Controversy

Arguably, the Passchendaele campaign is the most controversial and debated battle of Word War 1. So was John Henry's death at Broodseinde in a worthy cause?

In my opinion Martin Marix Evans takes a revisionist approach to World War 1 history. His advantage of accessing and analysing official and once secret documents, made available since 1965, enables him to record interpretations that differ from those of historian who wrote between the two wars. Amongst other things, the revisionist would argue that:

• World War 1 was a war of stalemate, where the advantage lay with the defenders.
• Until the introduction of technology it was a war of artillery attrition; the wearing down of the economy and man-power.
• Despite failings, the only man suitable to lead the British army in such a war was Field Marshal Douglas Haig.

However, Evans still poses questions, the answer to which may be found in future years.

Broodseinde Ridge - 04 October 1917

In the Official History of Australian in the War of 1914-1918, CEW Bean, summed up the attack as: ²

An overwhelming blow had been struck, and both sides knew it. The objective was the most important yet attacked by the Second and Fifth Armies, and they had again done almost exactly what they had planned to do. The recent German decision to hold the front line in greater strength had merely resulted in the destruction of the troops placed there. The German staffs waiting on Broodseinde Ridge for news of the success of their own enterprise at Zonnebeke had found their attack-troops swept away, and the wave engulfing themselves. The subsequent throwing of two counter-attack divisions against the Anzac front failed to regain an inch of ground. The Anzac troops, despite the intense fire laid on them before the start, had never fought better.

This was the third blow struck at Ypres in fifteen days with complete success. It drove the Germans from one of the most important positions on the Western Front; notwithstanding their full knowledge that it was coming, they were completely powerless to withstand it. [...] But, coming on top of the achievements of September 20th and 26th, its success was of an entirely different order.

[...] [T]here was a definite feeling that this battle was the most complete success so far won by the British Army in France. [...] General Plumer is said to have called it 'the greatest victory since the Marne.'

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So dramatic was the artillery barrage that soldiers of the 3rd Division ran into crowds of surrendering Germans as they advanced over ground covered in enemy dead and wounded: 37/Battalion on the northern edge of Zonnebeke captured 420 Germans and counted 350 dead in roughly 500 yards square. Haig recorded 'we had great fortune that the Enemy had concentrated such a large number of divisions just at the moment of our attack ...' ³ After the battle, Ludendorff said that the battle 'was extraordinarily severe, and again we only came through it with enormous losses.' He ordered the return to defence-in-depth with an emphasis of machine-gunners holding the advanced front line and enquired how much land could be lost without threatening Haig's vaunted U-boat pens.

Another 'bite' of 1,200 yards had been made in the German line, with over 4,000 prisoners being escorted to the rear. Although a number of counter-attacks had been launched against the new positions, the Germans found themselves up against well-drilled machine-gun and rifle fire that scattered their columns as quickly as they came up. [...] It was known that the Flanders II and Flanders III lines were largely intact. There may have been no dramatic exploitation, but Broodseinde appeared to be a stunning success, and within weeks news was being relayed across the empire of the 'greatest victory of the war'. German dead were everywhere: scattered by heavy shelling; torn to pieces inside caved-in pillboxes; or cut down by machine-gun fire like slaughtered cattle. Second Army intelligence recorded how evidence of German demoralization and disorganization was everywhere. Prisoners had been taken from nearly every company of the defending divisions; their wireless stations were now 'significantly silent'; and no 'serious counter-attack with large forces' had been made. 'His machine-gun and rifle fire is erratic and his artillery continues to change rearward and to the flanks', it concluded. There were also 'abnormal train movements' as the Germans desperately tried to relieve shattered divisions and thousands of wounded, and bring fresh troops into the line. For Lieutenant-General Sir William Birdwood, whose corps (I ANZAC) had taken the village of Broodseinde, there could be 'no doubt as to the completeness and importance' of their success. 'The Germans, who had recently been holding their front line in vastly increased strength, not only suffered heavily, but had lost one of their most vital positions on the Western Front; and this despite their knowledge that the blow was coming.' ⁴

Predictably, perhaps, there have always been those who remain to be convinced by the victorious tales that emerged from Broodseinde. Lloyd George was supposed to have scoffed at Haig's Victory and, more recently, the historians Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson have asked whether the battle really 'constituted a model of irresistible progress'. They claim that some of its apparent success was undoubtedly down to 'ill-judgement and sheer bad luck on the part of the enemy' - such as the ill-fated spoiling attack at Zonnebeke - that was unlikely to reoccur in subsequent operations. Moreover, Plumer had benefited from the dry weather throughout the preceding month. ⁵

Full of confidence Haig, as a man determined not to let the advantage go, brought forward the next 'bite' by two days earlier the planned, pressing Plumer to take the high ground on 09 October.

