Passchendaele

by Paul Ham

  On the ground, tens of thousands of German soldiers lined the ridges of the Salient. Every day, they fired mustard gas and explosive rounds onto the British and Dominion positions on the ‘stage’ below, where the first waves lay in wait for the order to attack.

  By now, Haig had lost any shred of surprise. In mid-June, ‘there was complete clarity on the German side that a major British offensive in Flanders was to be expected’, General Hermann von Kuhl, Rupprecht’s chief of staff, wrote. ‘What was completely uncertain, however, was when the offensive was due to begin.’ Clearly it was going to be something very big. For von Kuhl, it was obvious the British had imposed an operational pause in order to complete their preparations: ‘The signs that intensive and long lasting battles were ahead were clearly visible. The main effort would be in the Flanders [sic].’27

  The Germans waited and wondered when the blow would fall. Late July seemed likely: German patrols had reported the steady British build-up during the month – the arrival of tanks, guns and men, the construction of a new light railway – all pointing to an imminent attack. Ludendorff responded by authorising further reinforcements: eastern veterans and swiftly trained recruits were flung into the Albrecht Stellung, the front line of the German trench systems, or into the Eingreif divisions, held back in reserve (‘Eingreif’ literally meant an automatic application of extreme force – Gegenstoss – against any breach in the line, rather like plugging holes in a dyke.)28

  July drew on. The long anticipation sapped morale. By mid-month, both sides were impatient for battle, to end the deleterious play of the imagination on the spirit. Unleashed by inaction, the mind revelled in phantoms, summoning hideous visions of dying alone in a shell hole, toppling forward into mud. Action would expunge them.

  The opening bombardment fell on the German lines in the early hours of 15 July – a week before Haig would receive Cabinet approval to proceed with Third Ypres. Britain’s massed artillery now revealed its terrific power: 752 heavy cannons, 324 4.5-inch howitzers and 1098 18-pounders unleashed the most powerful bombardment hitherto known to the history of war. For the next two weeks, they would fire 4.5 million projectiles onto the German trenches on the plains beneath Passchendaele Ridge, more than twice the number of rounds that had preceded the Somme.

  In Allied eyes, the sight was one of preternatural beauty. ‘[T]he sky was heavy with black and very low lying clouds,’ Captain Harold Dearden wrote in his diary on the night of 19 July. ‘There was no moon, and every gun flash was thrown onto the clouds like a limelight in a theatre, the whole vault of the sky being ablaze with transient waves of fire – orange, red, yellow and violet … All along the front Verey [sic] lights danced, too, some white, some red, some blue, while from time to time a “golden rain” would bathe the whole area near it in a perfectly beautiful rose pink colour. The trees stood out jet black against the flaming sky, and the whole scene was one of simply appalling beauty.’29

  A hail of shellfire, ‘far worse than anything we had experienced on the Somme’ fell on the German lines, recalled Vizefeldwebel Wellhausen. ‘Shells, shrapnel balls and their pots rained down around our heads.’30 The ‘softening up’ ranged across the German positions, shattering, cutting down, fragmenting every obstacle, every village, house, tree, human, animal caught within 2000–3000 yards of the British front. Blankets of British gas interspersed the hail of explosives, smothering the German soldiers’ movements and stifling the delivery of relief, rations and ammunition.

  The air war roared to life during gaps in the shell storm. Dozens of low-flying British aircraft ‘circled our positions’, recalled Fusilier Guard Häbel:

  Wherever an individual was seen, British airmen were on hand to direct the fire of their guns onto him. A sentry stood stock still, hidden by a groundsheet so that he could not be seen from the air in front of each dugout. Every few moments someone called to him to see if he was still alive … The British were trying to extinguish all signs of life.31

  German reserve battalions staggered up in gas masks. Like the Australians at Messines, several were annihilated before they reached the front. On their arrival, they found only utter desolation: no wire, no machine guns, no grenades, and no signs of proper trenches. The sparsely defended line had virtually ceased to exist. The surviving platoons and sections were cut off. Many had abandoned their mashed trenches and lay in shell craters. One company (of 88 men) were ordered to defend a 300-yard section of trench. At such low density, that was impossible. These men were not expected to live. Their role was to confuse and hinder the attacking British infantry; the real battle would occur further back.

