THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES
October 4 to November 10, 1917
Attack of October 4--Further advance of the British line--Splendid
advance of second-line Territorials--Good work of H.A.C. at
Reutel--Abortive action of October 12--Action of October 26--Heavy
losses at the south end of the line--Fine fighting by the Canadian
Corps--Capture of Paschendaale--General results of third Battle of
Ypres.
At early dawn upon October 4, under every possible disadvantage of
ground and weather, the attack was renewed, the infantry advancing
against the main line of the ridge east of Zonnebeke. The front of
the movement measured about seven miles, as the sector south of the
Menin Road was hardly affected. The Ypres-Staden railway in the
north was the left flank of the Army, so that the Fourteenth Corps
was once more upon the move. We will trace the course of the attack
from this northern end of the line.
Cavan's Corps had two divisions in front--the Twenty-ninth upon the
left and the Fourth upon the right, two fine old regular units which
had seen as much fighting as any in the Army. The Guards held a
defensive flank together with the French between Houthulst Forest and
the Staden railway. The advance of the Twenty-ninth was along the
line of the {203} railway, and it covered its moderate objectives
without great loss or difficulty. Vesten Farm represented the limit
of the advance.
The Fourth Division (Matheson) started from a point east of
Langemarck and ended from 1000 to 1500 yards farther on. They
advanced upon a two-brigade front with the 11th Brigade upon the
right, with the northern edge of Poelcapelle as its objective, while
the 10th Brigade upon the left moved upon the line of 19-Metre Hill.
The fire from this strong point was very severe, and it drove back
the 2nd Seaforths, who were the right battalion of the 10th Brigade,
thus exposing the flank of the 1st Hants, who were on the left of the
11th. The veteran Highlanders soon rallied, however, and the line
was strengthened at the gap by the advance into it of the 1st East
Lancashires. Both the Seaforths and the Lancashire men lost very
heavily, however, by a devastating fire from machine-guns. The 1st
Somersets upon the right had a misadventure through coming under the
fire of British artillery, which caused them for a time to fall back.
They came on again, however, and established touch with the 33rd
Brigade, who had occupied Poelcapelle. There the Fourth Division lay
on their appointed line, strung out over a wide front, crouching in
heavy rain amid the mud of the shell-holes, each group of men unable
during the day to see or hold intercourse with the other, and always
under fire from the enemy. It was an experience which, extended from
day to day in this and other parts of the line, makes one marvel at
the powers of endurance latent in the human frame. An officer who
sallied forth to explore has described the strange effect of that
desolate, shell-ploughed {204} landscape, half-liquid in consistence,
brown as a fresh-turned field, with no movement upon its hideous
expanse, although every crevice and pit was swarming with life, and
the constant snap of the sniper's bullet told of watchful, unseen
eyes. Such a chaos was it that for three days there was no
connection between the left of the Fourth and the right of the
Twenty-ninth, and it was not until October 8 that Captain Harston of
the 11th Brigade, afterwards slain, together with another officer ran
the gauntlet of the sharpshooters, and after much searching and
shouting saw a rifle waved from a pit, which gave him the position of
the right flank of the 16th Middlesex. It was fortunate he did so,
as the barrage of the succeeding morning would either have
overwhelmed the Fourth Division or been too far forward for the
Twenty-ninth.
Upon the right of the Fourth Division was the Eleventh. Led by
several tanks, the 33rd Brigade upon the left broke down all
obstacles and captured the whole of the western half of the long
straggling street which forms the village of Poelcapelle. Their
comrades upon the right had no such definite mark before them, but
they made their way successfully to their objective.
Upon the right of the Eleventh Division, the 48th South Midland
Territorials had a most difficult advance over the marshy valley of
the Stroombeek, but the water-sodden morasses of Flanders were as
unsuccessful as the chalk uplands of Pozières in stopping these
determined troops. Warwicks, Gloucesters, and Worcesters, they found
their way to the allotted line. Winchester Farm was the chief centre
of resistance conquered in this advance.
To the right of the Midland men the New Zealanders--that {205}
splendid division which had never yet found its master, either on
battlefield or football ground--advanced upon the Gravenstafel spur.
Once more the record of success was unbroken and the full objective
gained. The two front brigades, drawn equally from the North and
South Islands, men of Canterbury, Wellington, Otago, and Auckland,
splashed across the morass of the Hannebeek and stormed their way
forward through Aviatik Farm and Boetleer, their left co-operating
with the Midlanders in the fall of the Winzic strong point. The
ground was thick with pill-boxes, here as elsewhere, but the soldiers
showed great resource and individuality in their methods of stalking
them, getting from shell-hole to shell-hole until they were past the
possible traverse of the gun, and then dashing, bomb in hand, for the
back door, whence the garrison, if they were lucky, soon issued in a
dejected line. On the right, the low ridge magniloquently called
"Abraham's Heights" was carried without a check, and many prisoners
taken. Evening found the whole of the Gravenstafel Ridge in the
strong hands of the New Zealanders, with the high ruin of
Paschendaale Church right ahead of them as the final goal of the Army.
These New Zealanders formed the left unit of Godley's Second Anzac
Corps, the right unit of which was the Third Australian Division.
Thus October 4 was a most notable day in the young, but glorious,
military annals of the Antipodean Britons, for, with the First Anzac
Corps fighting upon the right, the whole phalanx made up a splendid
assemblage of manhood, whether judged by its quality or its quantity.