An Aussie reflects

When I got to the top of Broodseinde Ridge it was really surprising to see before you the green fields of Belgium. Actual trees! Grass and fields of course churned up a good deal by barrage shells - but as far as we were concerned it was open country! Then, looking back, from where we came, back to Ypres ... There was nothing but devastation. Then I could see why our own gunners had such a gruesome time. You could see the flashes of all the guns, from Broodseinde right back to the very Menin Gate.' ⁶

A conclusion

Broodseinde was a successful and worthy 'bite' out of the German defences.  However, it was only one third of the October Passchendaele attacks and rather than press on there was a case for reflection.

End notes

1. Bean, p.876
2. ibid p.875
3. Lloyd, p.219
4. ibid, pp.212-213
5. ibid, pp.212-213
6. Bunning, Captain W, 24^th Battalion, AIF, in Steel and Hart 2000, p.248

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Passchendaele strategic considerations

Casualties

It has been argued that by prolonging the battle until November, Haig pushed the casualties to the most grievous level. John Terraine agues this belief is mistaken and calculated the totals killed, wounded, missing and prisoners were: ¹

Exact casualty figures are difficult to calculate. Evans suggests a reasonable total, between 31 July 1917 and 10 November 1917, in the Salient to be:

British      244,897 - of the 238,313 casualties in operational summaries 35,831 were killed, 172,994 were wounded, 29,488 were missing
French:       8,525
Germans: 230,000 approximately ²

Passchendaele was a wearing down battle. A prolonged battle would cause Germany server damage to her manpower but 'quantifying the effect is much more difficult and the comparative analysis of casualty figures is an unrewarding minefield'. ³ Steel and Hart argue that German casualties, despite being reinforced from the Eastern Front following the collapse of Russia, 'were a crushing blow' to a single nation. Even though the Allies were slowly being reinforced by the great reserves of American manpower, 'the heavy losses were severe'. America did not expect to be a complete fighting force until 1919, consequently ' the prospects for the Allies in 1918 would surely have been far poorer if Haig and the BEF had not so relentlessly attacked and harried the Germans at Ypres in 1917.' ⁴

The weather

It has been argued that the untypical rain of October weather hindered the tactical movement of troops and tanks in the mire of broken land drained. Because of this, the battle should have waited for improvements in the weather or should have been put off altogether. Evans ⁵ asks 'if the weather had been that of an average year, would the plan have succeeded?' Whilst Evans admits that the question can not be answered with certainty 'it is possible to doubt that normal weather would have guaranteed success.'

The weather was complicated by the particular geology of the impervious clay of the Ypres basin, which was known having been mapped. Over laying this were layers of sands or sandy clays which soaked up water and became water logged. Passchendaele Ridge was dry sand and therefore free draining. The weather, the geology and the artillery war combined to make the appalling mud.

The state of the French army

It is argued that the Ypres attacks protected the mutinous French whose army had suffered a disaster on the Chemin des Dames after the Nivelle offensive. The reliability of Haig's diary entries is hotly debated. Steel and Hart believe that Haig 'was aware of the seriousness of French situation' and the 'imminent collapse of the French Army'. The question is whether Haig, in his modified diaries, 'exaggerated the urgency of his concerns'.

