Passchendaele

by Nick Lloyd

  59 Reichsarchiv, Der Weltkrieg, XIII, p. 249.

  15. ‘Against the Iron Wall’

  1 E. Ludendorff, Ludendorff’s Own Story. August 1914–November 1918 (2 vols., New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1919), II, p. 106.

  2 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. 313.

  3 D. G. Dancocks, Legacy of Valour. The Canadians at Passchendaele (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1986), p. 103.

  4 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4957, Reel T-10774, File: 504, Part 2, ‘Canadian Corps Artillery Report on Passchendaele Operations Oct. 17th to Nov. 18th 1917’, pp. 12, 14.

  5 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919, p. 318.

  6 CWM: 58A 1 27.11, Memoirs of G. F. McFarland, Vol. II, p. 29.

  7 J. Adair, ‘The Battle of Passchendaele: The Experiences of Lieutenant Tom Rutherford, 4th Battalion, Canadian Mounted Rifles’, Canadian Military History, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Autumn 2004), pp. 66–8.

  8 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4896, Reel T-10690, File: 289, Part 1, ‘Headquarters–8th Canadian Infantry Brigade War Diary October, 1917. Appendix 22’.

  9 S. G. Bennett, The 4th Canadian Mounted Rifles 1914–1919 (Toronto: Murray Printing Company, 1926), p. 80.

  10 CWM: 58A 1 27.11, Memoirs of G. F. McFarland, Vol. II, p. 32.

  11 Adair, ‘The Battle of Passchendaele’, p. 74.

  12 They were Private T. W. Holmes (4/CMR); Lieutenant R. Shankland (43/Battalion); Acting Captain C. P. J. O’Kelly (52/Battalion); Private C. J. Kinross (49/Battalion); Lieutenant H. McKenzie (7/Canadian MG Company); Sergeant G. H. Mullin (PPCLI); Major G. R. Pearkes (5/CMR); Private C. F. Barron (3/Battalion); and Private J. P. Robertson (27/Battalion).

  13 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4938, Reel T-10744, File: 434, Part 2, 43/Battalion War Diary, 26 September 1917.

  14 S. Snelling, VCs of the First World War. Passchendaele 1917 (Stroud: The History Press, 2012; first publ. 1998), pp. 256–9.

  15 J. Hansch and F. Weidling, Das Colbergsche Grenadier-Regiment Graf Gneisenau (2 Pommersches) Nr. 9 im Weltkriege 1914–1918 (Oldenburg: Gerhard Stalling, 1929), p. 424.

  16 C. Stachelbeck, Militärische Effektivität im Ersten Weltkrieg. Die 11. Bayerische Infanteriedivision 1915 bis 1918 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2010), pp. 208–9, 215.

  17 11th Bavarian Division suffered 1,800 casualties as opposed to over 3,400 in the two attacking Canadian divisions. See C. Stachelbeck, ‘Strategy “in a Microcosm”: Processes of Tactical Learning in a WW1 German Infantry Division’, Journal of Military & Strategic Studies, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Summer 2011), p. 18, n. 50.

  18 Stachelbeck, Militärische Effektivität im Ersten Weltkrieg, p. 222.

  19 See TNA: WO 157/119, ‘Enemy’s New Battery Positions Disclosed Oct. 1st 1917’, in Second Army Daily Intelligence Summary, 2 October 1917. A point in the centre of the Canadian Corps area was about 6,000 yards from the front line at Passchendaele, but only 3,000 yards from that to the southeast. LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4957, Reel T-10774, File: 504, Part 2, ‘Canadian Corps Artillery Report on Passchendaele Operations Oct. 17th to Nov. 18th 1917’, p. 32.

  20 DTA: 3502.1, R. Lewald diary, 26 October 1917.

  21 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4957, Reel T-10774, File: 504, Part 2, ‘Canadian Corps Artillery Report on Passchendaele Operations Oct. 17th to Nov. 18th 1917’, p. 17.