  Desperate survivors sent up red and green flares, the signal for immediate protective fire. The Germans had too few guns to sustain an effective counter-bombardment. Instead, they directed harassing fire at British troop concentrations: bridges, supply sections, railway lines, billets and munitions depots. They fired 533,000 rounds during the week starting 13 July, and 870,000 the following week. British firepower was about four times that.32 The German gunners depended heavily on mustard gas, which brought them some ‘relief’: between 12 and 27 July, the British lost 13,284 dead, wounded and missing to enemy gas, artillery and aircraft attack.33

  Many survivors of the bombardment, on both sides, suffered shell shock and ‘windiness’ (sheer terror). ‘I have never seen anyone so hopelessly terrified,’ Dearden observed of one lad, just out from England, who sat in his trench ‘deathly pale’, sweating and breathing hard, while ‘his legs literally knocked together every time a shell came’. Dearden tried to reassure the youth, but resigned himself to the fact that ‘he’ll never do anything. He’s just the type to desert …’ Indeed, the company sergeant major expected it at any time, amusing himself by asking the lad whether he would prefer ‘to be shot by the Boche or be shot by the English’. This line of questioning had not, Dearden noticed, ‘steadied him any!’34

  On 25 July, Haig received a cable from Robertson on behalf of the War Cabinet, authorising the commander-in-chief to proceed with the offensive he had already started. ‘War Cabinet authorizes me to inform you,’ Robertson stated, ‘that having approved your plans … you may depend on their whole-hearted support; and that if and when they decide to reconsider the situation they will obtain your views before arriving at a decision as to cessation of operations.’35 Haig replied that ‘even if my attacks do not gain ground … we ought still to persevere in attacking the Germans in France. Only by this means can we win.’36 That would be his guiding principle for the rest of the campaign: keep attacking.

  On the cusp of battle, the relationship between Haig and Lloyd George reached a new low – at the very moment when its healthy functioning was most needed. In a letter to Lord Derby, Haig drew a dark comparison between the government’s lacklustre, mean-spirited support offered him and the ‘whole-hearted, almost unthinking support given by our government to [Nivelle]’.37

  Haig’s bitterness was understandable, but his psychological disposition regrettable. His motives for action were turning dangerously personal. A garrulous political monkey sat in judgement on his shoulder, watching, waiting for him to fail. Haig would win this offensive and silence Lloyd George. How many young lives must be ruined or lost as a result of hasty decisions perverted into action by the smouldering hatred between two proud and wounded men?

  In the days before the infantry charged, the guns fired virtually without pause. On 28 July, nineteen trainloads of rounds were unleashed on the German trenches and pillboxes. Dozens of British aircraft swooped on them. Soldiers lying in their trenches witnessed dogfights in the sky: bright red German aircraft came sweeping down to attack the British hornets that were strafing their positions. Notwithstanding a valiant effort from the Ypres Group’s fighters, who managed to shoot down twelve British planes that day, it was all in vain: British superiority in guns, rounds and aircraft soon forced the Germans to abandon a strip of territory a mile wide and half a mile deep, the token front line. ‘The first gap
had been opened up,’ noted the German history.38

  In late July, British night patrols mounted a series of daring raids on the German lines, to gather some last intelligence on enemy positions. In one raid, 200 Highland Light Infantrymen captured 80 German prisoners and much information for very few losses (one killed, three missing and seventeen lightly wounded).39

  On the 29th, two days before zero, British gunners ratcheted up the torment to a level beyond words. Many German soldiers broke or deserted. The rate of self-inflicted wounds rose. Despite all this, the bulk of the German Army stayed in their places, in the path, they all knew, of their destruction.

  Mighty interests deigned to smile on this hellish place, to thank the men on the eve of battle. That day, the Kaiser sent his commanders a telegram (forwarded via Hindenburg):

  From the battlefields of Galicia … my thoughts turn, with a grateful heart, to the unforgettable deeds of the armies of the west; which, through their sacrificially tough endurance, are holding back the enemy … I am thinking especially of the courageous troops in Flanders, who have already been under artillery fire for weeks, unflinchingly awaiting the coming storm. You have my complete trust, together with that of the entire Fatherland, whose borders you are defending against enemies from all over the world. Gott mit uns!

