by Nick Lloyd
59 Hankey, The Supreme Command, II, pp. 712–13.
60 TNA: CAB 27/6, ‘Cabinet Committee on War Policy’, 11 October 1917.
13. ‘The Weakness of Haste’
1 AWM: PR84/068, A. Birnie to ‘Dear Mother and Father’, 26 October 1917.
2 TNA: WO 95/15, ‘Daily Values of Rainfall’, October 1917.
3 TNA: WO 256/23, Haig diary, 8 October 1917. Original emphasis.
4 N. Annabell (ed.), Official History of the New Zealand Engineers during the Great War 1914–1919 (Wanganui: Evans, Cobb & Sharpe, 1927), pp. 153–4.
5 IWM: Documents 6618, J. A. Whitehead, ‘Four Years’ Memories’, pp. 107–12.
6 IWM: Documents 15758, Account of Colonel F. W. Mellish, p. 29.
7 Sir J. Edmonds, Military Operations: France & Belgium 1917 (3 vols., London: HMSO, 1948), II, p. 324.
8 For the problems facing the artillery of II ANZAC Corps between 5 and 9 October see A. Macdonald, Passchendaele. The Anatomy of a Tragedy (Auckland: HarperCollins, 2013), pp. 178–80.
9 IWM: Documents 17248, S. Roberts, ‘The Glorious Sixth’, p. 149.
10 Edmonds, Military Operations: 1917, II, p. 330.
11 R. Thompson, ‘Mud, Blood, and Wood: BEF Operational and Combat Logistico-Engineering during the Battle of Third Ypres, 1917’, in P. Doyle and M. R. Bennett (eds.), Fields of Battle. Terrain in Military History (London: Kluwer, 2002), pp. 245–6.
12 German pillboxes were also protected with new ‘apron wire’ that had not been encountered before. See TNA: WO 157/119, Second Army Daily Intelligence Summary, 13 October 1917.
13 C. E. W. Bean, The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 (13 vols., Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1941–2), IV, p. 900, and Edmonds, Military Operations: 1917, II, p. 324, n. 1.
14 TNA: WO 157/119, Second Army Daily Intelligence Summary, 14 October 1917.
15 IWM: Documents 15110, Account of N. Hind, pp. 451–2, 474.
16 TNA: WO 95/2768, 49th Division, ‘Narrative of Events 8th to 10th October 1917’, and Brigadier-General, 148 Infantry Brigade, to Headquarters, 49th Division, 13 October 1917.
17 TNA: WO 95/3120, ‘66th (East Lancashire) Division. Account of Action East of Ypres 9/10/17’.
18 IWM: Documents 1690, Account of P. R. Hall, pp. 16–17.
19 Edmonds, Military Operations: 1917, II, p. 334, n. 1.
20 Second Army intelligence was unimpressed with the ‘new policy of defence’. In a report the day after Poelcappelle, it noted that in the case of 195th Division ‘there was no material departure from the old principle of the defence in depth’ and captured officers apparently denied ‘all knowledge of any change in policy’. See TNA: WO 157/119, Second Army Daily Intelligence Summary, 10 October 1917.
21 W. Jürgensen, Das Füsilier-Regiment ‘Königin’ Nr. 86 im Weltkriege (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1925), p. 189.
22 H. von Wolff, Kriegsgeschichte des Jäger-Bataillon von Neumann (1. Schles.) Nr. 5 1914–1918 (Zeulenroda: Verlag Bernhard Sporn, n.d.), pp. 157–8.
23 DTA: 3502.1, R. Lewald diary, 7–10 October 1917.
24 Rupprecht diary, 10 October 1917, in Crown Prince Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch (3 vols., Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1929), II, p. 270.
25 German Official History, cited in J. Terraine, The Road to Passchendaele. The Flanders Offensive of 1917: A Study in Inevitability (London: Leo Cooper, 1977), p. 299.
26 W. Beumelburg, Flandern 1917 (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1928), p. 131.
27 Histories of Two Hundred and Fifty-One Divisions of the German Army Which Participated in the War (1914–1918) (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1920), p. 287.
28 Beumelburg, Flandern, p. 131.
29 Menges in J. Sheldon, The German Army at Passchendaele (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2007), p. 218.
30 Macdonald, Passchendaele, p. 185.
31 IWM: Documents 7197, F. J. Rice diary, 10–11 October 1917.
32 This is generally accepted. See for example N. Steel and P. Hart, Passchendaele. The Sacrificial Ground (London: Cassell & Co., 2001; first publ. 2000), pp. 273–5, and R. Prior and T. Wilson, Passchendaele. The Untold Story (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002; first publ. 1996), p. 169.
33 TNA: WO 256/23, Haig diary, 10 October 1917. See Haig’s diary entry for 9 October in which he states that 66th Division took all its objectives and 49th ‘gained all except small piece on left’.