  22 H. A. Jones, The War in the Air. Being the Story of the Part Played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force (6 vols., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922–37), IV, p. 210.

  23 A. Revell, Brief Glory. The Life of Arthur Rhys Davids, DSO, MC and Bar (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2010), pp. 195, 209. Research indicates that he was shot down by Karl Gallwitz and came down somewhere around the Passchendaele Ridge. His body was never found.

  24 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919, pp. 320–21.

  25 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4940, Reel T-10747, File: 440, Part 2, 49/Battalion War Diary, November 1917, Appendix A.

  26 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4949, Reel T-10760, File: 437, Part 2, ‘5th CMR Battalion. Summary of Operations, October 30th–31st, 1917’.

  27 Snelling, Passchendaele 1917, p. 283. The story of Allen Otty, who was surely deserving of a VC, is told in C. Mainville, ‘Mentioned in Despatches: Lieutenant Allen Otty and the 5th CMR, at Passchendaele 30 October 1917’, Canadian Military History, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Spring 2014), pp. 137–63.

  28 Currie to Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Turner, 30 October 1917, in A. Currie, The Selected Papers of Sir Arthur Currie. Diaries, Letters and Report to the Ministry, 1917–1933, ed. M. O. Humphries (Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2008), pp. 55–6.

  29 Sir J. Edmonds, Military Operations. France & Belgium 1917 (3 vols., London: HMSO, 1948), II, pp. 351–3.

  30 TNA: WO 95/3095, ‘Report on the Operations of 63rd (Royal Naval) Division East of Ypres 24th October–5th November 1917’, p. 10.

  31 TNA: WO 95/952, XVIII Corps War Diary, 30 October 1917.

  32 J. Grigg, Lloyd George. War Leader 1916–1918 (London: Penguin Books, 2003; first publ. 2002), p. 271.

  33 Robertson to Lloyd George, 27 October 1917, in D. R. Woodward (ed.), The Military Correspondence of Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, December 1915–February 1918 (London: Bodley Head for the Army Records Society, 1989), pp. 239–40.

  34 Lloyd George to Robertson, 27 October 1917, in Woodward (ed.), The Military Correspondence of Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, p. 240.

  35 Robertson to Lloyd George, 27 October 1917, in Woodward (ed.), The Military Correspondence of Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, p. 241.

  36 TNA: CAB 23/4, ‘War Cabinet, 263’, 2 November 1917.

  37 D. French, The Strategy of the Lloyd George Coalition, 1916–1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), pp. 161–2.

  38 D. Lloyd George, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George (2 vols., London: Odhams Press, 1933–6), II, pp. 1439–41.

  39 D. R. Woodward, Lloyd George and the Generals (London: Associated University Presses, 1983), p. 214.

  40 Edmonds, Military Operations: 1917, II, p. 355.

  41 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4957, Reel T-10774, File: 504, Part 2, ‘Canadian Corps Artillery Report on Passchendaele Operations Oct. 17th to Nov. 18th 1917’, pp. 22, 23, 25.

  42 LAC: RG41, Vol. 21, Testimony of H. L. Sheppard.

  43 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919, pp. 323–4.

  44 IWM: Documents 7376, M. McIntyre Hood, ‘Recording on First World War 1914–1918’, p. 12.

  45 CWM: 58A 1 221.1, A. R. Coulter diary, 4 November 1917.

  46 LAC: RG41, Vol. 8, Testimony of G. Noir.

  47 LAC: RG41, Vol. 22, Testimony of W. M. Rae.

  48 Currie in Dancocks, Legacy of Valour, p. 159.

  49 T. Cook, Shock Troops. Canadians Fighting the Great War 1917–1918 (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2008), p. 357.

  50 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4957, Reel T-10774, File: 504, Part 2, ‘Canadian Corps Artillery Report on Passchendaele Operations Oct. 17th to Nov. 18th 1917’, p. 8.

  51 K. Radley, We Lead, Others Follow. First Canadian Division 1914–1918 (St Catharines: Vanwell, 2006), p. 166.

  52 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4913, Reel T-10704–10705, File: 351, ‘Report on Operations Carried Out by [1] Bn. on the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th November’.

  53 LAC: RG41, Vol. 12, Testimony of W. McCombie-Gilbert.

  54 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4935, Reel T-10739–10740, File: 425, Part 2, ‘Narrative of Operations for the Capture of Passchendaele and the Surrounding Heights. 28th North West Canadian Battalion. November 6th/7th 1917’.

  55 LAC: RG41, Vol. 11, Testimony of W. E. Turner.

  56 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4935, Reel T-10738–10739, File: 423, Part 2, ‘27th (City of Winnipeg) Battalion. Narrative of Operations Covering the Attack on Passchendaele’.

  57 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4938, Reel T-10744, File: 434, Part 2, Cana
dian Corps, Summary of Intelligence, 6 November 1917.

  58 LAC: RG9, III-D-3, Vol. 4935, Reel T-10738–10739, File: 423, Part 2, ‘27th (City of Winnipeg) Battalion. Narrative of Operations Covering the Attack on Passchendaele’.

  59 H. Nollau, Geschichte des Königlich Preußischen 4 Niederschlesischen Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 51 (Berlin: Wilhelm Kolk, 1931), pp. 205–6.

  60 LAC: RG41, Vol. 11, Testimony of W. E. Turner.

  61 IWM: Documents 7376, M. McIntyre Hood, ‘Recording on First World War 1914–1918’, p. 13.

  62 Snelling, Passchendaele 1917, pp. 290–91.

  63 KA: (WK) 9197, ‘Ereignisse bei 4 Armee von 6.11 abends bis 7.11 abends’.

  64 Rupprecht diary, 6–7 November 1917, in Crown Prince Rupprecht, Mein Kriegstagebuch (3 vols., Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1929), II, pp. 282–3.

  65 DTA: 3502.1, R. Lewald diary, 6 November 1917.

  66 Haig diary, 6–7 November 1917, in G. Sheffield and J. Bourne (eds.), Douglas Haig. War Diaries and Letters 1914–1918 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), p. 339. Original emphasis. Haig seems to have been referring to the number of dead, not total casualties, which were over 2,200. See Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919, p. 325.

  67 The Canadians were not able to secure all of Hill 52 on 10 November, which led to the sanctioning of an ill-fated night attack on 2 December. This operation is detailed in M. LoCicero, A Moonlight Massacre. The Night Operation on the Passchendaele Ridge, 2 December 1917: The Forgotten Last Act of the Third Battle of Ypres (Solihull: Helion & Company, 2014).

  68 Sir C. Harington, Tim Harington Looks Back (London: John Murray, 1940), p. 65.

  69 Currie diary, 9 November 1917, in Currie, Selected Papers, p. 57.

  70 Lieutenant-Colonel A. Adamson (CO/PPCLI), cited in N. S. Leach, ‘Passchendaele–Canada’s Other Vimy Ridge’, Canadian Military Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2008), p. 81.

  71 Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919, p. 327. The official total was 15,654, although the Canadian Corps Battle Casualties file lists 16,404. See Cook, Shock Troops, pp. 365, 686–7, n. 41.

  72 Currie to Hearst, 14 November 1917, in Currie, Selected Papers, p. 59.

  73 T. Cook, The Madman and the Butcher. The Sensational Wars of Sam Hughes and Sir Arthur Currie (Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2010), p. 359.

  74 See N. Lloyd, Hundred Days. The End of the Great War (London: Viking, 2013).

  75 Dancocks, Legacy of Valour, p. 238.

  76 CLIP: K. W. Foster, ‘Memoirs of the Great War 1915–1918’.

  Epilogue

  1 Sir C. Harington, Plumer of Messines (London: John Murray, 1935), p. 112.

  2 Kuhl, cited in D. Zabecki, The German 1918 Offensives. A Case Study in the Operational Level of War (London and New York: Routledge, 2006), p. 94.

