by Nick Lloyd
The defenders cowered in their water-filled craters without protection from the weather, hungry and freezing, continually exposed to the overwhelming enemy artillery fire. Even the staffs of the forward units had no cover, except perhaps a thin corrugated-iron roof over their shell hole. Movement in the muddy soil was very difficult: men and horses sank into the slime; rifles and machine-guns, coated with mud, refused to function. Only rarely was it possible to supply the defenders with a hot meal. Distribution of orders in the forward area was difficult in the extreme as telephone and line communication had been shot to pieces. It was painful work for runners struggling through the mud.
For Kuhl the ‘suffering, privation and exertions’ his men endured were ‘inexpressible’. ‘No division’, he lamented, ‘could last more than a fortnight in this Hell.’35
It was not just men who struggled through the mud; horses were particularly vulnerable in such boggy conditions. On 18 October men of 8th Battery, Field Artillery Regiment (10th Bavarian Division), tried to reinforce the lines around Becelaere. According to Reserve Second Lieutenant Peistrup, they endured ‘unspeakable difficulties’ bringing up their guns. At the appointed time, their battery was to fire a thousand rounds of gas shell and then, as soon as was safe, move them back. But the ground was so awful that the exercise rapidly descended into a terrifying struggle for survival:
As we prepared to move our guns, one of the limbers slid down into a huge shell crater. Officers and men attempted, in some cases up to their necks in icy water, to free the horses. Despite the greatest efforts this proved to be impossible, because the horses were trapped by the mud. There was nothing else for it but to put them out of their terrified misery with a revolver shot. Hardly one hundred metres further on, another team fell into a crater where, before it could be rescued, all the horses were drowned.36
The gunnery officer Reinhard Lewald went through a similar ordeal. ‘We had another gun shot to hell’, he wrote on 19 October. After two ‘nice autumn days’, when the battle seemed to have ended, renewed artillery fire picked up again as the Canadians began gearing up for their assault. ‘Our battery is under almost continuous fire, and we are being fired upon with calibres up to 34cm. The terrain at our firing position is a single crater field. We can barely bring up our ammunition any more in the churned-up ground. Our horses–yet again, almost a quarter of which have been shot dead or wounded–are in danger of collapsing.’37 This constant exposure to death, or near-death, presented soldiers with enormous psychological challenges, and it was not unusual to see men collapse under heavy fire, go screaming from shell hole to shell hole, until stilled by their comrades or wounded or killed. Others internalized their fear and kept going: reciting prayers or spells; holding good-luck tokens; or following well-worn routines that, they were convinced, helped them to navigate ‘death’s gray land’ in the trenches.38
The Flandernschlacht did not just take a psychological toll on the men in the trenches. Their commanders could be equally depressed at having to send units into the maelstrom knowing that they were, in all probability, condemning them to death. Indeed, the fate of the Eingreif divisions, if, where and when to deploy them, caused many anxious moments in battlefield headquarters up and down the front. Albrecht von Thaer, who sent in many counter-attacks at Group Wytschaete, described the enormous responsibility he faced, as he worried constantly that he would make a mistake, with inevitably lethal consequences. ‘It is simply terrible when one has to decide within a matter of a few minutes whether to send reserves to rescue the people at the front, which effectively means that, once again, some hundreds or thousands of men will march forward, mostly to their doom. I always tell myself that, in making decisions of this kind, I must exercise the same caution as I would if my brother or my son were in these columns. But what is the point of all that?’ he asked. ‘After all, can we not “turn back?”’39