Some 40,000 infantry drawn from the islands of the {206} Pacific
fronted the German and advanced the British line upon October 4. Of
the Third Australians it can only be said that they showed themselves
to be as good as their comrades upon either flank, and that they
attained the full objective which had been marked as their day's
work. By 1.15 the final positions had been occupied and held.
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{207}
[Illustration: ORDER OF BATTLE, October 4, 1917]
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Gravenstafel represents one end of a low eminence which stretches for
some distance. The First and Second Australian Divisions, attacking
upon the immediate right of the Second Anzac Corps, fought their way
step by step up the slope alongside of them and established
themselves along a wide stretch of the crest, occupying the hamlet of
Broodseinde. This advance took them across the road which leads from
Bacelaer to Paschendaale, and it did not cease until they had made
good their grip by throwing out posts upon the far side of the crest.
The fighting was in places very sharp, and the Germans stood to it
like men. The official record says: "A small party would not
surrender. It consisted entirely of officers and N.C.O.'s with one
medical private. Finally grenades drove them out to the surface,
when the Captain was bayoneted and the rest killed, wounded, or
captured. One machine-gunner was bayoneted with his finger still
pressing his trigger." Against such determined fighters and on such
ground it was indeed a glory to have advanced 2000 yards and taken as
many prisoners. In one of the captured Mebus a wounded British
officer was found who had been there for three days. His captors had
treated him with humanity, and he was released by the Australians,
none the worse for his adventure. There is no doubt that in all this
portion of the line the Germans were themselves in the very {208} act
of advancing for an assault when the storm broke loose, and the
British lines trampled down and passed over the storm troops as they
made for their allotted objectives.
On the immediate right of the Australians was Morland's Tenth Corps,
with the Seventh, Twenty-first, and Fifth Divisions in the battle
line. The Seventh Division had stormed their way past a number of
strongholds up the incline and had topped the ridge, seizing the
hamlet of Noordhemhoek upon the other side of it. This entirely
successful advance, which maintained the highest traditions of this
great division, was carried out by the Devons, Borderers, and Gordons
of the 20th Brigade upon the left, and by the South Staffords and
West Surreys of the 91st Brigade upon the right. The full objectives
were reached, but it was found towards evening that the fierce
counter-attacks to the south had contracted the British line in that
quarter, so that the right flank of the 91st Brigade was in the air.
Instead of falling back the brigade threw out a defensive line, but
none the less the salient was so marked that it was clear that it
could not be permanent, and that there must either be a retirement or
that some future operation would be needed to bring up the division
on the right.
To the right of Noordhemhoek the Twenty-first Division had cleared
the difficult enclosed country to the east of Polygon Wood, and had
occupied the village of Reutel, but encountered such resolute
opposition and such fierce counter-attacks that both the advancing
brigades, the 62nd and the 64th, wound up the day to the westward of
their full objectives, which had the effect already described {209}
upon the right wing of the Seventh Division. Both front brigades had
lost heavily, and they were relieved in the front line by the 110th
Leicester Brigade of their own division. During the severe fighting
of the day the losses in the first advance, which gained its full
objectives, fell chiefly upon the 9th Yorkshire Light Infantry. In
the second phase of the fight, which brought them into Reutel, the
battalions engaged were the 8th East Yorks and 12th Northumberland
Fusiliers, which had to meet a strong resistance in difficult
country, and were hard put to it to hold their own. The German
counter-attacks stormed all day against the left of the line at this
point around Reutel, making the flanks of the Fifth and Seventh
Divisions more and more difficult, as the defenders between them were
compelled to draw in their positions. A strong push by the Germans
in the late afternoon got possession of Judge Copse, Reutel, and
Polderhoek Château. The two former places were recovered in a
subsequent operation.
On the flank of the main attack the old Fifth Division, going as
strongly as ever after its clear three years of uninterrupted
service, fought its way against heavy opposition up Polderhoek
Château. The Germans were massed thickly in this quarter and the
fighting was very severe. The advance was carried out by those
warlike twins, the comrades of many battles, the 1st West Kents and
2nd Scots Borderers upon the right, while the 1st Devons and 1st
Cornwalls of the 95th Brigade were on the left, the latter coinciding
with the edge of Polygon Wood and the former resting upon the Menin
Road. The 13th actually occupied Polderhoek Château, but lost it
again. The 95th was much incommoded by finding {210} that the
Reutelbeek was now an impassable swamp, but they swarmed round it and
captured their objectives, while its left sot beyond Reutel, and had
to throw back a defensive flank on its left, and withdraw its front
to the west of the village. The chief counter-attacks of the day
were on the front of the Fifth and Twenty-first Divisions, and they
were both numerous and violent, seven in succession coming in front
of Polderhoek Château and Reutel. This fierce resistance restricted
the advance of Morland's Tenth Corps and limited their gains, but
enabled them to wear out more of the enemy than any of the divisions
to the north.
Upon the flank of the attack, the advance of the Thirty-seventh
Division had been a limited one, and had not been attended with
complete success, as two of the German strongholds--Berry Cottages
and Lewis House--still held out and spread a zone of destruction
round them. The 8th Somersets, 8th Lincolns, and a Middlesex
battalion of the 63rd Brigade all suffered heavily upon this flank.
On the northern wing the 13th Rifles, 13th Rifle Brigade, and Royal
Fusiliers of the 111th Brigade drove straight ahead, and keeping well
up to the barrage were led safely by that stern guide to their
ultimate positions, into which they settled with a comparative
immunity from loss, but the battalions were already greatly exhausted
by long service and scanty drafts, so that the 13th Rifles emerged
from the fight with a total strength of little over a hundred. It
must be admitted that all these successive fights at the south of the
Menin Road vindicated the new German systems of defence and caused
exceedingly heavy losses which were only repaid by scanty {211} and
unimportant gains of desolate, shell-ploughed land.
The total result of this Broodseinde action was a victory gained
under conditions of position and weather which made it a most notable
accomplishment. Apart from the very important gain of ground, which
took the Army a long way towards its final objective, the
Paschendaale Ridge, no less than 138 officers and 5200 men were taken
as prisoners. The reason for this considerable increase in captures,
as compared to recent similar advances, seems to have been that the
Germans had themselves contemplated a strong attack upon the British
line, especially the right sector, so that no less than five of their
divisions had been brought well up to the front line at the moment
when the storm burst. According to the account of prisoners, only
ten minutes intervened between the zero times allotted for the two
attacks. The result was not only the increase in prisoners, but also
a very high mortality among the Germans, who met the full force of
the barrage as well as the bayonets of the infantry. In spite of the
heavy punishment already received, the Germans made several strong
counter-attacks in the evening, chiefly, as stated, against the lines
of the Fifth and Twenty-first Divisions north of the Menin Road, but
with limited results. An attack upon the New Zealanders north of the
Ypres-Roulers railway had even less success. Victorious, and yet in
the last extremity of human misery and discomfort, the troops held
firmly to their advanced line amid the continued pelting of the
relentless rain.
The bravery and the losses of the British artillery were among the
outstanding incidents of this and subsequent fighting. It was not
possible on that {212} water-sodden soil to push forward the great
guns. Therefore it became necessary to make the very most of the
smaller ones, and for this object the 18-pounder batteries were
galloped up all along the line and then unlimbered and went into
action in the open within a mile of the enemy. By this spirited
action the infantry secured a barrage which could not otherwise have
been accurately laid down. It should be emphasised that in this and
other advances the numbers of the German were very little inferior to
those of the British, which makes the success of the attacks the more
surprising. Thus, in this instance, Plumer had eight divisions in
line in the southern area of the battle, while opposed to him he had
the Tenth Ersatz, Twentieth Division, Fourth Guards, part of
Forty-fifth, part of Sixteenth, the Nineteenth Reserve, and the
Eighth Division.
In Sir Douglas Haig's long and yet concise despatch, which will
always serve the historian as the one firm causeway across a quagmire
of possibilities and suppositions, we are told frankly the
considerations which weighed with the British Higher Command in not
bringing the Flanders Campaign to an end for the year with the
capture of the Gravenstafel-Broodseinde Ridge. The season was
advanced, the troops were tired, the weather was vile, and, worst of
all, the ground was hardly passable. All these were weighty reasons
why the campaign should cease now that a good defensible position had
been secured. There were however some excellent reasons to the
contrary. The operations had been successful, but they had not
attained full success, and the position, especially in the north, was
by no means favourable for the passing of the winter, since the
low-lying ground {213} at Poelcapelle and around it was exposed to
fire both from the Paschendaale Ridge and from the great forest upon
the left flank and rear. If our troops were weary, there was good
evidence that the Germans were not less so; and their minds and
morale could not be unaffected by the fact that every British attack
had been attended by loss of ground and of prisoners. Then again, it
was known that the French meditated a fresh attack in the Malmaison
quarter, and good team play called for a sustained effort upon the
left wing to help the success of the right centre. Again, the
rainfall had already been abnormally high, so that on a balance of
averages there was reason to hope for better weather, though at the
best it could hardly be hoped that the watery October sunshine would
ever dry the fearsome bogs which lay between the armies. Of two
courses it has always been Sir Douglas Haig's custom to choose the
more spirited, as his whole career would show, and therefore his
decision was now given for the continuance of the advance. In the
result the weather failed him badly, and his losses were heavy, and
yet the verdict of posterity may say that he was right. Looking back
with the wisdom that comes after the event, one can clearly see that
had the whole operation stopped when the rains fell after the first
day, it would have been the wisest course, but when once such a
movement is well under way it is difficult to compromise.
Since the line had already been established upon high ground to the
south, it was evidently in the north that the new effort must be
made, as the front of advance was contracted to six miles from the
extreme left wing, where the French were still posted, to a {214}
point east of Zonnebeke. The wind was high, the rain intermittent,
and the night cloudy and dark; but in spite of all these hindrances
the storming troops were by some miracle of disciplined organisation
ready in their assembly trenches, and the advance went forward at
5.20 on the morning of October 9.
Upon the left an extremely successful advance was carried out by the
French and by the Guards. Of our gallant Allies it need only be said
that on this day as on all others they carried out to the full what
was given them to do, and established their advanced posts a mile or
so to the eastward on the skirts of Houthulst Forest, taking St.
Janshoek and pushing on, up to their waists sometimes in water, to
the swamps of Corverbeck.
Cavan's Corps consisted of the Guards upon the left, the Twenty-ninth
in the centre, and the Fourth Division upon the right. The advance
of the Guards was as usual a magnificent one, and the 1st Brigade
upon the right, the 2nd on the left, pushed forward the line on their
sector for more than a mile, beginning by the difficult fording of
the deep flooded Brombeek and then taking in their stride a number of
farmhouses and strong points, as well as the villages of Koekuit and
Veldhoek--the second hamlet of that name which had the ill-fortune to
figure upon the war-map. Four hundred prisoners were left in their
hands, mostly of the 417th Regiment, who had only taken over the line
at four that morning. The 2nd Brigade of Guards worked all day in
close touch with the French, amid the dangerous swamps in the north,
while the 1st Brigade kept their alignment with the 4th Worcesters,
who formed the left unit of the 88th Brigade upon their right. Even
under the awful {215} conditions of ground and weather the work of
the Guards was as clean and precise as ever.
