by Nick Lloyd
Over the decades, historians have not failed to point out Haig’s errors at Third Ypres: his inexplicable optimism in believing that he could clear the Belgian coast; the fatal delay after Messines; his decision to appoint an unsuitable commander in Gough; his failure to thrash out the details of the plan and order Gough to take the Gheluvelt Plateau; and his decision to continue attacking when all hope of a decisive result had gone.19 Correlli Barnett, who collaborated with John Terraine on the BBC’s 1964 television series The Great War, found Terraine’s analysis of the evolution of the Passchendaele campaign (which was contained in his 1963 work, Douglas Haig. The Educated Soldier) to be ‘perhaps the least convincing passage in an otherwise excellent biography’. For him, Haig’s decision ‘to attack the most powerful army in the war with only an Army Group supported by one ally in disintegration and the other paralysed by morale failure’ was unnecessary and stupid. It was ‘not merely historical hindsight to show how and why Haig’s calculations were unsound’, he writes, ‘for there was, after all, another Commander-in-Chief who at the time read the situation correctly and who adopted the correct policy–Pétain’.20
Perhaps the real tragedy of Third Ypres was not that it was fought at all, or that the British did not break through, but that they did not always fight to their strengths. By the summer of 1917 the BEF had evolved a battle-winning method of fighting, with artillery-heavy ‘bite-and-hold’ attacks that could gain (albeit limited amounts of) ground and take a heavy toll on any defenders unfortunate enough to get in their way. Given good weather and enough time, the British were able to inflict at least as many casualties on the enemy as they themselves received.21 And in General Plumer ‘bite and hold’ had its greatest architect. Yet the decision to give Gough the lead and allow him to, firstly, mount a high-risk breakthrough attempt on 31 July, and, secondly, get sucked into repeated, small-scale attacks throughout August that wore down divisions and achieved little of note, was a huge mistake that reflects poorly on Haig and his choice of subordinates after three years of war. It was exactly the same mistake that he had made in 1916 on the Somme (albeit involving General Sir Henry Rawlinson, not Gough): going for a hugely ambitious breakthrough, and then, when it failed, letting the battle meander on without sufficient organization and structure. It was only when the operation was on the brink of failure that Haig was forced to intervene and modify his approach.
When Plumer finally got his chance, he took it with both hands. In contrast to Gough’s floundering, Plumer’s time in the Salient produced three of the most outstanding examples of operational success during the war: Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde (on top of his earlier victory at Messines Ridge). Only modest amounts of ground may have been secured in these attacks, but it was of the highest value and regarded as such by the enemy. The effect of these hammer blows was pulverizing: reversing the favourable situation the Germans had enjoyed since the onset of the battle (with their reliance on defence-in-depth and Eingreif divisions) and provoking them into repeated, wasteful counter-attacks. Indeed, it has only rarely been appreciated how effective these operations were and how hard they pushed the Kaiser’s army. As German commanders ruefully conceded, there was, quite literally, nothing they could do to stop properly executed limited attacks. Moreover, to mastermind a sequence of such battles in a fortnight was not just very impressive from a logistical and administrative perspective, but also created–at least temporarily–a higher operational tempo than the Germans could cope with. As a solution to the dilemmas of trench warfare, this was about as good as it was ever going to get.
The system broke down of course. When Plumer was denied the two vital ingredients for success–time and good weather–it was almost inevitable that normal service would resume and the British would come to a halt. And while he must take some criticism for not remonstrating harder with Haig about the futility of maintaining the offensive into October and November, Plumer had shown the way.22 Had the Second Army commander been in charge from the beginning, had the offensive begun a month earlier, and had ‘bite and hold’ been the guiding principle upon which British operations were based, who knows what could have been achieved? It is possible that a major victory could have been won in the late summer and autumn of 1917. While this might not have entailed the complete liberation of the Belgian coast, it is not inconceivable that continued British pressure, heavier German losses and the effect of regular hammer blows might have convinced the German High Command that it was best to cut their losses. Had they decided to retreat to a better defensive position, perhaps giving up some of the ports and the rail junction at Roulers, it would have made their hold on western Belgium increasingly precarious and handed the British a major victory. It would have almost certainly sparked calls for renewed talks on the status of Belgium and raised the possibility of a compromise peace.