  On the eve of zero hour, the bombardment rose to a shrieking, crashing, whizzing pitch. Incendiary grenades, gas, smoke projectiles, heavy mortars, heavy explosives and shrapnel were flung at the German lines in what survivors would recall as ‘a hurricane from hell’.40 It was ‘beyond anyone’s experience’, witnessed General von Kuhl:

  The entire earth of Flanders rocked and seemed to be on fire. This was not just drumfire; it was as though Hell itself had slipped its bonds. What were the terrors of Verdun and the Somme compared to this grotesquely huge outpouring of raw power? The violent thunder of battle could be heard in the furthest corner of Belgium. It was as though the enemy was announcing to the world: Here we come and we are going to prevail! 41

  Oberstleutnant Freiher von Forstner’s cement pillbox rocked like a boat at sea. For the regimental commander, 30 July was the worst night he had experienced, when the shelling rose to an intensity that was incomprehensible, unbearable.

  Flying shrapnel chopped into anyone who dared venture outside. A medical officer issued opium to calm nerves. At one point, a dense cloud of gas enveloped the bunker, sending long fingers of vapour into the vault-like rooms. Lacking enough gas masks to go around, the men in the outer shelters collapsed and died. Well before the British infantry attacked, artillery and gas had already inflicted more than 30,000 German casualties.42

  The stunned survivors hoped and prayed for the enemy to advance; anything but this. The Eingreif counter-strike divisions were ‘drawn up to the front in the highest readiness for action’.43 Many ardently wished for battle, to escape ‘the terrible effects of the barrage fire’.44

  Haig’s bombardment had wiped out the thinly defended German front but failed to destroy crucial points in von Lossberg’s defensive shield. Most of the German pillboxes (and their machine guns), as well as the artillery at Gheluvelt and the heavy guns beyond Passchendaele Ridge, remained intact: ‘in the crucial area of the Gheluvelt Plateau,’ conclude Prior and Wilson, ‘the preliminary bombardment failed comprehensively.’45

  Haig knew this. Between 19 and 30 July, Fifth Army intelligence reports repeatedly warned of ‘heavy fire’ issuing from enemy batteries along the Gheluvelt higher ground, where the German guns were protected and hidden.46 Instead of heeding his field commanders’ accounts, Haig chose to believe the optimistic counsel of Lieutenant General Sir Noel Birch, artillery adviser at GHQ. British gunners had gained ‘the upper hand over the German artillery’, Birch claimed on 28 July, a point Haig underlined in his diary.47 Plainly, they had not.

  Past midnight, in the early hours of 31 July, the 3000 British guns fired as one, turning the whole front line between Boesinghe and the Lys into a ‘blazing and shrapnel-belching strip slowly being wrapped in artificial mist’.48 At 3.50 am, their roar drowned the commander’s whistle. ‘It sounded like all the guns in the world,’ wrote Lieutenant Campbell, ‘as though the sky was falling … as though the world itself was breaking into pieces.’ Exploding British shells flashed across the eastern sky; in reply, helpless enemy SOS flares in red, green and yellow lit up the brawling world and showered earthward in ‘a beautiful golden rain’.49

  At that moment, in the German rear area, two leutnants, Höllwig and Boldt, were out riding. Boldt raised his hand and pointed to the western horizon, which seemed on fire. They heard a low rumble, like thunder. Boldt turned and said, ‘That is the start of the battle of Flanders, Höllwig.’50 Moments later, the first British infantrymen stormed over the parapets. From the shaking lips of German runners and down the few connected telephone lines came the code word, Scharnhorst. The ground battle had begun.

  In the British camp, Gough’s first wave of about 100,000 men slung on their equipment, tossed back their tot of rum, dragged on a Woodbine and urinated. Each man wore full battle dress, with bayonets fixed, and carried a sandbag of Mills bombs around his neck. Every second man had a spade or trenching tool ‘shoved down his back’. Every third man carried a pair of wirecutters. Their regiments hailed from the English shires, the Midlands and the North, the Scottish Highlands and the Welsh hills. They included Guardsmen, Regulars, Territorials and New Army men, with French, Australian and New Zealand troops in support. (See Order of Battle, Appendix 5.)