34 Macdonald, Passchendaele, p. 56.
35 P. A. Pedersen, Monash as Military Commander (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 1985), p. 198.
36 G. Serle, John Monash. A Biography (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2002; first publ. 1982), p. 294.
37 In Charles Bean’s papers he records a talk Harington gave at Second Army HQ prior to Poelcappelle, in which he was strongly in favour of continuing, telling assembled journalists that after one or two more attacks, the cavalry ‘would be ready to go through’. Prior and Wilson, Passchendaele, pp. 160–61. See also Sir C. Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back (London: John Murray, 1940), p. 63.
38 P. Simkins, ‘Herbert Plumer’, in I. F. W. Beckett and S. J. Corvi (eds.), Haig’s Generals (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2006), pp. 157–8. One of those who saw Plumer at this time was surprised by his optimism and cheerfulness: ‘it is the old story: those who live right away from the troops engaged cannot possibly understand the strain and weariness affecting fighting troops at the Front…’ Jack diary, 8 October 1917, in J. Terraine (ed.), General Jack’s Diary 1914–18. The Trench Diary of Brigadier-General J. L. Jack, D.S.O. (London: Cassell & Co., 2000; first publ. 1964), p. 280.
39 J. R. Byrne, New Zealand Artillery in the Field, 1914–18 (Auckland: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1922), p. 192.
40 A. E. Byrne, Official History of the Otago Regiment, N.Z.E.F. in the Great War 1914–1918 (Dunedin: J. Wilkie & Company, 1921), pp. 211–12.
41 TNA: WO 95/1740, ‘9th (Scottish) Division. Narrative of Operations, 12.10.17’.
42 AWM: AWM4 23/9/12, ‘Ninth Australian Infantry Brigade. Report of Operations Carried out on 12-10-17’.
43 Langford, cited in G. Harper, Massacre at Passchendaele. The New Zealand Story (Brighton: FireStep Books, 2011; first publ. 2000), p. 71.
44 Byrne, Otago Regiment, pp. 216–18. Cockerell was later awarded a Distinguished Service Order: ‘a rare Order for an officer of his rank’, notes the battalion history.
45 D. Ferguson, The History of the Canterbury Regiment, N.Z.E.F. 1914–1919 (Auckland: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1921), p. 198.
46 AWM: AWM4 23/51/12, 34/Battalion War Diary, 12 October 1917.
47 AWM: 2DRL/0185, ‘Extracts from the Late Lieut. G. M. Carson’. Original emphasis.
48 Bean, The Official History of Australia, IV, pp. 917–18. A small party from 10 Brigade managed to reach Passchendaele church, but, finding it abandoned and with no signs of support, had to withdraw.
49 S. Snelling, VCs of the First World War. Passchendaele 1917 (Stroud: The History Press, 2012; first publ. 1998), pp. 246–8.
50 AWM: AWM4 23/9/12, ‘Ninth Australian Infantry Brigade. Report of Operations Carried out on 12-10-17’. The retreat from the Blue Line would result in a Court of Inquiry held in December 1917. It made a series of recommendations, including better command and control, and the need for battalion commanders to ‘take hold of the situation’. See A. Fox, ‘“The Word ‘Retire’ is Never to be Used”: The Performance of the 9th Brigade, AIF, at First Passchendaele, 1917’, Australian War Memorial, SVSS Paper (2011), pp. 1–28.
51 AWM: PR84/068, A. Birnie to ‘Dear Mother and Father’, 26 October 1917. Emphasis added.
52 Wolff, Jäger-Bataillon von Neumann, pp. 171–2. The reference to the ‘English’ was probably because German sources often failed to differentiate between different nationalities in the BEF.
53 H. Stewart, The New Zealand Division 1916–1919. A Popular History Based on Official Records (Auckland: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1921), p. 291.
54 Russell, cited in C.
Pugsley, ‘The New Zealand Division at Passchendaele’, in P. Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in Perspective. The Third Battle of Ypres (London: Leo Cooper, 1997), pp. 285–6.
55 C. Pugsley, On the Fringe of Hell. New Zealanders and Military Discipline in the First World War (Auckland: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991), pp. 249–50.
56 Harper, Massacre at Passchendaele, pp. 76–8.
57 AWM: 3DRL/2316, letters, 18 and 21 October 1917, in ‘War Letters of General Monash: Volume 2, 4 March 1917–28 December 1918’.
14. ‘Not Worth a Drop of Blood’
1 A. H. Atteridge, History of the 17th (Northern) Division (Glasgow: Robert Maclehose & Co., 1929), p. 259.
2 IWM: Documents 13966, Account of G. Skelton.
3 IWM: Documents 17248, S. Roberts, ‘The Glorious Sixth’, p. 153.
4 IWM: Documents 4755, H. S. Taylor, ‘Further Reminiscences of World War 1’, p. 5.
5 IWM: Document 7613, Account of V. E. Fagence, pp. 6–7.
6 IWM: Documents 7197, F. J. Rice diary, 22 October 1917.
7 AWM: 2DRL/0277, S. E. Hunt, ‘The Operation at Polygon Wood’, p. 12.
8 IWM: Documents 12332, ‘The Journal of John Nettleton of the Rifle Brigade 1914–1919’, p. 101.
9 A. Ekins, ‘The Australians at Passchendaele’, in P. Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in Perspective. The Third Battle of Ypres (London: Leo Cooper, 1997), p. 245. Rates may also have been higher given that the death penalty was not applied to Australian soldiers (owing to a clause in the Australian Defence Act of 1903). See C. Pugsley, On the Fringe of Hell. New Zealanders and Military Discipline in the First World War (Auckland: Hodder & Stoughton, 1991). pp. 131–2.
10 A. Macdonald, Passchendaele. The Anatomy of a Tragedy (Auckland: HarperCollins, 2013), p. 49.
11 Lord Birdwood, Khaki and Gown. An Autobiography (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1941), pp. 316–17.
12 Haig diary, 13 October 1917, in G. Sheffield and J. Bourne (eds.), Douglas Haig. War Diaries and Letters 1914–1918 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), p. 336.
13 TNA: WO 95/15, ‘Daily Values of Rainfall’, September–October 1917. At Vlamertinge, September produced 25mm of rain less than the average, with October being worse by 32mm.
14 TNA: WO 256/21, Haig to Charteris, 5 March 1927. Original emphasis. See also Sir J. Davidson, Haig. Master of the Field (London: Peter Nevill, 1953), p. 59. The offending passages can be found in W. S. Churchill, The World Crisis 1916–1918. Part II (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1927), pp. 337–9.
15 Sir J. Edmonds, Military Operations: France & Belgium 1917 (3 vols., London: HMSO, 1948), II, p. 326.
16 This argument was dismissed as early as 1959. See B. H. Liddell Hart, ‘The Basic Truths of Passchendaele’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, Vol. CIV, No. 616 (November 1959), pp. 433–5. For more recent discussions see B. Bond, ‘Passchendaele: Verdicts, Past and Present’, in Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in Perspective, p. 484, and T. Travers, How the War was Won. Command and Technology in the British Army on the Western Front, 1917–1918 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2005; first publ. 1992), p. 18.
17 E. Greenhalgh, The French Army and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p. 234.
18 TNA: WO 256/22, Haig diary, 26, 27 and 29 September 1917.
19 TNA: WO 256/23, Haig diary, 18 October 1917. According to William Philpott, ‘Nothing caused more regular and repetitious squabbling between the allied headquarters than the question of the fair distribution of the defence front between the allied armies.’ W. J. Philpott, Anglo-French Relations and Strategy on the Western Front, 1914–18 (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 108.
20 TNA: WO 256/23, Haig to Pétain, 19 October 1917. See also ‘Note of General Pétain’s representations in favour of more line being taken over by the British Armies’, in which Haig criticizes Pétain’s anxiety and states that the ‘prosecution of our offensive’ would be ‘the wisest military policy’ in the event of Russia exiting the war.
21 Macdonogh had suggested that the morale of German troops ‘gives no cause for anxiety to the German High Command’, which prompted a quite extraordinary entry in Haig’s diary for 15 October. ‘I cannot think why the War Office Intelligence Department gives such a wrong picture of the situation except that General Macdonogh… is a Roman Catholic and is (unconsciously) influenced by information which doubtless reaches him from tainted (ie., Catholic) sources…’ Haig was referring to a call for peace negotiations that had been made by Pope Benedict XV on 1 August 1917. For many historians this outspoken attack sums up Haig’s lack of objective thinking and clarity. Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson conclude that ‘self-deception could go no further’. See Haig diary, 15 October 1917, in Sheffield and Bourne (eds.), Douglas Haig, pp. 336–7, and R. Prior and T. Wilson, Passchendaele. The Untold Story (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002; first publ. 1996), p. 166.
22 Robertson, cited in J. Beach, Haig’s Intelligence. GHQ and the German Army, 1916–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 258–9.
23 D. G. Dancocks, Legacy of Valour. The Canadians at Passchendaele (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1986), pp. 96–7.
24 T. Cook, Shock Troops. Canadians Fighting the Great War 1917–1918 (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2008), p. 316.
25 S. B. Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire. The Canadian Corps in the Last 100 Days of the Great War (Westport: Praeger, 1997), p. 19.