There is therefore good reason to claim that the Third Battle of Ypres was a ‘lost victory’ for the British Army in 1917. Plumer’s battles between 20 September and 4 October have never been given the recognition they deserve, and the failure to conduct these kinds of limited attacks earlier in the battle marks a great lost opportunity. The blame for this must lie with Haig. For him the dramatic breakthrough had to happen, and ‘bite and hold’, if it was anything, was just a temporary response to conditions in the field. Thus Haig’s popular reputation as a stolid commander, unimaginatively following a stale doctrine of attrition for four years, masks the truth that he was a compulsive gambler; with the compulsive gambler’s habit of throwing good money after bad, convinced that this time, finally, the cards would fall into place and he would win a big score. The tragedy was that Haig knew how high the stakes were, and how badly the odds were stacked against him.
The true story of Kiggell and the mud–which opened this history–is, in some respects, even worse than the legend would have us believe. Haig and GHQ were well aware of how bad conditions were, but still pressed ahead anyway. Both Haig’s diary and his despatch on ‘The Campaign of 1917’ are littered with references to the bad weather and difficult ground conditions.23 There was no fatal ignorance or wilful blindness, only a stubborn belief that however bad the ground conditions became, they in no way affected the reasons to keep fighting. But this is not to say that Haig was the only one to blame. Indeed, Lloyd George’s vitriolic criticism smacks of someone who was only too aware that he bore a heavy responsibility for what happened. While it is true that the War Cabinet did not see all the intelligence that Haig and Robertson possessed (particularly over the state of the German Army), Lloyd George still had the right to intervene and–as had been made perfectly clear to GHQ–stop the offensive at any moment should he deem it unprofitable. Yet the Prime Minister let things slip. He seemed uninterested at times: distracted by his dreams of Italian glory, and only too willing to believe what Robertson told him without subjecting it to proper scrutiny. He would regret it for the rest of his life.
After the war, Lloyd George would profess his innocence: the constraints of the coalition and the iron support the generals received from Bonar Law’s Unionists, as well as much of Fleet Street, prevented him from stopping the offensive. ‘I had no expert military counsel which I could weigh against theirs’, he wrote. ‘I was not aware at the time that the French Generals and some of our own Generals thought the attack was a mistake… Profound though my own apprehensions of failure were, I was a layman and in matters of military strategy did not possess the knowledge and training that would justify me in overriding soldiers of such standing and experience.’24 Whether Lloyd George was right remains a matter of speculation. The historians Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson have dismissed these excuses as little more than special pleading: ‘the power to decide on strategy rested with him’. Moreover, they rubbish the idea that had Lloyd George taken on Haig it would have sparked his resignation and ignited a coup against Downing Street (as has sometimes been suggested). ‘There can be but one explanation as to why Haig was able to embark on the Third Ypres cam
paign’, they write: ‘the civilian rulers of Britain gave their consent.’25
This stark conclusion should, however, not be taken too far, and a number of points remain in Lloyd George’s favour. Firstly, he maintained (correctly) that he had not seen any detailed plans for the Flanders offensive prior to June 1917, by which time the Battle of Messines, the first element of Haig’s ‘northern operation’, had already taken place. Although Haig had made it clear that should Nivelle fail, he would focus his efforts in Flanders, much was left unsaid. Moreover, Lloyd George’s tactical retreat at Paris on 4 May, in which he stated that he would leave the details of any future attacks to the generals, was not a ‘blank cheque’ that allowed Haig and Robertson to do whatever they liked. Forthcoming operations were always assumed to be based on two premises: firstly, that they would not be major breakthrough attempts, but aimed at wearing down the enemy; and, secondly, that they would depend upon significant French support.26 The structure of coalition government was another factor. Strategic instructions had to come from the War Cabinet, and, whether he liked it or not, Lloyd George could not simply ride roughshod over the wishes of his closest colleagues–men who had once been some of his fiercest enemies in Parliament. Together, they had to make a decision over the battle and consent to its continuation. Had Lloyd George pressed too hard, it is not inconceivable that there could have been a major breakdown in relations in Whitehall, and, in the end, it was a risk that he was not willing to take.27
Battles in the Great War, like enormous planetary bodies, also tended to have huge gravitational pulls. Thousands of tons of shells and supplies; hundreds of miles of extra roads and trenches; and complex billeting arrangements and training schedules–all required many weeks of preparation before an operation could go ahead and made it difficult, if not impossible, to change the location of attacks.28 While Lloyd George certainly held primary responsibility for the direction of Britain’s war effort, his generals exercised a great deal of influence in this matter. As would occur in 1917, the Commander-in-Chief could, effectively, present London with a fait accompli by marshalling his forces and, for example, beginning a preliminary bombardment without explicit authorization, thus raising the stakes in any subsequent decision. That Fifth Army’s opening bombardment was allowed to begin on 16 July without full Cabinet authorization for the coming battle says much about the influence of Haig and GHQ. As Lloyd George would know all too well, it was much more difficult to call a halt to an operation when the guns were already firing and the troops moving into position. This was further exacerbated by the patchy delivery of information from the front and the fact that it was several days, sometimes weeks, after an attack had gone in that sufficient information was available to form an objective judgement on its success or not. But by this time the battle had moved on and the moment for intervention was lost. Unfortunately for Lloyd George, his visit to France in late September, which could have been an opportunity to rein Haig in, occurred at the precise moment of their greatest success so far: the Battle of Menin Road. It is, perhaps, understandable if Lloyd George shied away from taking such a drastic step when things, finally, seemed to be going the way of the British.
This uneasy, blurred situation was not just about personalities, but also reflected the continuing unclear state of Britain’s civil and military relations throughout the Great War, where there was no ‘fully developed system’ for the prosecution of war.29 At this point, the direction of Britain’s strategic policy was shared–whether by design or accident–by both political leaders and military commanders, the balance between them waxing and waning at different times. The problem for Lloyd George was that without a convincing alternative strategic vision for the war, and without enough high-ranking soldiers committed to carrying it out, he was left to try and persuade and haggle as best he could, imprisoned by his own rhetoric of the ‘knock out blow’. Indeed, it says much for the paucity of British strategic thinking that, by the fourth year of the war, there was no detailed and considered appreciation of how the war was to be won. In the absence of a thoroughly considered national strategy, Haig was left to get on with things as he saw fit. Tragically, because Lloyd George ‘backed the wrong horse’ in General Nivelle, he lost a great deal of authority in the spring of 1917, when, arguably, he needed it more than ever.
Few in the British Government emerged well from the swamps of Passchendaele. As the historians Dominick Graham and Shelford Bidwell have noted, Third Ypres remains ‘the paradigm of the defects of the British High Command in the First World War: the head of state striving to direct grand strategy without the faintest understanding of its guiding principles, while his commander-in-chief in the field had one simple aim, to continue battering at the German war-machine until it cracked, cost what it may’.30 Ultimately, the British people and their Dominion allies would pay the price for this fatal disconnect in civil–military relations. Indeed, in the final reckoning, perhaps the only ones who emerged with much credit from the wreck of 1917 were those who had no illusions about what they were up against and who made the best of a poor situation: Philippe Pétain (who looked upon the ruin of the French Army with cold objectivity and did what he could to sustain his men); Sir Herbert Plumer and Tim Harington (who made Second Army the most highly regarded headquarters in the British Army); and Sir Arthur Currie (who commanded one of the most effective forces on the Western Front and did everything he could not to squander it). These commanders, and their men, stared into the face of disaster and did not flinch, but carried on calmly and professionally, trusting in their own expertise to see them through.
At a distance of 100 years it is now possible to see a little more clearly through the fog of war and make a judgement on the Third Battle of Ypres. The story is, as perhaps is to be expected, more complex than the legend of the ‘weeping staff officer’; more interesting than the stories of incompetence and ignorance. Arguably, the battle should never have been fought, with the British taking Pétain’s lead and conserving their strength for the greater battle to come in 1918 when the Americans, presumably, would be in France in strength. But if the battle had to be fought, then it was clear–as General Nivelle had discovered to his cost–that the grand, shattering breakthrough was not a viable option. The alternative–‘Pétain tactics’ or ‘bite and hold’–was the only way of making meaningful advances in the cauldron of the Western Front at this time: the only game in town. Haig’s failure to grasp the importance of limited advances and firepower–the priceless advantage of being able to attack the enemy on ground and at a time of your own choosing–meant that his army floundered around for two months without really hurting the enemy. The heavy rainfall was unlucky, but the failure to make the most of his force was all Haig’s fault. That his men, under the wise direction of General Plumer, almost gave him that decisive victory at Broodseinde on 4 October, was remarkable. Passchendaele, though, would ultimately prove to be a ridge too far.
‘At the end of the Battle of Ypres we were as near to being unhinged as it was possible to be’, wrote Frank Mellish, who had witnessed much of the battle with his artillery battery. ‘We had lost our pals and we had lost much of our zest for life. We had become convinced that it was merely a matter of time before we too would take the count and we didn’t seem to care.’31 Although it would become commonly assumed that their commanders were sublimely indifferent to the conditions in which the rank and file served, a number of senior officers were deeply affected by the battle. Plumer would open the Memorial to the Missing at the Menin Gate in July 1927 with words of comfort for the relatives of those who were never recovered from the battlefield: ‘He is not missing; he is here.’32 As for Tim Harington, he was always haunted by doubts that they were to blame. ‘I have knelt in Tyne Cot Cemetery below Passchendaele on that hallowed ground…’ he wrote in his biography of his old chief. ‘I have prayed in that cemetery oppressed with fear lest even one of those gallant comrades should have lost their life owing to any fault of neglect on that part of myself
and the Second Army staff… All I can truthfully say is that we did our utmost. We could not have done more.’33
The cost was enormous. According to Sir James Edmonds, total British ‘battle and trench wastage casualties’ between 31 July and 12 November 1917 amounted to 244,897 men. Edmonds was at pains to point out that this compared favourably to the 419,654 casualties from the Battle of the Somme the preceding year and that at Ypres thousands of lightly wounded men were included in these figures (of whom up to 64 per cent later returned to front-line duty).34 German losses were somewhat fewer, although historians have never been able to arrive at a universally accepted figure. According to the Reichsarchiv, Fourth Army–which held the front from the Belgian coast to Armentières–suffered 217,000 casualties for the period of the battle (between 21 July and 31 December 1917), including 55,000 dead and 48,000 missing.35 The German Medical History recorded a slightly higher figure of 236,241 (consisting of 32,878 dead, 38,083 missing, and 165,280 wounded and evacuated) during a similar time period.36 Therefore, it seems highly likely that German casualties broadly matched those of their attackers. As an exercise in attrition, it was, in large measure, a bloody draw–but because the BEF was smaller than its opponent, its losses were proportionally greater.37
In his great, unfinished work, On War, the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz once wrote that to be imbued with ‘true military spirit’, an army had to have the following defining characteristics:
An army that maintains its cohesion under the most murderous fire; that cannot be shaken by imaginary fears and resists well-founded ones with all its might; that, proud of its victories, will not lose the strength to obey orders and its respect and trust for its officers even in defeat; whose physical power, like the muscles of an athlete, has been steeled by training in privation and effort; a force that regards such efforts as a means to victory rather than a curse of its cause; that is mindful of all these duties and qualities by virtue of the single powerful idea of the honour of its arms–such an army is imbued with the true military spirit.38