passchendaele by recording a song entitled
Paschendale. The song is told from the perspective of a soldier who died during the battle. It
depicts life in the trenches, and many other experiences soldiers underwent such as getting
shot at by machine guns and airplanes. Adolf Hitler served in this battle serving
at the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division being injured by a gas attack and being outta commission
until the end of war.