26 Macdonell, cited in Dancocks, Legacy of Valour, pp. 97–8. Original emphasis.
27 T. Cook, The Madman and the Butcher. The Sensational Wars of Sam Hughes and Sir Arthur Currie (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2010), ch. 3, pp. 73–4.
28 According to Currie, Haig finally revealed his secret when they met at the Peace Conference at Versailles in 1919. Apparently, Haig wanted to prevent German attacks on the French Army, while also restoring civilian morale with a victory. Interestingly, he made no mention of having to secure ground that would give his troops somewhere to winter. G. W. L. Nicholson, Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War. Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919 (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer, 1962), p. 328, and Cook, Shock Troops, p. 317.
29 Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire during the Great War. 1914–1920 (London: HMSO, 1922), p. 146 (Table X). Totals correct as of 8 October 1917. A fifth division was forming in England, but it never took to the field. Currie had it broken up in February 1918 to furnish much-needed replacement manpower for the corps.
30 Canadian tactical development has attracted considerable attention. See I. M. Brown, ‘Not Glamorous, But Effective: The Canadian Corps and the Set-Piece Attack, 1917–1918’, Journal of Military History, Vol. 58, No. 3 (July 1994), pp. 421–44; T. Cook, No Place to Run. The Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1999), and Shock Troops; C. Pugsley, ‘Learning from the Canadian Corps on the Western Front’, Canadian Military History, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Winter 2006), pp. 5–32; B. Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare. Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914–1918 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992); and Schreiber, Shock Army of the British Empire.
31 Beach, Haig’s Intelligence, pp. 38–9. Beach states that ‘the Canadians were always at least a year ahead of British corps in their intelligence manning’.
32 Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare, p. 111.
33 J. Hansch and F. Weidling, Das Colbergsche Grenadier-Regiment Graf Gneisenau (2 Pommersches) Nr. 9 im Weltkriege 1914–1918 (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1929), p. 417.
34 J. Sheldon, The German Army at Passchendaele (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2007), pp. 258–9.
35 R. McLeod and C. Fox, ‘The Battles in Flanders during the Summer and Autumn of 1917 from General von Kuhl’s Der Weltkrieg 1914–18’, British Army Review, No. 116 (August 1997), pp. 85–6.
36 Peistrup, in Sheldon, Passchendaele, pp. 245–6.
37 DTA: 3502.1, R. Lewald diary, 19 October 1917.
38 Taken from ‘Dreamers’, in S. Sassoon, Selected P
oems (London: William Heinemann, 1940; first publ. 1925), p. 20.
39 Thaer diary, 28 September 1917, in A. von Thaer, Generalstabsdienst an der Front und in der O.H.L. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958), p. 140.
40 Sheldon, Passchendaele, p. 243.
41 G. Werth, ‘Flanders 1917 and the German Soldier’, in Liddle (ed.), Passchendaele in Perspective, p. 329.
42 Kleysteuber, in Sheldon, Passchendaele, p. 215.
43 TNA: WO 157/119, Second Army Daily Intelligence Summary, 12 October 1917.
44 See for example TNA: WO 157/119, Second Army Daily Intelligence Summary, 22 October 1917.
45 Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg 1914 bis 1918, XIII. Die Kriegführung im Sommer und Herbst 1917. Die Ereignisse außerhalb der Westfront bis November 1918 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1942), pp. 99–100.
46 W. Jürgensen, Das Füsilier-Regiment ‘Königin’ Nr. 86 im Weltkriege (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1925), pp. 187–8.
47 IWM: Documents 1933, Account of W. A. Rappolt, pp. 61–5.
48 Reichskriegsministeriums, Sanitätsbericht über das Deutsche Heer (Deutsches Feld- und Besatzungsheer) im Weltkriege 1914/1918 (3 vols., Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1934–8), II, p. 708.
49 Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg, XIII, p. 86.
50 Rupprecht diary, 5 August 1917, in Crown Prince Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch (3 vols., Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1929), II, pp. 235–6.
51 Sheldon, Passchendaele, pp. 314–15. Figures taken from Table 47 in Sanitätsbericht über das Deutsche Heer, III, p. 55.
52 Thaer diary, 11 October 1917, in Thaer, Generalstabsdienst, p. 143.
53 Rupprecht, in Sheldon, Passchendaele, pp. 228–9.
54 Rupprecht diary, 21 October 1917, in Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch, II, pp. 273–4.
55 Ibid., 24 October 1917, II, p. 275.
56 For the creation of Group Staden see Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg, XIII, p. 87, and Sheldon, Passchendaele, pp. 40–41.
57 DTA: 3244.17, E. Schaarschmidt diary, 20 October 1917.
58 G. C. Wynne, If Germany Attacks. The Battle in Depth in the West (Westport: Greenwood, 1976; first publ. 1940), pp. 310, 313.