Passchendaele

by Nick Lloyd

  When they are delivered, they are first taken to a cell where they encounter another English officer who was captured some time before them and who is very interested in hearing what their fellow officers are doing over there and whether there is another offensive on its way etc. However, this is not a real captured English officer, but a German agent who speaks English like it is his mother tongue and knows the conditions over there exactly. For this purpose he is wearing an English officer’s uniform.28

  This was only part of a systematic process of prisoner interrogation that the German Army engaged in, which focused on ways to make prisoners feel at ease and relaxed, whereby they would be more likely to divulge important information.29 For an army on the defensive, being able to second-guess the enemy’s intentions was of the highest importance.

  Whether Kuhl was right was the subject of intense debate at Rupprecht’s headquarters in the first half of September. Fourth Army regularly submitted assessments to its Army Group on the likelihood of a renewed offensive, but came to no firm conclusions. On the one hand, there was no doubt that something was going on around Ypres, but what it meant, and whether it was the prelude to a major resumption of operations, was unclear. The number of active enemy artillery batteries was undoubtedly lower than before, but new bridges had been built over the Yser Canal and the Kortebeek (north of Langemarck), which could have been jumping-off points for a new attack. Behind the front the rail network had also been extended, most noticeably in front of Groups Dixmude and Ypres. Also of note was the increase in camp buildings and accommodation northwest of Ypres and in the vicinity of Dunkirk. Some argued that a new attack was coming, probably against Group Ypres, but also spreading as far north as Merckem and south to Hollebeke, but others disagreed. The combination of fine weather with little enemy activity meant that the British must surely have given up, particularly given how late it was getting in the year? In truth, German intelligence was unsure.30

  For the time being the battle seemed to have ended. With the sudden cessation of activity, Fritz von Lossberg, exhausted from overwork, fell sick with influenza in mid-September. For others, the pause brought on not illness, but introspection. ‘It is boring here’, mused Albrecht von Thaer, ‘you sit and wait and rack your brains thinking about what the enemy is going to do.’ He wanted the British to attack again, ‘otherwise it would be a sign that they want to wait until the spring for the Americans’.31 By the first week of September artillery activity had dropped off noticeably and Crown Prince Rupprecht was reporting that the combat activities of his main groups were ‘extremely low’. He had received intelligence that 1st Australian Division had been transferred to Egypt, which could, as he wrote in his diary, ‘indicate that the British want to shift the focus of their military activity to Syria and Mesopotamia’. Indeed, the Flanders sector became so quiet that, on 12 September, Rupprecht, like Kuhl, had come to the conclusion that the battle was over.32

  For both sides, the cessation of major operations at Ypres allowed for the relief of those infantry and artillery units that had been heavily engaged. The railway junction at Thourout was busy throughout September with the movement of thousands of field-grey-clothed German soldiers in and out of the Salient. 27th Infantry Division, which had suffered terribly from artillery fire on the Wilhelm Line, was relieved by 2nd Guard Reserve Division, east of Saint-Julien, on 11 September, and 3rd Reserve Division (one of the counter-attacking divisions on 16 August) was replaced by 236th Division.33 This was part of a wholesale reorganization of the front. After three months of intensive combat, III Bavarian Corps, which had commanded Group Ypres, was relieved on 10 September, the men marching out to Mariakerke (a suburb of Ghent) for a well-deserved rest. They were replaced by the Guard Corps, an elite formation commanded by Lieutenant-General Ferdinand von Quast.34

  It was not just the men that needed replacing. The enormous expenditure of artillery ammunition–which in September could reach 400,000 rounds per day across the whole Ypres sector–put gun barrels under intensive strain. Between 31 July and 25 September, Group Ypres had to replace 1,775 field and 1,250 heavy guns due to wear and tear.35 In Group Wytschaete, the artillery had played a major role in the failure of the renewed British attacks on the Gheluvelt Plateau, and many units were in urgent need of refitting. Reinhard Lewald’s battery had done their part–supporting the counter-attack at Inverness Copse on 24 August with ‘heavy destructive fire’ throughout the night, the guns ‘firing continuously’ until they ran out of ammunition. Two guns were hit by counter-battery fire on 28 August and over the following week they were regularly deluged with heavy shellfire as the British searched out artillery positions and approach routes; anywhere where guns were likely to be found. According to Lewald’s diary, when they received orders to pull out on 11 September, their battery was in need of a thorough overhaul, they no longer had enough men for gun crews, and were desperately short of horses. They were, in a word, exhausted.36