  3 Sir J. Edmonds, Military Operations: France & Belgium 1918. The German March Offensive and Its Preliminaries (London: Macmillan & Co., 1935), p. 254. (German forces on pp. 152–3). Whether the disaster on 21 March 1918 could be directly attributed to the effects of Third Ypres on the BEF remains a matter of debate. Edmonds turned the question around and argued that it is possible ‘complete success’ only eluded the German Army because of the ‘exhaustion, practically the destruction, of their best divisions in Flanders’. Sir J. Edmonds, Military Operations: France & Belgium 1917 (3 vols., London: HMSO, 1948), II, p. 366. It seems probable that the extent of the retreat in the opening days of the German offensive was, at least in part, because of the hasty expansion of the British front line over the winter, but it is also undeniable that by trying to win a major victory in the summer of 1917, Haig wore down his divisions and left his army in a perilous situation with few reserves left to meet any unforeseen contingencies. Fifth Army would pay the price in March 1918.

  4 A. Farrar-Hockley, Goughie. The Life of General Sir Hubert Gough (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1975), p. 312.

  5 Harington, Plumer, p. 161.

  6 P. Gross (dir.), Passchendaele (Montreal: Alliance Films, 2008).

  7 Rupprecht in J. Sheldon, The German Army at Passchendaele (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2007), pp. 312–13.

  8 F. von Lossberg, Meine Tatigkeit im Weltkrieg 1914–1918 (Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1939), p. 309.

  9 P. Simkins, ‘Foreword’ in Sheldon, Passchendaele, p. viii.

  10 D. Gottberg, Das Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 465 im Weltkriege (Osnabrück: Verlag Carl Prelle, n.d.), p. 158.

  11 See D. Todman, ‘“Sans peur et sans reproche”: The Retirement, Death, and Mourning of Sir Douglas Haig, 1918–1928’, Journal of Military History, Vol. 67, No. 4 (October 2003), pp. 1083–1106.

  12 Lord Hankey, The Supreme Command 1914–1918 (2 vols., London: George Allen and Unwin, 1961), II, p. 701.

  13 See J. H. Boraston (ed.), Sir Douglas Haig’s Despatches (December 1915–April 1919) (London: HMSO, 1919), p. 135.

  14 See 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), p. 84. Kuhl is quoted approvingly by a number of historians including J. Terraine, The Road to Passchendaele. The Flanders Offensive of 1917: A Study in Inevitability (London: Leo Cooper, 1977), p. 342; W. J. Philpott, Anglo-French Relations and Strategy on the Western Front, 1914–18 (London: Macmillan, 1996), p. 149; and G. Sheffield, The Chief. Douglas Haig and the British Army (London: Aurum Press, 2011), pp. 247–8.

  15 Terraine, The Road to Passchendaele, p. xxi.

  16 R. Prior and T. Wilson, Passchendaele. The Untold Story (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002; first publ. 1996), p. 33.

  17 TNA: CAB 45/140, Gough to Edmonds, 3 May 1944, ‘Marginal Notes. Chapter XII’.

  18 Prior and Wilson, Passchendaele, pp. 199–200.

  19 See for example J. P. Harris, Douglas Haig and the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 337–41, 360–61, 378–82; N. Steel and P. Hart, Passchendaele. The Sacrificial Ground (London: Cassell & Co., 2001; first publ. 2000), pp. 302–3; 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. 11.

  20 C. Barnett, The Swordbearers. Supreme Command in the First World War (London: Cassell & Co., 2000; first publ. 1963), pp. 236, 237, 239.

  21 Prior and Wilson make this point in their conclusion to Passchendaele (p. 197), but their earlier dismissal of the effectiveness of Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde undermines their case. Because they judge these battles on the amount of ground gained (and not by their effect on the enemy), they fail to realize how successful they were. Ground was not the key metric in ‘bite-and-hold’ operations.