The ground in front of the Guards was sown very thickly with the
German concrete forts, but it was the general opinion of experienced
soldiers that, formidable as were these defences, they were less so
than the old trench systems, which in some cases could not be passed
by any wit or valour of man. At this stage of its development the
Mebus could usually be overcome by good infantry, for if its
loopholes were kept buzzing with the rifle bullets of the stormers,
and if under cover of such fire other parties crawled round and girt
it in, its garrison had little chance. The infantry attained
considerable proficiency in these operations, and "to do in a
pill-box" became one of the recognised exercises of minor tactics.
The losses of the Guards in this brilliant affair were not very
heavy, though towards the latter stage the 1st Irish upon the right
got ahead of the Newfoundlanders and were exposed to a severe flank
fire in the neighbourhood of Egypt House. The 1st Coldstreams upon
the extreme left flank were also held up by a strong point near
Louvois Farm. It was eventually taken with its forty inmates. The
gallant German officer absolutely refused to surrender, and it was
necessary to bayonet him. Altogether the two brigades lost 53
officers and 1300 men. In connection with their advance and with the
subsequent operations it should be mentioned that the Guards
artillery was worthy of the infantry, and that the way they followed
up in order to give protective barrages, slithering anywhere over the
wet ground so long as they could only keep within good slating
distance of the counter-attacks, was a fine bit of work. The pioneer
battalion, the 4th Coldstreams, {216} and the three R.E. Companies,
55, 75, and 76, put in a great deal of thankless and unostentatious
work in the elaborate and difficult preparations for the advance.
The Twenty-ninth Division upon the right of the Guards had the 88th
Brigade in front, with the Newfoundlanders behind the Worcesters on
the left flank. Their task was to push along the Langemarck-Staden
railway and reach the forest. They carried the line forward to Cinq
Chemins Farm, where they established their new line. The 1st Essex
and 2nd Hants were also heavily engaged, and all four battalions
lived up to their high reputation.
To the right of the Twenty-ninth was the 12th Brigade of the Fourth
Division, who had taken over the front line from their comrades in
that fearsome wilderness already described. The line of advance was
along the Ypres-Staden railway, and the front was kept level with
that of the Guards. Reinforced by the 1st Rifle Brigade, the advance
went swiftly forward over dreadful ground until it reached its limits
at Landing Farm, about half a mile north-east of Poelcapelle.
Maxse's Corps upon the right still consisted of the Eleventh and
Forty-eighth Divisions. The Eleventh Division had already captured
the half of the long village of Poelcapelle, and now after some very
hard fighting the second half up to the Eastern skirts fell into the
hands of the 32nd Brigade. As they advanced, the Forty-sixth Midland
men kept pace with them upon the right. These troops had the very
worst of the low-lying ground, though they had the advantage of being
in position and not having to assemble in the dark and rain, as was
the fate of the more southern troops. The gallant Yorkshire {217}
battalions of the 32nd Brigade made several attempts to carry the
strong point at the Brewery, east of the village, and the Midlanders
had the same difficulties at a machine-gun centre called Adler Farm
and Burn's House. These two points, both still untaken, marked the
furthest limits of the advance in either case, and in the evening the
ground gained was contracted not so much on account of German action
as because it was impossible to get supplies up to the extreme line
under the observation from the ridge.
Upon the right of Maxse's Corps and forming the left of the Second
Anzac Corps was another Territorial Division, the Forty-ninth, drawn
from the County of Broad Acres. This division, although it has
seldom appeared up to now in the central limelight of battle, had
done a great amount of solid work near the Ancre during the Somme
battle, and on other occasions. All that will be said about the
difficulties of the Sixty-sixth Division apply also to the
Forty-ninth, and it may be added that in the case of both units the
barrage was too fast, so that it was impossible for the infantry to
keep up with it. None the less, they struggled forward with splendid
courage, and if they did not win their utmost objective, at least
they gained a broad belt of new ground. A limit was put to their
advance by Bellevue, a stronghold on one of the spurs under
Paschendaale, which was so tough a nut to crack that the weary
fighting line was brought at last to a halt. The Sixteenth Rhineland
Division, who held this part of the line, won the respect of their
adversaries by their tenacity. The West Yorkshires of the 146th
Brigade and the York and Lancasters and Yorkshire Light Infantry of
the 148th bore the brunt of the battle.
{218}
On the immediate right of the Yorkshire men was the Sixty-sixth
Division, a second-line unit of East Lancashire Territorials only
recently arrived upon the seat of war, and destined, like many other
new arrivals, to do conspicuously good work on their first venture.
The General who commanded the Division would be the first to admit
his obligations to the officers who had sent over these battalions in
so battle-worthy a condition. Indeed the country owes more than it
ever knows to these retired officers, veterans of the Old Imperial
wars, who, far from the honours and excitements of the line, devoted
their time and strength to the training of the raw material at home.
They lead no charges and capture no villages, and their names are
read in few gazettes: and yet it is their solid work, based upon
their own great experience, which has really led many a charge to
victory and proved the downfall of many a village. "If there be a
procession through London, the 'dug-outs' should lead the van," said
a soldier who had that broader vision which sees both the cause and
the effect.
In the case of all these divisions the conditions before the attack
were almost inconceivable. For four days and nights the men were in
shell-holes without shelter from the rain and the biting cold winds,
and without protection from the German fire. At 6 P.M. on the
evening of October 13 the Sixty-sixth and also the Forty-ninth fell
in to move up the line and make the attack at dawn. So dark was the
night and so heavy the rain that it took them eleven hours of groping
and wading to reach the tapes which marked the lines of assembly.
Then, worn out with {219} fatigue, wet to the skin, terribly cold,
hungry, and with weapons which were often choked with mud, they went
with hardly a pause into the open to face Infantry who were supposed
to be second to none in Europe, with every form of defence to help
them which their capable sappers could devise. And yet these men of
Yorkshire and Lancashire drove the Prussians before them and attained
the full limit which had been given them to win.
The Sixty-sixth Division advanced with the 197th Brigade on the right
of the Ypres-Roulers railway. It consisted entirely of battalions of
the Lancashire Fusiliers, a regiment which from Minden onwards has
been in the van of England's battles. Upon their left was the 198th
Brigade, consisting half of East Lancs and half of Manchester
battalions. So covered with mud were the troops after their long
night march that the enemy may well have wondered whether our native
soldiers were not once more in the line. Savagely they stuck to
their task with that dour spirit which adverse conditions bring out
in our soldiers; every obstacle went down before them; they reached
their utmost limit, and then, half buried in the mud and stiff with
cold, their blue and cramped fingers still held steady to their
triggers and blew back every counter-attack which the Germans could
launch. It was a fine performance, and the conditions of the attack
cannot be defined better than by the following extract from the
account of an officer engaged: "After advancing through the mud for a
further three hours, I halted the Company in shell-holes to enable me
to discover our exact whereabouts; this was a bad mistake, because
when I found the direction we had to go in {220} I could not awake
the poor fellows, who had fallen asleep as soon as they had sat down.
I had to slave-drive, and somehow got them a little further forward
before getting blown up myself." It should be added that at a later
date some Australians who got up close to Paschendaale reported that
they found "not far from the village some of the dead of the
second-line Lancashire Territorials, who had fought beside us in an
earlier battle."
Upon the south of the Second Anzac Corps were the Australian
divisions, who carried forward the movement they had so splendidly
initiated. The advance set before them on this day was not a deep
one, but such as it was it was carried 600 yards over the ground
north of Broodseinde. Owing to the difficult lie of the ground, the
attacking troops were particularly exposed to machine-gun fire,
especially at the cutting of the Roulers railway which at this point
comes through the low ridge. The result was a considerable loss of
men. The Australians had been a week in the line without rest in
continual fighting, and they were very weary, but still full of dash
and zeal and sympathy for others. "We met one British officer," says
Mr. Bean, "stumbling back with both his puttees long since lost in
the mud. 'Bitterly disappointed we were late,' he said. 'Hard luck,
too, upon the Australians.' One thought to oneself when one heard of
the conditions, that it was only due to their undiluted heroism that
they ever got there at all." It was the Second Australian Division
which was chiefly engaged in this difficult battle, and it was they
who carried Daisy Wood, the chief obstacle in that area. The First
Australian Division were hardly included in the {221} original
scheme, being too far to the right; but being unable to witness a
fight without joining in it they advanced upon Celtic Wood, passed
through it, and had some excellent fighting with a strong German
trench upon the further side of it. The operation was a raid rather
than an advance, but it was very useful, none the less, as a
distraction to the Germans.
On the extreme south of the line Reutel, which had been left in
German hands upon October 4, was now carried by storm in a very
brilliant operation which removed the salient of the Seventh Division
to which allusion has already been made. This advance was carried
out by two battalions, the 2nd Warwicks upon the left and the 2nd
Honourable Artillery Company upon the right. The former took, after
hard fighting, the outlying woods and trenches to the north of the
village, but the Londoners achieved the more difficult task of
carrying the village itself. It was a desperate enterprise, carried
out under heavy fire, which was so deadly that when the depleted
ranks reached their further objective not an officer was left
standing. The high quality of the rank and file is shown in the
prompt way in which they took the necessary steps upon their own
initiative, by which the new line should be held. As to their
losses, they can be best indicated by the dry official comment: "The
remnants of A, C and D Companies were withdrawn to Jolting Trench and
organised into two platoons under Sergeant Jenkinson." The Colonel
might well be proud of his men, and London of her sons.
The extreme right of the British attacking line upon October 9 was
formed by the 15th Brigade of the Fifth Division. Once again they
got into the {222} Polderhoek Château, and once again they had to
retire from it and resume the position in front of it. There have
been few single points in the War which have been the object of such
fierce and fluctuating strife.
The net effect of this battle in the mud was to fling the whole line
forward, the advance being much more shallow in the south than in the
north. The line had rolled down from the Broodseinde Ridge, crossed
the shallow valley, and now established itself upon the slope of
Paschendaale. Two thousand one hundred prisoners had been taken in
this advance. It was clear, however, that matters could not remain
so, and that, be the weather what it might (and worse it could not
be!) Sir Douglas was bound to plant his men upon the higher ground of
Paschendaale before he called his halt for the winter.
Upon October 12, under conditions which tended to grow worse rather
than better, Sir Douglas Haig made a fresh attempt to get forward.
As the Paschendaale Height became more clearly the final objective,
the attack narrowed at the base, so that instead of extending from
the Menin Road in the south, it was now flanked by the Ypres-Roulers
railway, and so had a front of not more than five miles. The new
attack was carried out largely by the same troops as before in the
north, save that the 51st Brigade of the Seventeenth Division was
pushed in between the Guards upon the left and the 12th Brigade of
the Fourth Division upon the right. Advancing along the line of the
Ypres-Sladen railway, the 3rd Brigade of Guards and their comrades of
the Fourteenth Corps got forward to their limited objectives, where
they sank once more into the sea of {223} mud through which they had
waded. On both sides the making of trenches had entirely ceased, as
it had been found that a few shell-holes united by a small cutting
were sufficient for every purpose as long as the head of the soldier
could be kept out of the water. So useful were these holes as
shelters and rifle-pits that it became a question with the British
artillery whether they should not confine their fire entirely to
shrapnel, rather than run the risk of digging a line of entrenchments
for the enemy.
In this advance the 51st Brigade did remarkably well, advancing 1200
yards and securing two objectives. It is amongst the curiosities of
the campaign that Major Peddie of the 7th Lincolns, with another
officer and four men, took 148 prisoners from a farm--a feat for
which he received the D.S.O.
On Maxse's front the Eighteenth and Ninth Divisions had taken over
the front line. The Eighteenth made some progress, but the Ninth, of
which it can truly be said that they never leave a front as they
found it, took the village of Wallemolen, making a good advance.
The New Zealanders were on the right of the Ninth Division, covering
a front of 1600 yards from Adler House on the left to the Ravebeek
upon the right, where they joined the Australian Division. They were
faced partly by uncut wire in the Bellevue position and partly by
marsh. The conditions for the Australians upon their right were no
better. The matter was made worse by the impossibility of getting
the heavier guns forward, while the light ones slid their trails
about in the mud after every discharge in a manner which made
accurate shooting well-nigh impossible. The losses were heavy in the
attack, {224} two Colonels of New Zealand battalions being among the
dead. The New Zealand Rifle Brigade were particularly hard hit. It
was found that progress was impossible under such conditions, and the
attack was called off. So far as the Germans went, 1000 more were
added to the occupants of the cages--so far as the mud and weather
went, they gained a clear victory over the British Army, for the
losses were heavy, and there was very little gain of ground in
exchange.
Upon October 22, the ground having dried a little, there was some
movement at the northern end of the line, the position being improved
and 200 prisoners taken. The two operations which effected these
results were carried out in the north by Franks' Thirty-fifth
Division co-operating with the French, and in the Poelcapelle region
by the 53rd Brigade of the Eighteenth Division, which carried the
point known as Meunier Hill, the Essex, Suffolks, and Norfolks of
this splendid unit covering themselves once more with glory. The
Thirty-fourth Division, which had taken the place of the Fourth upon
the right of Cavan's corps, also moved forward in correspondence with
the flanking units, the Northumberland Fusiliers of the 103rd Brigade
keeping touch with the 8th Norfolks of the 53rd.
Some hard fighting was associated with the attack of the Thirty-fifth
Division in the north. It may be remarked that the Bantam idea had
not proved to be a successful one. It had been abandoned, and the
Thirty-fifth was now undistinguishable from any division either in
its physique or in its spirit. Upon this occasion both the 105th
Brigade upon the left and the 104th upon the right fought with
magnificent courage. The advance of {225} the former Brigade was
particularly fine in the region of Panama House. The 14th Glosters
and 16th Cheshires attained their fullest objective, and though the
latter were finally bent back by the strong German attacks in the
afternoon, the Glosters' fighting line, reinforced by some of the
16th Sherwood Foresters, held fast under the most desperate
circumstances. Their Colonel might well be proud of the fact that in
an attack carried out by one French and two British divisions his
battalion of Glosters was the only one which remained rooted and
unshaken upon the ultimate line. The Lancashire Fusiliers shone
greatly also in the attack, though they were unable to maintain their
most advanced positions. The German shell-fire, and especially the
German snipers from the wood on the left, and from a covered road,
were the cause of heavy losses, but the troops were in excellent
fettle, and the 104th Brigade actually executed a little raid on its
own during the night, bringing back a machine-gun and five more
prisoners.
On October 26, the rain still pouring down as heavily as ever, and
the earth about as liquid as the heavens, the advance was once again
renewed upon a narrow front which was mostly on the slope of the hill
and therefore offered some foothold for the struggling infantry.
Paschendaale was but a few hundreds of yards away, and it was
imperative that it should be held before the season ended. Haig's
troops were weary, and several fresh divisions which he could have
called upon were already earmarked for the surprise attack which he
was planning in the south. It was imperative, however, to have some
fresh thrusting force which could be trusted to break down the
remaining obstacles and not only seize the {226} dominant village,
but hold it after seizure. For this object the close Canadian
beleaguerment of Lens, which was to have ended in an assault, was
abandoned, and the Canadian Corps was brought round to the Ypres
front, taking the place of the Anzac Corps. In the new advance it
occupied, therefore, the central position of the line.
There had been several divisional changes in the north. The front of
General Cavan's line consisted now of the Fiftieth Division next the
French, the Thirty-fifth Division, and the Fifty-seventh Division.
Maxse's battle line was the Fifty-eighth London Division and the
Sixty-third Naval. In spite of every possible disadvantage, fresh
ground was gained by these units, and Varlet Farm, Bray Farm, and
Banff House were added to the British area.