Tactical advances

Evans argues, that Haig's most serious mistake was to allocated the attack to Lt. Gen. Sir Hubert Gough's Fifth Army. After all Lt. Gen. Sir Herbert Plumer's Second Army had just scored a great victory at Messines and knew the area around Passchendaele thoroughly. ⁶

Without the experiments, refinements and reflections at Third Ypres, senior commanders to front-line troops would not be able to draw upon new tactical skills tried out and developed in 1917 during the Ypres campaign. The successful Battle of Amiens on 8 August 1918 would not have lead to the final campaign of The Hundred Days. 1917 saw the

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tactical development of several limited objectives of 'bite and hold' advances of, say, 1000 yards; sophisticated close creeping artillery support and counter battery site identification and ranging; the integration of tanks and aircraft; radio communication and platoon tactics. 'Combined, these factors meant that by the summer of 1918 the BEF had evolved into the most effective fighting force on the Western front.' ⁷ This, together with the political, economic and military collapse of Germany, broke the stalemate of trench warfare. Even through this success, casualties of The Hundred Days remained higher than Passchendaele.

Strategic dilemma

It is argued that the campaign lasted too long and that stopping it sooner would have saved lives. It was soon realised there was to be no cavalry break through to Haig's objective of the North Sea ports at Zeebrugge. Consequently, the battle degenerated into a typical Western Front battle. The ridge along the Zonnebeke to Langemarck road, captured on 26 September 1917, still left Ypres exposed from the Passchendaele Ridge.

As tactics improved it always seemed that one further effort would bring the break through. Slowly, however, the focus of the battle changed. Increasingly the focus of the British was the capture and control of the whole Passchendaele Ridge to allow them to 'free' Ypres from bombardment and to over winter in relative security. The Canadians made the final effort, at a cost, capturing just the Passchendaele salient part of the long ridge. However, this was dry ground out of the mud of what is now Nieuwe Beek. The ability of the Germans to see British movements in the Zonnebeke area was prevented. And, Evans argues the ridge was secure because the successful German offensive of 1918 went further south. ⁸

In his 1937 book The War in Outline, 1914-1918, the author Basil Liddell Hart told of 'a senior staff officer' visiting the front for the first time. Seeing the appalling fighting conditions the senior staff officer, believed to have been Lt.Gen. Launcelot Kiggell, Haig's chief of staff officer, who is alleged to have said 'Good God, did we really send men to fight in that?', to which his companion replied that the ground was far worse ahead. ⁹ What ever the veracity of the now famous literary quote, Evans ¹⁰ argues that contemporary records, released to the public after 1965, shows that knowledge of conditions was detailed and accurate. 'The decision to continue with the campaign in spite of the conditions was not the product of ignorance, nor was it made in defiance of the difficulties the troops faced. It was reached in the belief that it was the right decision.'

End notes

1. Terraine, p.46
2. Evans, p.158
3. Steel and Hart, p.303
4. ibid, p.304
5. Evans, p.154
6. ibid  p.154
7. Steel and Hart, p.307
8. Evans, p.155
9. Kiggell’s […] ‘words most notorious in the history of warfare. Sharp, to the point, shot through with horror and shock, they seem to encapsulate perfectly the appalling way in which battles were conducted between 1914 and 1918; by almost criminally negligent 'chateau generals' with no idea of the conditions on the front, who sent a generation of young men to squalid, terrifying deaths. The story first appeared in Basil Liddell Hart's The Real War, which was published in 1930, and was an explosive expose of the Great War written by one of Britain's foremost military thinkers.’ Kiggell was not named until after his death in 1954.
   
   Whether Kiggell ever made these remarks has been regularly disputed, with a number of historians casting doubt on the veracity of the incident and questioning whether Liddell Hart - a notorious gossip - could really be trusted on such an issue. Others have argued that there was simply no way that British commanders could have been as ignorant of front-line conditions as Liddell Hart claimed. The story originally seems to have come from Sir James Edmonds, who was then working on the multi-volume official history of the war. Liddell Hart regularly corresponded with Edmonds, sending him drafts of his books, and the two would often meet up over lunch and discuss old times. Contained in Liddell Hart's papers is the note he made after a talk with Edmonds in October 1927, which sketched out the incident, albeit with a slightly different quotation ('Did we really order men to advance over such ground?'). It must have resonated with Liddell Hart because he included it in The Real War, after of course conveniently redrafting Kiggell's words to enhance their dramatic effect. Thus a legend was born.
   
   The story of the 'weeping staff officer' became firmly established within the popular memory of the war, though it has been adulterated many time. Lloyd, pp.1-2
10. Evans, p.156

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Should it have been stopped?