  22 Plumer’s mastery of ‘bite and hold’ would provide Bernard Law Montgomery, the future Field Marshal and ‘Victor of Alamein’, with his ‘deepest and most lasting lessons of the war’. As a young staff officer with IX Corps in Second Army, Montgomery was involved in the planning for Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde and described them as ‘masterpieces’. See N. Hamilton, Monty. The Making of a General 1887–1942 (London: Coronet, 1984; first publ. 1981), p. 117. Montgomery’s comments on Plumer’s battles can be found in a letter to his father, 9 October 1917 (p. 120).

  23 See for example Haig’s diary entries for 1 August (‘A terrible day of rain. The ground is like a bog in this low lying country’); 2 August (‘this bad weather takes so much out of the men in the trenches that more frequent reliefs are necessary’); 16 August (‘the country is very wooded and much broken up by our heavy shell fire’); 17 August (special arrangements were being made to pass freshly cleaned rifles up to the front line ‘owing to the mud’); 4 October (‘Rain fell heavily this afternoon as I took a walk’); 6 October (the ground ‘became very muddy and slippery’); 7 October (discusses the possibility of it being too wet ‘to admit of our men going forward’); 9 October (‘The ground was so bad that 8 hours were taken in marching to forming up
points’); 12 October (‘very bad state of ground’); and 13 October (when the ground was so soft that light railway engines had apparently ‘sunk halfway up the boilers in the mud’), in G. Sheffield and J. Bourne (eds.), Douglas Haig. War Diaries and Letters 1914–1918 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005), pp. 309, 310, 316, 317, 333, 334, 335, 336. In Haig’s despatch on ‘The Campaigns of 1917’, frequent references are made to poor weather and muddy conditions. See Boraston (ed.), Sir Douglas Haig’s Despatches (December 1915–April 1919), pp. 116, 128, 129, 133.

  24 D. Lloyd George, War Memoirs of David Lloyd George (2 vols., London: Odhams Press, 1933–6), II, p. 1304.

  25 Prior and Wilson, Passchendaele, pp. 37–8.

  26 Philpott, Anglo-French Relations, pp. 138–40.

  27 D. R. Woodward, Lloyd George and the Generals (London: Associated University Presses, 1983), p. 133.

  28 See J. Thompson, The Lifeblood of War. Logistics in Armed Conflict (London: Brassey’s, 1991), pp. 40–44.

  29 H. Strachan, The Politics of the British Army (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), p. 142.

  30 D. Graham and S. Bidwell, Coalitions, Politicians and Generals. Some Aspects of Command in Two World Wars (London: Brassey’s, 1993), p. 90.

  31 IWM: Documents 15758, Account of F. W. Mellish, p. 30.

  32 Harington, Plumer, p. 303.

  33 Ibid., p. 112.

  34 Edmonds, Military Operations: 1917, II, pp. 360–61.

  35 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), p. 96.

  36 Reichskriegsministerium, Sanitätsbericht über das Deutsche Heer (Deutsches Feld- und Besatzungsheer) im Weltkriege 1914/1918 (3 vols., Berlin: E. S. Mittler & Sohn, 1934–8), III, p. 53.

  37 The subject of German losses has attracted considerable debate. Sir James Edmonds was convinced that the real figure was significantly greater than the published statistics, perhaps rising to as high as 350,000 or 400,000. Liddell Hart called these estimates ‘mythical’ and, more recently, Jack Sheldon has accused Edmonds of ‘creative accounting’ and of showing a ‘cavalier handling of the facts’ in regard to German casualties. According to Sheldon, it is only possible to reach a total of 400,000 if one takes into consideration all those who were treated for ‘minor cuts and wounds’ at regimental aid posts (but who were not struck off unit strength). As he notes, ‘It is hard to see any merit in insisting that a man remaining with his unit and capable of carrying out his duties, must be regarded as a battle casualty of the same significance as someone evacuated with serious or life-threatening injuries.’ See B. H. Liddell Hart, ‘The Basic Truths of Passchendaele’, Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, Vol. CIV, No. 616 (November 1959), pp. 436–7, and Sheldon, Passchendaele, pp. 313–15, 319, n. 58.