  They moved out at dawn on 13 September and headed for Jurbise, near the city of Mons. They were sent to an artillery training ground where their battery would be ‘restored to full combat power’ with new guns, new crews and fresh horses. To their surprise and delight they were stationed in a vacant castle–the owner having fled to Paris at the beginning of the war. Lewald recorded:

  Large beautiful halls with precious furniture and beautiful living rooms. Each man has a four-poster bed. Around the castle there are magnificent facilities and a deer park of several hundred acres. Beside the castle stand the ruins of a great abbey from the Fourteenth Century. The views from the castle, on the wide lawns of the park, are wonderful. In addition, there is idyllic rest and wonderful weather.

  Lewald described their surroundings as like being in ‘Wonderland’. After spending months on the Flanders front, with its mud and death, the sense of relief was overwhelming. There, in the ‘marvellous autumn weather’, his men spent quiet days; hunting, shooting and riding–perhaps wondering if the battles in Flanders had come to an end.37

  A period of extended quiet on the Western Front was just what the First Quartermaster-General, Erich Ludendorff, wanted. After returning from Belgium in late August–during which he had a lucky escape from a train crash–Ludendorff slipped back into his old habits.38 At Kreuznach, he followed a strict routine that was only rarely interrupted. He was usually at his desk by 8 a.m., and worked for an hour before Hindenburg turned up. The Kaiser arrived at midday, and they would spend some time talking about the military situation and any urgent issues that had arisen overnight. This would continue until breakfast (at 1 p.m.), which was usually finished within three quarters of an hour. Ludendorff’s only break from the crushing burden of work was a daily stroll that he would take, usually alongside Hindenburg, between their villa–a former home of Emperor Wilhelm I–and the Oranienhof hotel, where General Headquarters was based. Sometimes locals would come and give the men gifts or flowers, which they would gratefully accept, but usually they were left to themselves. Ludendorff then returned to his desk and worked until eight o’clock, when dinner was served. He would remain at OHL, overseeing Germany’s war effort, until midnight or 1 a.m.39

  Ludendorff sometimes gave the impression of being a man whose emotions were frozen hard: an inarticulate soldier incapable of warmth and feeling; but sometimes he let the mask slip. On 5 September he received news that his stepson, Lieutenant Franz Pernet, a fighter pilot with Jagdstaffel 2, had been shot down over the English Channel; his body washed up on the Dutch coast several days later. Ludendorff immediately travelled to Baden Baden, where his wife was in mourning, remarking that Pernet had been ‘like a real son to him’.40 Yet there was no time to grieve–Ludendorff was required to manage a war on multiple fronts. On 1 September the German Eighth Army mounted a major offensive on the Eastern Front to cross the River Dvina and seize the old Hanseatic port of Riga. One of Germany’s most formidable soldiers, General Oscar von Hutier, was put in charge of the operation and delivered stunning success
, crossing the river and inflicting upwards of 25,000 casualties on the Russians. German losses were just over 4,000 men–a further indication of why the war on the Eastern Front was coming to what looked like its natural end.41

  The success at Riga meant that Ludendorff could devote more time to the planned Italian offensive. Mountain training was organized for the divisions allocated to Italy, while they were also equipped with everything they would need: engineering units and trench mortar sections; aeroplanes and balloons; motor and horse transport.42 Turning to the Western Front, the renewal of British preparations at Ypres was a growing concern, even if the German High Command was unsure of what it signified. ‘The Crown Prince was not alone in his anxiety’, admitted Ludendorff, even if he could offer no succour, other than to tell him that he had to ‘get along on his own resources’.43 Ludendorff was convinced, whatever anyone said, that the line would hold. Any available German reserves had already been earmarked for Italy, so OHL could do little else but urge its commanders to hold firm. A renewed emphasis was placed on ‘patriotic instruction’ for the troops’, utilizing a series of ‘welfare officers’ (Wohlfahrts-Offiziere) to deal with complaints and direct the men to suitable reading material. They were to make sure Germany’s soldiers and civilians were aware of what was at stake and how important it was to show sufficient fighting spirit and self-sacrifice.44

  Whether Ludendorff’s so-called ‘patriotic instruction’ would be enough remained to be seen. Obviously it could do nothing to remedy the poor food, lack of leave and exhausting conditions that wore men down, although it seems that some aspects of the programme, including evening talks with free beer, were especially popular.45 On 10 September, Rudolf Binding was appointed one of the divisional ‘welfare officers’ who were supposed to help gauge the mood of the troops. He had been handed a copy of Ludendorff’s order of 31 July 1917, in which he warned against ‘pessimism and revolution-mongering’, particularly on the home front, which was ‘absorbed by humdrum preoccupations, and hardly understands either the greatness of the situation or the sufferings of the Army and the Fleet’. Therefore, lecturing officers must constantly ‘foster and maintain affection for the Kaiser and the reigning princes and the strong German sentiment for the Fatherland’ to revive ‘confidence in victory’. Binding approved of the scheme (‘wars are won or lost by letters from home’), but felt that it would take a lot of time and offer little reward. Whenever officers asked men how they were getting on, the response was lukewarm; often just a shrug and a mumbled ‘all right’.46

  The German Army may not have suffered from anything like the chronic instability of the Russian Army or the mutinies that flared up in certain French divisions, but there were undoubted low points. Records have survived for 26th Division, which fought at Langemarck between 16 August and 4 September and suffered heavy losses from artillery fire. Divisional morale seems to have been battered by service in Flanders, and subsequently it was plagued by a number of disciplinary incidents. For example, four soldiers of 121 Infantry Regiment were condemned for ‘mutiny and aggravated insubordination’ after refusing to march up to the line, and there seem to have been long-standing problems with ‘brawling, plundering, disobedience and theft’. The division’s record was eventually so poor that it was transferred to the Italian Front, seeing action in the fighting at Caporetto.47 Other incidents seem to have been dealt with in-house, although how widespread this was is difficult to say. Elements of 6th Bavarian Reserve Division underwent some kind of mutiny during its service in Flanders in June and July 1917. While garrisoning the second line, the men were subject to intensive artillery fire that caused heavy casualties and resulted in morale breaking down. One of its officers, Johann Schärdel, recorded his regimental commander being ‘deeply shaken’ at what had gone on in the 10th company of 22 Regiment. Standing before his men, hardly being able to speak for ‘shame and excitement’, the commanding officer reminded them of ‘the indelible disgrace of mutiny’. Yet the men went unpunished.48

  Events were now moving quickly, bringing Fourth Army’s enforced idyll to an end. When General von Kuhl had predicted the end of the Battle of Flanders, the guns of Second Army had already started their preliminary bombardment. It would continue in varying severity, with regular practice barrages and feints, until shortly before the attack began. Anxiously huddled in their pillboxes or concrete emplacements, the German defenders waited–faces white, hands shaking–as the shells burst upon them. It was like being tortured on the rack, never knowing when it was going to end. Indeed, the British seemed to take an almost sadistic pleasure in ratcheting up the pressure, and then releasing it, as they searched the battlefield for German positions. ‘All the blockhouses and pillboxes were engaged systematically’, wrote Captain Schwilden of 15 Reserve Infantry Regiment (2nd Guard Reserve Division), deployed around Gravenstafel:

  Prior to 20 September five [pillboxes] were destroyed by direct hits and, in addition, the British artillery kept bringing down huge concentrations of fire along the entire front line and the rear areas. In the early morning they would start slowly, then build up to drum fire during the space of an hour. We could easily deduce that an infantry assault would not be long in coming. The companies were put on the highest state of alert and reminded that it was their bounden duty to hold their forward positions in the event of an attack, regardless of what might transpire.49

  In places the German line seemed perilously thin. Between Boesinghe and Hollebeke there were only six front-line divisions, another three Eingreif divisions behind them, with two in army reserve. Only 752 guns were available across the entire front–less than half of what Plumer could call on for his operation.50 Moreover, in the crucial central section of the line, on the Gheluvelt Plateau, the German positions were held by three worn-out divisions: 9th Reserve; Bavarian Ersatz; and 121st Division. By the time Plumer’s attack began, they had already been in the line for three weeks and were in urgent need of relief. For them, 20 September 1917 would be one of the worst days of the war.51 Plumer was finally ready.

  10.

  ‘A Stunning Pandemonium’

  You do not know what Flanders means. Flanders means endless endurance. Flanders means blood and scraps of human bodies. Flanders means heroic courage and faithfulness unto death!

  Unknown German soldier1

  20–25 September 1917

  The day of the assault had finally arrived, and with it–almost inevitably–wet weather. At La Lovie, General Gough (whose Fifth Army had now been relegated to covering Plumer’s left flank) was so disturbed by the rain that around midnight he got in touch with Plumer and suggested postponing the attack. After consulting his corps commanders, who gave a mixed response, the Second Army commander decided to go ahead.2 It was a tortuous decision. To order the attack in uncertain weather was bad enough, but the alternative was even less edifying. Orders countermanding the operation would have to be sent out immediately, while other plans were drafted. The front-line units could not remain in the trenches indefinitely, and would probably need relief within a day or two, raising the prospect that any surprise would be lost. In the back of Plumer’s mind was undoubtedly the worst possible outcome: a confused, partial attack, with some units standing down, but others–perhaps because they had not received confirmation–going ahead as originally planned. That was unthinkable. It was all or nothing.

  It was in the early hours of 20 September that German front-line commanders began to have their worst fears confirmed. Shortly before 3 a.m.–over two hours before Zero Hour–a bedraggled Australian officer was brought into the headquarters of 121st German Division south of Zonnebeke. He had been captured while moving into position with his company, somewhere along the outpost line of 2nd Australian Division. He became separated from his men and ran into a German patrol, who quickly seized him and shunted him off to the nearest headquarters. Although he tried to destroy his papers, his interrogators found operation orders on him confirming that two Australian divisions were about to lau
nch an assault astride the Ypres–Menin road. Within minutes a general warning order was sent out via wireless and divisional artillery batteries were told to lay down ‘annihilating’ fire on the Australian positions.3

  It was now a race against the clock to see who would react first and whether there was enough time for the German defenders to pre-empt the incoming assault. Although 2nd Australian Division came under bombardment several minutes before Zero Hour–presumably because of the intelligence leak–it was not heavy enough to dislocate the impending attack. In those places where German shells were falling, at least one unit went ‘over the top’ early in order to avoid the shellfire.4 And then at 5.40 a.m. the tension, which had been gradually building across the front, was rudely broken by the storm of shellfire that lashed down upon the tortured battlefield. Archibald Gordon MacGregor, a signals officer with 27 Brigade (9th Scottish Division), remembered the opening of the barrage being ‘awe-inspiring’, with guns lined up ‘axle to axle’ along the frontage of their sector. It was, he wrote, ‘a stunning pandemonium’.5 There was one gun or howitzer for every five yards of front, producing an intensity of fire that was at least double what had supported Gough’s assault on 31 July.6 The Battle of Menin Road (as it would subsequently be christened) unfolded, for the most part, as Plumer had planned. The wall of shellfire escorted the attacking divisions on to their objectives and kept the Germans at arm’s length; a shield of fire through which nothing could pass.

  Behind the smoke and dust of the creeping barrage, the attack was getting underway. The northern flank was secured by Fifth Army, with five divisions going ‘over the top’ from V, XVIII and XIV Corps. Given the difficulties of crossing what had been such a blasted, flooded wasteland, the attack was remarkably successful. There was bitter fighting around Hill 35 and a section of the Wilhelm Line known as ‘Pheasant Trench’ (where the tanks were largely ineffective), but the speed and swiftness of the advance seem to have taken the defenders by surprise.7 In 9th Division, the South African Brigade captured Borry Farm and Potsdam House, two heavily defended locations that had held up the British advance in this area for the best part of two months. ‘The hostile infantry showed very little fight in the open’, it was reported, ‘but where they held blockhouses they used machine guns until they found themselves surrounded… The prisoners were in all cases greatly demoralised by our heavy artillery fire.’8 An examination of Germans captured that morning revealed that while many had been warned to expect an attack, no specific instructions had been given. Furthermore, the assault ‘surprised them by its quickness and they were able to offer little resistance’.9