Even in October 1917, there was debate as to whether the campaign to take Passchendaele should continue. At the time there were two opinions.

Haig, was still convinced that should they gain the Passchendaele Ridge, so 'the enemy will be forced to withdraw from the Dixmude front and Foret d'Houthoulst [sic] because he cannot risk his troops being cut off in that area'. ¹  He argued, there was nowhere for his troops to winter other than on the Passchendaele Ridge. Therefore, plans were hurriedly drafted, with the danger of poor planning and lack of artillery support, for three quick more 'bites' on 9, 12 and 14 October. Haig's subordinates, including Plumer the Second Army successful commander, were content to carry on, offering little dissent to three major assaults in just six days. Second Army would push on to the Passchendaele Ridge, with Fifth Army offering flanking support in the north, aiming to break the Flanders I Line at Spriet, before taking the village of Westroosebeke [Westrozebeke north-north-west fo Passchendaele]. ² Sir Alexander Godley (GOC II ANZAC Corps), whose Corps was to attack in the next 'bites', was equally enthusiastic. '[T] he Boche is becoming very demoralised, and if the weather will only hold up for a bit longer and we can deliver a few more blows before the winter sets in, it will go a very long way towards the end'. ³ Haig's Chief of General Staff (MGGS), Major General Sir Charles Harington Harington (Tim Harrington), later claimed that 'he [Haig] never gave a thought to stopping and turning back'. ⁴

Brigadier-General John Charteris, Haig’s chief intelligence officer, was more sanguine. After Polygon Wood he was conscious of the severe casualties. After Broodseinde, he had all but given up hope of the Passchendaele offensive achieving anything. On 5 October he wrote, 'We are far enough on now to stop for the winter and there is much to be said for that. Unless we get fine weather for all this month, there is now no chance of clearing the coast' of U-Boats. ⁵ The British had won a clear victory, taking the Gravenstafel Ridge, the last rise before Passchendaele, and in the face of worsening weather and awful ground, maybe they should have stayed put and been content with what had been achieved. ⁶ Charteris and many other were of the sense, both then and ever since, that the campaign should have been called off after Broodseinde.

Given what horrors engulfed Plumer's divisions on 9 and 12 October, the question of whether the offensive should have been called off as Charteris suggested. Haig's supporters always recall Tim Harington's view that there was no choice; that it was absolutely necessary to secure, command and deny the heights of Passchendaele and the drier ground where the British could spend the winter and from where the 1918 push could be launched. John Terraine, Haig's greatest defender, argued there were complex strategic reasons for continuing: a desire to exploit recent success; to maintain the initiative over the enemy; and to grasp at the possibility - faint though it might be - 'of hammering Germany to her knees before the end of the year'. Therefore, the Passchendaele Ridge had to be captured at all costs. ⁷

Haig's desire for Passchendaele Ridge was not just success on the battlefield, or a feeling that the Germans were being worn-down through attrition. He also had to respond to the growing unease in London and a need to give the politicians any victory. The previous day the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir William Robertson's 'great bombshell' threatened to bring his offensive to a premature halt. In this he was considering the Boulogne Conference of 25 September which had agreed 'in principle' that the BEF would take over more of the front line from the French Army, so using Haig's reserves and making any concentrated effort in Flanders almost impossible. for his. A failure of the 'northern operation' would bring it back in to the political spotlight when Lloyd George was determined to undermine the Flanders campaign.

Was it worth it?

Evans quotes from Robin Prior and Trevor Taylor's book Passchendaele. They write 'the Flanders offensive of 1917 ... appeared at the least to be just one more sorry episode in a war of anguished incidents, unrelated to each other and lacking discernable consequences or achievements'.⁸

After his successful use of 'bite and hold' tactics at Messines, Haig brought Lt. Gen. Herbert Plumer to command. By October, Steel and Hart argue, 'serious drawbacks associated with [Plumer's] approach of limited step-by-step advances were apparent. The 'bite and hold' advances took a great deal of time and effort to organise, and only moved the front forward a very small distance. Such limited advances of 1000 to 1500 years meant there would never by any chance of a breakthrough; no lines of German guns would never be captured and consequently their artillery strength would remain unimpaired.' ⁹ Haig's grand plan of reaching the submarine pens would never come to fruition.

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Evans writes that 'it is hard to see that there was an alternative':

• The Germans held large tracts of French soil.
• The French had suffered a defeat and a mutiny at the Chemin des Dames.
• The French had appointed a new commander-in-chief to rebuild moral.
• Further south the British faced the massive defences of the Hindenburg Line.
• Haig found 'it was desirable to maintain the pressure on the Flanders front for a few weeks longer to take German troops away from General Byng's Third Army planned and initially successful attack at Cambrai.

Passchendaele was part of the evolution of the final victory of the war of stalemates:

• The futility of massive artillery bombardments of the Somme had been replaced by precise and scientific barrages.
• Radio communications were improving.
• Tank and aircraft tactics were evolving.
• Effective infantry tactics were now organised at platoon level with the man at the front given permission to use his initiative.

'Passchendaele was, then, a part - even a major part - of a chain of developments that took warfare from the mobile conflict of Victorian simplicity, through the stalemate of trench warfare, to a form of mobile warfare [in the last Hundred Days] undreamed of only four years earlier.' ¹⁰

One hundred years after the complex event, Lloyd argues that the battle should never have been fought, since the Passchendaele Ridge did not need to be captured with such heavy losses that its capture would take. To Haig, Passchendaele increasingly assumed a significant importance. Yet the position, once won, was an indefensible salient: shelled from anywhere on an arc of 240° with no cover for reserves; it was difficult to bring in supplies and to reinforce the garrison in an emergency. Though the Gravenstafel Ridge, which was in British hands, was a few meters lower than Passchendaele, it did not overlook open countryside to the northeast. However, holding the Gravenstafel might have been significantly easier than holding Passchendaele. ¹¹ Haig correctly calculated that by using attrition to take Germany out of the war would neutralise the Central Powers and take the pressure off the French. However, Lloyd argue for a location other than the sticky Flanders, as Flanders would not fulfil Haig's prime objective of liberating the Belgium coast. ¹²

At Broodseinde, Plumber had nearly given Haig a decisive victory. Yet Haig, from the Somme onwards, continued to believe in the cavalry break through; this time to rail junction of Roulers [Roeselare]. However, as the Nievelle offensive proved, the fixed-line shattering break through was no longer possible against the German defence in depth. Lloyd argues that Haig had failed to fully appreciate that firepower with 'bite and hold' attacks were more productive, as the successful Plumer utilized, consequently his army floundered in the mud for two unproductive months. ¹³

Despite saying 'All I can truthfully say is that we did our utmost. We could not have done more.' ¹⁴ the often flawed reason had an enormous cost.

End notes

1. Haig's Diary TNA WO 256/23 quoted in Lloyd, p,220
2. Edmonds, Military Operations: 1917 pp.323-5, quoted in Lloyd, p.220
3. Macdonald L, They called it Passchendaele, p.53 quoted in Lloyd p.221
4. Sir C Harington, Plumer of Messines p.11 in Lloyd p.221
5. J Charteris, At GHQ, pp.257-8 quoted in Lloyd, p.220
6. Steel and Hart, p.261
7. Terraine, J, Douglas Haig. The Educated Soldier, London 1963 quoted in Lloyd p.221
8. Evans, p.158
9. Steel and Hart, p.253
10. Evans, p.153
11. Lloyd p.221
12. ibid pp.222 and 224
13. ibid p.301
14. Harrington, Plumer, quoted in Lloyd p.301

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Sources

• Bean CEW, 1933, 'The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-18, Vol. IV, AIF in France 1917', Chapter XX Third step – Broodseinde pp 833, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 11th Edition 1941
• Evans, Martin Marix, 'Passchendaele The hollow victory', Pen and Sword, Barnsley, 2005
• Lloyd, Nick, Passchendaele, a new history, Penguin, London, 2017
• Steel, Nigel and Hart, Peter, 'Passchendaele the sacrificial ground', Cassell, London, 2000
• Terraine John, 'The Smoke and the Fire: Myths and Anti-Myths of War 1861-1945' , Sidgwick and Jackson, London, 1980,

This page was created by Richard Crompton and maintained by Chris Glass		Version A4 Updated 09 August 2020