The conditions of these low-lying valleys to the north, which had
long been difficult, had now become really impossible, and this was
the last attempt to advance in the Houlthulst Forest area. It takes
personal and detailed narrative to enable the reader to realise the
situation which the troops had to face. An officer of the 170th
Brigade, a Lancashire unit which displayed great valour and lost half
its numbers upon this date, writes: "I have never seen such a sight
as that country was in the valley of the Broombeek and Watervlietbeek
just south of Houthulst Forest. Nothing on earth but the wonderful
courage of the Lancashire lads enabled them to get so far as they
did. We went over with our rifles and Lewis guns bound up with
flannel so as to keep the mud out, and with special cleaning
apparatus in our pockets, but you can't clean a rifle when your own
hands are covered an inch thick! We killed a great {227} number--one
of the Sergeants in the 'Loyals' laid out 13 with his bayonet;
altogether we actually killed over 600 with the bayonet: but, as I
say, the ground was too heavy to allow us to out-manoeuvre the
pill-boxes, and though we took three or four, the rest did us in. In
one box we got 38 Boche, killed them all with a Lewis gun through the
porthole." After that day no more advance was tried in the low-lying
valleys named. The impossibility was seen.
The Canadian Corps went forward with one brigade of the Fourth
Division upon the right and two brigades of the Third Division upon
the left. A brigade of the First Australian Division supported their
left upon the Ypres-Roulers railway, and the Sixty-third Naval
Division continued the attack. Each of these units gained ground
under the most desperate conditions. The Australians captured
Decline Wood, so securing the flank of the attack. The Canadians
pushed forward on each side of the Revebeek, one of the innumerable
streams which meander through this country. The Third Canadian
Division advanced finely, but their right-hand brigade was held up by
the machine-gun fire from Bellevue Spur, which had wrought such
damage in the former attack, and was compelled to fall back upon its
original line. The Canadians rallied for a second spring, and in the
afternoon by a splendid effort, when all their Northern grit and
energy were needed, they flooded over the obstacle and lined up with
their comrades. They were now right astride of the main ridge and
close up to the edge of the village. To the north, the Sixty-third
Naval Division, which formed the right unit of Maxse's Corps, pushed
forward to the line of the {228} Paddebeek, while the Londoners of
the Fifty-eighth Division kept their place upon the left. The German
artillery had greatly increased in strength, thanks to the Russian
collapse, and every fresh idiocy of Petrograd was transmuted into
showers of steel and iron in the plains of Flanders. Their infantry
also became more aggressive with this stronger support, and two heavy
counters broke upon the Canadians in the afternoon of October 26. In
spite of every obstacle, it was an important day in this section of
the line for Paschendaale was almost reached, and the Germans must
have viewed with despair the ever-advancing line, which neither they
nor Nature had been able to stop.
In the south the operations during the day were not so successful,
and the subsidiary aims were not attained. In the morning, the Fifth
Division attacked and once again captured the Wood and Château of
Polderhoek. The 1st West Kents and 13th Warwicks of the 13th Brigade
carried out this dashing and arduous operation, and took some 200
men, who formed the garrison. The Seventh Division meanwhile had
advanced upon Gheluvelt, the 2nd West Surrey, 1st South Staffords and
Manchesters of the 91st Brigade advancing to the south of the Menin
Road in order to guard the flank of their comrades who followed the
line of the road which would lead them to this famous village. The
flanking brigade was held up, however, at the old stumbling-block
near Lewis House and Berry Cotts, where the German fire was very
deadly. This failure enabled the enemy to bring a very heavy
cross-fire upon the 2nd Borderers and 2nd Gordons of the 20th
Brigade, forming the column of attack. In spite of this fire, {229}
the stormers forced their way into Gheluvelt, but found themselves
involved in very hard fighting, while their guns were choked with
mud, and useless save as pikes or clubs. Under these circumstances
they were forced back to their own line. Encouraged by this success,
the Germans then advanced in very heavy masses and attacked the new
positions of the Fifth Division with such fury that they also had to
loose their grip of the precious twice-conquered Château and fall
back on the line whence they started. It cannot be denied,
therefore, that though the British gained ground in the north upon
October 26, they sustained nothing but losses after their great
exertions in the south upon that date. The two outstanding features
of the fighting seem to have been the extreme difficulty of keeping
the weapons in a serviceable condition, a factor which naturally told
in favour of the stationary defence, and also the innocuousness of
percussion shells, since in such a swamp they bury themselves so
deeply that their explosion does little harm. Some 500 prisoners
were made in the southern area, but many more in the north.
Upon October 30, in cold and windy weather, the attack was renewed
upon a comparatively narrow front, with the First Australian Division
upon the extreme right, then the Fourth Canadians, then the Third
Canadians, and finally the Sixty-third Division upon the left. The
Canadians advancing along the ridge towards the doomed village were
faced by a terrific concentration of German guns upon that limited
space and by strong infantry attacks, none of which turned them from
their purpose. The direction of the attack was from west and
south-west. {230} The Fourth Canadians soon had all their objectives
and held them firmly, taking Crest Farm on the edge of the village.
The Third Canadians had heavy resistance to overcome, but captured
the spur in front of them and joined up with their comrades at Graf.
The Sixty-third Division found it very difficult to get forward,
however, and this held back the left wing of the Canadians. Five
severe attacks were made upon the Canadians, but were all beaten off
by their steady fire. In some cases, notably at Crest Farm, the
machine-guns captured from the Germans were turned upon their late
owners as they debouched from the village. There was considerable
evidence of demoralisation among the German infantry upon this
occasion whenever the British could get to grips with it, and some
sections actually ran away at the outbreak of the fight, which is a
very unusual occurrence in so disciplined and brave an army. The
latter part of the action was fought in driving rain, which hardly
allowed vision of more than a couple of hundred yards.
