Tommy: The British Soldier on the Western Front. Richard Holmes
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observer tells how:
Nineteen gigantic roses with carmine-red leaves, or enormous mushrooms, were seen to rise up slowly and majestically out of the ground, and then split into pieces with an almighty roar, sending up many-coloured columns of flame and smoke mixed with a mass of earth and splinters, high into the sky.87
Plumer’s chief of staff, Sir Charles ‘Tim’ Harington, recalled that the next morning he found four dead German officers in a dugout without a mark on them: they had been killed by the shock. Plumer’s infantry advanced to secure almost all their objectives on the first day. Although Plumer lost 25,000 men, he captured over 7,000 prisoners and killed or wounded at least another 13,000 Germans. It was an impressive victory, marred only by a tendency for the infantry to lack initiative: the German 44th Infantry Regiment, just back from the Eastern Front, regarded the British infantry as lumpier than the Russian.
The local German army group commander, Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, thought that the capture of Messines Ridge presaged an immediate attack on his vital ground, the Gheluvelt Plateau, crossed by the Menin Road due east of Ypres. But Haig was unable to follow his right hook with a straight left. It took time to swing resources up to 5th Army, further north, the French requested more time to prepare their 1st Army, which was to attack on the British left, and in any event Lloyd George, who had serious doubts about the coming battle, was reluctant to allow it to proceed. Formal permission arrived only six days before the attack began. The delay between the capture of Messines Ridge and the opening of the main battle was ultimately fatal, primarily because the weather broke just as Gough’s men went forward.
Third Ypres, like the Somme, was marked by tensions between GHQ and army headquarters. Gough, selected because he was the youngest and most dashing of the army commanders, did not know the salient well, and later agreed that it had been a mistake to send him to ‘a bit of ground with which I had practically no acquaintance’. However, he hoped ‘to advance as rapidly as possible on Roulers’, and then push on to Ostend: he always believed that this was Haig’s intention too. However, Haig agreed with their opponent that the Gheluvelt Plateau was indeed crucial, and wrote: ‘I impressed on Gough the vital importance of the ridge, and that our advance north should be limited until our right flank has been secured on the ridge.’88 The French 1st Army would attack on Gough’s left, and Plumer’s 2nd Army would mount smaller diversionary attacks on his right. When the moment was right, Rawlinson, his 4th Army headquarters commanding a much smaller force than it had the previous summer, would launch the amphibious assault.
The bombardment began on 16 July, and in its course the British fired 4,500,000 shells into the carefully-layered German defences opposite Ypres. It began the process which was to reduce the area to an abomination of desolation, doing serious damage to German positions but in the process destroying the land drainage system. The Tank Corps maintained a ‘swamp map’ to show those areas which were impassable to tanks, and whose extent was soon expanding alarmingly. Haig is sometimes accused of wanton disregard for weather conditions in Flanders, but it is clear from John Hussey’s painstaking work that the British were to be extraordinarily unlucky with the weather: both August and October were abnormally wet.89 Nor is it true that commanders were unaware of the conditions at the front. The story of a senior officer (generally identified as Kiggell, Haig’s chief of staff) asking: ‘Good God, did we really send men to fight in that?’ and then breaking down in tears has been comprehensively debunked, but still retains wide currency.90
On 1 August Haig noted in his diary ‘a terrible day of rain. The ground is like a bog.’ And in October John Charteris, well forward to watch an attack, acknowledged: ‘the saddest day of the year. It was not the enemy but the mud that prevented us from doing better … Yesterday afternoon was utterly damnable. I got back very late and could not work, could not rest.’91 Finally, this chilling description comes not from one of Haig’s critics, but from his own despatches.
The low-lying, clayey soil, torn by shells and sodden with rain, turned to a succession of vast muddy pools. The valleys of the choked and overflowing streams were speedily transformed into long stretches of bog, impassable except by a few well-defined tracks … To leave these tracks was to risk death by drowning, and in the course of the subsequent fighting on several occasions both men and pack animals were lost in this way …92
Gough’s infantry went forward early on the morning of 31 July. By the day’s end they had advanced an average of 3,000 yards at a cost of 30,000 casualties. With an ugly foretaste of what was to come, the weather was appalling, and by nightfall a gunner officer reported that some of the infantry were up to their waists in water. There were successive attacks through July and on into August, characterised by determined German resistance and the growing dominance of British artillery. A snapshot from a single action, officially part of the Battle of Langemarck, though we may doubt if this would have been clear to the men who fought in it, describes what the fighting was like for one particular unit, 12/King’s Royal Rifle Corps, a New Army battalion of 20th (Light) Division.
Aug 15th 12 noon – 8.00 pm
Battalion paraded in full Battle order, and marched independently to the assembly place, A/Capt A.D. Thornton-Smith DSO, had marked out with tape the alignment for each platoon and no difficulty was experienced in forming up. Battalion HQ were established in a small house 400 yards short of the STEENBEEK. The enemy was shelling fairly hard and B Coy sustained casualties at this point.
Aug 16th 4.45 am
ZERO HOUR – The barrage which was terrific at this moment, lifted at Zero – 5 and the Oxfords were busy mopping up AU BON GITE, with the 6th KSLI on our Right and the 12th King’s Liverpools on our Left we advanced to the BLUE LINE, about 3/400 yards short of LANGEMARCK. During this advance and a 20 minute halt in the BLUE LINE, we were subject to very heavy Machine gun fire and suffered many casualties to both Officers and men, including the CO Lt Col R. U. H. Prioleau MC (Wounded). Capt T. Lycett, our Adjutant, was then in command, and noticing a Concrete Blockhouse on our left which was holding up the advance of the 61st Brigade, and was also causing heavy casualties with MG fire to our own men, he ordered Sergt Cooper, who was in command of a platoon of A Coy (Lieut E. D. Brown having been killed) to go for it. Sergt Cooper with four men, got to within 100 yards of the Blockhouse, through a perfect hail of bullets and tried to silence the guns with Rifle fire. Finding this of no avail, he dashed at the Blockhouse, and captured it with 45 prisoners and seven machine guns, a most gallant deed for which he has been recommended for the VC …
The barrage ‘started to creep forward’ once more at 5.45, and the battalion advanced in ‘artillery formation’ company by company, with men well spaced, to the Green Line just east of Langemarck. There it shook out into line and assaulted the Red Line, and took its final objective at 7.50. Just after midday a counterattack rolled in.
Fire was brought to bear on them with good effect and the Brigade were informed of the situation. Orders were issued that our positions were to be kept at all costs … the SOS was sent at 4.15 pm Our guns responded immediately but the enemy were in very superior numbers. The weight of the counterattack seemed to be directed against the 12th King’s Liverpools on our left and, after a gallant fight, they were forced to give ground. This let the enemy in on our left and our advanced posts had been driven in. The enemy bombed up our trench and our left Company B was practically wiped out – Capt T. Dove MC was killed, 2/Lt W. F. Munsey severely wounded and a few men were taken prisoners. A defensive flank was thrown back and touch again established with 12th King’s Liverpools … Consolidation was continued during the night …
The battalion was relieved by 10/Welsh on the morning of 19 August, and returned to Malakoff Farm whence it had departed on the 15th. ‘Very tired but cheery,’ reported its diarist, ‘and after a good meal everyone turned in for a good sleep.’ It had lost five officers killed, one died of wounds, two wounded and missing and three wounded. Forty soldiers were killed and another