Contrary to Haig’s faith in an imminent collapse in enemy morale, the mood of German soldiers remained largely stable, if sorely tried, during this period.40 Although there is no doubt that Flanders had become a byword for mud and death–‘the great Flemish human mill’, as one soldier put it–German units continued to perform well throughout the summer and autumn.41 According to Staff Sergeant Alfred Kleysteuber of 233 Reserve Infantry Regiment (195th Division), when notice came to embark for Flanders, ‘the word flashed round the regiment like news of a death. Everywhere there were serious faces, because everybody knew that the fateful hour was upon them.’ Yet the men detrained on time, arriving at Thielt–with the sky lit up, as usual, with artillery fire–one day before reaching Passchendaele to take their place in the line.42 Not all units went into the ‘mill’ so easily, however. A company commander in 16 Bavarian Infantry Regiment (of the notoriously poor 10th Bavarian Division), who was captured by the British on 12 October, told his captors that his officers had ‘great difficulty’ in averting a mutiny when the men heard they were going back to Flanders. ‘On the march, an Oberleutnant rode along the ranks and told the men to “close up” and not straggle; he was met with shouts of “Sauhund” [Bastard]’, and warned that if he did it again he would be shot.43
The balance, as with all armies, was crucial. Units had to feel that their sacrifice was both proportional and fair; that they were being asked to do no more than others. Although some evidence filtered back to British intelligence of ill-feeling between the Bavarians and the Prussians, with those from South Germany being ‘sacrificed’, which increased levels of desertion, the Army held together reasonably well, bound by common discipline and patriotism, and the realization of how important it was to hold on.44 Yet the commanders knew full well how exhausting the battle was becoming. According to a Fourth Army report, dated 21 October, the circumstances in Flanders ‘exceeded the horror of anything previously experienced’ by its troops. ‘In the judgement of front-line soldiers who also served at Verdun and the Somme, the strength of the firestorm that preceded and accompanied the charges of the attackers in Flanders in 1917 was far greater than ever before.’ As might have been expected, the demands this placed on the men–what the Official History called ‘psychological tenacity’–were enormous. Cowering ‘here and there in muddy craters behind obstacles that had been completely shot to pieces, exposed to fire and the elements and at all times aware of impending enemy attacks, as well as being exhausted owing to a lack of sleep and provisions, as they were only rarely delivered in adequate quantity and quality’, the German soldier had to find the courage to keep going. ‘The vast majority of German troops deployed in this battle’, it concluded proudly, ‘passed this nearly superhuman test of their resilience.’45
The intensity of the shellfire could drive men insane. According to the regimental history of 86 Fusilier Regiment, which fought throughout September and October, the bombardments it experienced at Ypres were different to those on the Somme, causing ‘paralysing terror’ among those subjected to it. ‘The soldiers bury their faces in the mud and cling on to tree roots to stop themselves from involuntarily jumping up and running away like madmen. Others squat in the concrete blocks in passive desperation.’ Being in a pillbox when shelling was going on was, as could be imagined, simply hellish. ‘When the mud of Flanders splatters into the sky all around and the earth is grasped by spasms, then the block will sway up and down like a ship on the waves.’ Although the walls and ceiling could withstand calibres up to 15cm, the detonations travelled through the concrete with ‘harrowing effects’. Pillboxes could also be badly undermined by artillery fire, with shells slipping deep into the surrounding mud and then exploding beneath the ground, ripping open the floor and blowing to pieces anyone unfortunate enough to be inside. That was bad enough, but what men feared more than anything else was the whole pillbox being knocked on to its side, doorways facing the mud, trapping the occupants inside. It was little wonder that many men thought long and hard about whether to take shelter in those dark, claustrophobic, haunted caverns. There were many ways to die in the
Ypres Salient in that awful summer of 1917.46
Someone who saw for himself how horribly unpredictable death could be was Walter Rappolt, an NCO with 1 Guard Foot Artillery Regiment. His battery spent most of the battle deployed around Becelaere (a mile and a half from the eastern edge of Polygon Wood), which was one of the most heavily shelled areas of the front. One of his worst experiences took place on 26 August when a telephonist called Meyer had the ‘top of his skull blown off’ by a shell splinter. Although the man sitting next to him was unharmed, he was ‘deeply disturbed’ by what had happened. Rappolt recorded how his commanding officer, Lieutenant Konig, tried to deal with the situation as quickly as possible. He ‘took a piece of wood and removed part of the brain which was lying on the telephone’ and cleaned up the mess. Rappolt admitted that he now faced ‘a difficult task, to prevent my breakdown… It was only a moment before, that I had talked to that man.’ The following day another horrific incident occurred when a shell cartridge got stuck in the breech of one of their 10cm guns. Their mechanic ‘got tired of it’ and in ‘a touch of madness he took a mallet smacking it on the priming handle with the breech half open’. The result was a vicious flash, like a lightning strike. ‘The shell burst from the gun, but at the back a tremendous explosion which caused terrible burns to the poor chap. His eyes were gone and he cried very much on his way to the first aid station. I do not know what happened to him.’47
How close did the German Army come to breaking during the Battle of Flanders? In truth, it came close, but not close enough. According to the German Medical History, eleven corps were deployed in total, sometimes for significant periods of time, and all would be affected by the horror of Third Ypres. Nineteen divisions arrived to replace 21 divisions in August; 12 arrived and 14 left the following month; 31 arrived and 18 left during October; and 11 arrived and 25 left in November. In all 100 infantry divisions were brought into Flanders, with 98 being relieved, between May and December 1917–what was recognized as ‘an extraordinary turnover of divisions’. Of these, 23 were deployed twice and one was even deployed three times.48 According to official records, the 63 divisions that went into action between 10 July and 10 October sustained a total of 159,000 casualties, many of them caused by heavy artillery fire, including long-range howitzers, which searched the rear areas for ammunition dumps, billets and headquarters of any kind. There is little doubt that Third Ypres demanded a heavy and continuous commitment of troops, guns and supplies.49
It seems clear that the German Army had come through the fighting of July and August relatively intact. Although Fourth Army’s casualties were not inconsiderable, there was a sense that the battle was proceeding in a largely manageable and stable way. At the beginning of August, Crown Prince Rupprecht favourably compared the battle with the Somme fighting of 1916. In Flanders, his divisions had lost, on average, between 1,500 and 2,000 men each, which contrasted with the figure of 4,000 for an average two-week tour on the Somme. ‘While at that time the troops required a long recovery period for the exhaustion caused primarily by a lack of sleep because of their long deployment, the troops now recover significantly faster.’50 This (relatively) comfortable situation did not last, however, and the Battle of Menin Road on 20 September ushered in the most harrowing phase of the fighting for the Germans. It was telling that the three worst periods of losses for the German Army in the summer of 1917 were the Battle of Messines (1–10 June), with 10,374 killed or missing and 12,614 wounded; Menin Road and Polygon Wood (21–30 September), with 7,821 dead and missing and 16,986 wounded; and Broodseinde and Poelcappelle (1–10 October) with 9,034 killed and missing and 14,217 wounded.51
By early October the German position in Flanders was becoming increasingly precarious, with congestion on the cramped railway network and a lack of reinforcements badly affecting both morale and combat effectiveness. The impact of Plumer’s first three hammer blows produced a feeling of desperation, verging, in places, on panic, within the German High Command. ‘Since the day before yesterday, Ludendorff rang me three times concerning orders,’ complained Albrecht von Thaer on 11 October; ‘Kuhl, Lossberg and other minor deities race to headquarters and to the troops in the staff car and also rage over there in the offices, and make everyone frantic and nervous. The nervousness from above surely does not make a good impression and does little to help…’52 The same day, Rupprecht’s diary entry also betrayed a growing sense of unease. ‘Our troops along the main battle front in Flanders are still thoroughly mixed up and confusion reigns in the various formations.’ He believed that the ‘fighting ability’ of the men was ‘reducing all the time’, primarily because of the ‘oppressive superiority’ of enemy guns. ‘Because we are involved in a battle for time, there remains nothing for it, but repeatedly to give ground in order to force our opponents to waste time as they move their artillery forward.’53
Yet the moment of greatest danger had already passed. It was impossible for the British to maintain the impressive operational tempo that had been achieved between 20 September and 4 October, and rushed preparations, heavy rain and the sapping effects of operating across such a waterlogged, open battlefield eventually proved fatal to Haig’s hopes. With renewed attacks on 9 and 12 October gaining little ground, the battle returned once more to the slower, more predictable affair that it had been throughout August. The conditions at the front were certainly awful and extremely exhausting, but Fourth Army could cope for the short period of time that remained for any offensive action to take place. On 21 October Ludendorff telephoned Rupprecht and told him that ‘the main objective was to hold out for the next 14 days, and for that reason as much field artillery as possible had to be deployed at the main battle front’, with frequent gas shoots at night to interfere with the enemy.54 Although the Army Group commander felt that if the weather was better, attacks could continue into December, a major advance seemed more and more unlikely. By 24 October, two days before Currie’s first step towards the heights of Passchendaele, OHL issued guidelines for the maintenance of their positions through the winter.55
Given the pressures on the Army, changes, both tactical and organizational, were imminent. The day after the victory at First Passchendaele, General Freiherr von Marschall travelled to Flanders, where he was to assume command of the newly formed Group Staden. Based on the Guard Reserve Corps, Group Staden was deployed between the Houthulst Forest and just south of Passchendaele, where it would play a major role in the final defensive actions in the Salient.56 One look at the ground made it clear where the British would come from. ‘The Passchendaele–Roulers railway line gave the English a favourable route for the attack, as south of it our front bent backwards… whereas north of the railway our line turned to the west and around Passchendaele’, wrote Lieutenant E. Schaarschmidt of 126 Infantry Regiment (39th Division), who entered the line on 20 October. His men dug into the wet ground as best they could, scraping out foxholes that were covered over with wooden boards, tarpaulins or corrugated iron. It was hardly ideal, but it would have to do.57
As well as bringing in reinforcements, German defensive doctrine was rapidly being updated after the experiences of Flanders. On 23 October it was agreed to deploy an Eingreif division behind each front-line division, forming a ‘legion’ of two divisions to a depth of 8,000 yards. The front-line commander was given authority over both units to ensure they operated in tandem.58 It was, in a sense, the logical next step in the continual evolution of German tactics that had been seen throughout 1917. Although this was, admittedly, a greater commitment of manpower than OHL would have liked (being the ‘unheard-of expenditure of force’ that Ludendorff had warned about a month earlier), it seemed the only reliable way of making sure that the British were kept at bay in the last weeks of the battle.
It may not have felt like a victory, but by the time Canadian Corps headquarters opened at Poperinge on 18 October, the German Army had, effectively, already won the battle. It had held on for long enough and, crucially, was still camped upon a significa
nt area of high ground, to make it to winter and the inevitable cessation of major combat operations. Moreover, it had done what the Westheer had been doing successfully since the failure of the Schlieffen Plan in September 1914: holding the line in the west and thus allowing the Central Powers to maintain freedom of manoeuvre; reinforcing threatened fronts, and taking on the Russian Army in the east. Now it was Italy’s turn. On 24 October, Ludendorff’s counter-attack on the Isonzo River was launched and, like a thunderbolt, cracked open the Italian Front. Such was the violence and rapidity of the Austro-German assault–known as the Battle of Caporetto–that the Italian forces disintegrated. Within four days, the Italian Second Army was in full retreat after losing 60,000 prisoners and 500 guns.59 It would be one of the swiftest and most decisive operations of the war, leaving further Italian participation in the conflict on a knife-edge. For the Allies, 1917 had begun with unease, confusion and disaster, and it looked like it was going to end that way as well.
15.
‘Against the Iron Wall’
The enemy charged like a wild bull against the iron wall which kept him from our submarine bases… But it held, although a faint tremor ran through its foundations.
Erich Ludendorff1
26 October–10 November 1917