All these heroic exertions were consummated at six on the morning of
November 6, when the Canadian infantry, advancing with heroic dash,
flung themselves upon the village and carried the British line right
through it, emerging upon the naked ridge beyond. The advance on the
left was made by the 1st Brigade, while the 5th Brigade took the
village. Many strong points lay just north of the hamlet, but each
of them was rushed in turn. It was a splendid success, and wrought
by splendid men. The chronicler cannot easily forget how by a
wayside Kentish station he saw the wounded from this attack lying
silent and patient after their weary journey, {231} and how their
motionless, clay-spattered figures, their set, firm faces and their
undaunted eyes, gave him an impression of military efficiency and
virtue such as none of the glitter and pride and pomp of war have
ever conveyed. So fell Paschendaale, and so, save for some minor
readjustments upon the Ridge, ended the great battle which can only
be all included in the title "The Third Battle of Ypres."
Several attempts were made to clear the whole of the ridge but the
rain was still continuous, the ground a nightmare, and the fire of
the German guns was concentrated upon so limited a space that the
advance was hardly possible. Jacob's Second Corps had come back into
the line, and one of its units, the First Division, came up upon
November 9 on the left of the Canadians, and endeavoured in
co-operation with them to extend the position. The Germans had
cleverly removed their heavy guns to such a position that they could
reach the ridge, while the British guns, immobile in the mud, could
not attempt any counter-battery work. In this way a very intense
fire, against which no reply could be made, was kept up on the ridge.
On November 10 the 2nd Canadian Brigade upon the right and the 3rd
British Brigade upon the left endeavoured to work forward; but the
losses were heavy and the gains slight. The two leading British
battalions, the 1st South Wales Borderers and the 2nd Munsters, were
the chief sufferers. It was clear that the season was too far
advanced to attempt any useful work. On November 12 the
Thirty-second Division relieved the First, and the line was again
slightly advanced; but no more could be done and the troops settled
down into the quagmire to {232} spend the winter as best they might.
The Eighth Corps took over the lines of the Canadians, who returned,
after their splendid and arduous work, to their old sector at Lens.
On the other sectors of the northern front there had been a lull
while this last stage of the Paschendaale fighting was in progress.
It was broken only by a sharp, sudden attack by the Fifth Division
upon its old enemy, the Poldershoek Château, upon November 6. After
some severe fighting the attack failed and the British line remained
as before.
Thus, after a continuance of three months, the long struggle came to
an end. Only the titanic Battle of the Somme had exceeded it in
length and severity. The three great Battles of Ypres are destined
to become classical in British history, and it will be a nice
question for the judgment of posterity which of the three was the
most remarkable military performance. Though the scene was the same,
the drama was of a very different quality in each act, but always
equally intense. In the first, inferior numbers of British troops
with a vastly inferior artillery held up the German Army in its first
rush for the coast, and, by virtue of the high training and close
cohesion of the old regulars, barred their path even at the cost of
their own practical annihilation. In the second, a less homogeneous
and less trained British force, still with a very inferior artillery,
held back a German line which was formidable, less for its numbers
than for the sudden use of new methods of warfare against which their
opponents could neither guard nor reply. The line receded under the
pressure, but the way was still barred. In the third, the British
advanced and steadily pushed back a German Army {233} which was
probably inferior in numbers--and certainly was so in gun power--but
which held a series of predominating positions stiffened by every
method which experience could suggest or ingenuity devise. Their
resistance was helped by the most adverse weather conditions which
could be conceived. The net result of the fighting was not only the
capture of the crest of the final ridge, but the taking of 24,000
prisoners and 72 guns. When one remembers that the Germans in the
days of their ascendancy could not in the two battles of Ypres put
together have taken more than 5000 men, one can measure the
comparative success of each army in this conflict of giants. It
would be vain to pretend that we did not hope for a greater gain of
ground in this great autumn movement, but the reach of a General must
often exceed his grasp, and here it was no small prize which still
remained with the victor.
One can only sum up the matter by quoting the measured words of the
Field-Marshal in Command: "This offensive, maintained for
three-and-a-half months under the most adverse conditions of weather,
had entailed almost superhuman exertions on the part of the troops of
all arms and services. The enemy had done his utmost to hold his
ground, and in his endeavours to do so had used up no less than
seventy-eight divisions, of which eighteen had been engaged a second
or third time in the battle, after being withdrawn to rest and refit.
Despite the magnitude of his efforts, it was the immense natural
difficulties, accentuated manifold by the abnormally wet weather,
rather than the enemy's resistance, which limited our progress and
prevented the complete capture of the ridge."
Whilst this long and arduous struggle had been {234} raging the chief
events upon the other seats of war had been a fine French victory on
the Aisne which yielded nearly 10,000 prisoners. This was upon
September 23, but the rejoicings of the Allies were turned to sorrow
by the news next day of the set back of the second Italian army at
Caporetto, where the soldiers, demoralised by insidious propaganda,
offered at the most critical sector hardly any resistance to the
enemy who had been reinforced by some German divisions. The result
was that the other Italian armies upon right and left were compelled
to fall back and could find no standing ground until they had crossed
the Piave. Udine and the whole Friulian Plain were lost and all the
results of so many heroic months were undone. It was one of the
saddest tragedies of the war, though destined in the future to be
most gloriously avenged.
{235}