  At 3.50 am, the creeping barrage began. A six-minute storm of steel – millions of shrapnel balls – burst over the German lines. It paused. The whistles blew. The leading infantrymen scrambled up the fire steps and poured across no-man’s-land, heading for the German lines, 300 yards away.

  The barrage moved ahead of the men, at the pace of 100 yards every four minutes. None had experienced drumfire of this density. It stunned the attackers as much as the defenders, as Private W. Lockey of The Sherwood Foresters recalled: ‘It was an inferno. Just a solid line of fire and sparks and rockets lighting up the sky.’51 Within moments, one German commander witnessed the destruction or scattering of his entire company.

  Heavy, low clouds obscured the seam of sunlight on the eastern horizon, and removed the hope of air support. For now, the attacking army navigated by compass. Ahead of them, a haunting, unnatural glow fell over the field. Red and green flares, the smoke of the barrage and the distant flash of guns lent a wonderland sensation to the scene: this was surreal, the stuff of dreams, not a battlefield. Long shadows loomed and coloured lights flickered through the curtain of fire, revealing the shapes of stumps, ridges and ruins. The British pressed on, a swarm of little khaki creatures, miniaturised among the craters over which they scrambled, up and down, in a frantic effort to keep pace with the inside arc of bursting bombs.

  At first, the Allies advanced with minimal trouble: in the north, the six French divisions made great progress, moving quickly against light resistance. Little had been expected of these veterans of Nivelle’s disaster, on Gough’s far northern flank. They redeemed themselves, destroying most of the enemy’s concrete bunkers and advancing further than their allocated 2500 yards.

  The Fifth Army encountered scant resistance – at first. Most of the frontline Germans who were not dead or wounded simply surrendered. By 4.40 am, Gough’s men had reached their first goals, advancing 800 yards ‘across shell-hole pitted Pilckem ridge’.52 They encountered a dazed and confused enemy. ‘[W]hat had once been the German front line … didn’t exist,’ W. Lockey recalled. ‘There was not a bit of wire, hardly a trench left, that hadn’t been blown to smithereens by our barrage.’53

  Well-trained platoons silenced the concrete bunkers with grenades, trench mortars and Lewis guns, concentrating fire through the loopholes or rear doors. They seized Hollebeke village and Pilckem Ridge, and reached their designated lines. In the south, the Anzacs captured German outposts west of the Lys and at La Basse-
Ville. ‘Moppers up’ cleared the enemy trenches and pillboxes, and fresh troops came up to relieve the first wave. Their task: to carry the offensive baton to the next line, some 1000 yards ahead.

  Seizing on gains at Pilckem Ridge, the Guards managed to lay rough bridges of wire matting over the Steenbeek, a marshy creek beyond the village. By 5.20 am, the Coldstream and Grenadier Guards had forded it behind a barrage of smoke canisters. Later, British forces made steady advances along a 3000-yard front, crossing the Steenbeek, and by 8 am had reached their designated coloured line and captured the village of Saint Julien. By 9.30 am, the Coldstream Guards had established outposts on the eastern bank of the creek, but the heavy German presence along the road to Langemarck dissuaded them from pressing on.

  That sketch of the opening attack passes over the appalling scenes on the ground. The famous Highlander Division, the 51st, for example, were in the van of the attack. Crossing the Yser Canal, with the Gordons out in front and the Royal Scots close behind, they suffered few casualties until they reached ‘Minty’s Farm’, as Lieutenant J. Annan recounted:

  [T]he shells started falling all around. We got a slashing there all right. As we were struggling up to it one of the boys got hit with a huge shell fragment. It sliced him right in two. He dropped his rifle and bayonet and threw his arms in the air, and the top part of his torso fell back to the ground. The unbelievable thing was that the legs and the kilt went on running, just like a chicken with its head chopped off! One of my boys – I think it was his special pal – went rushing after him.54

  Past Minty’s Farm, Annan saw, for the first time, a man going berserk: