Talk:Battle of Passchendaele/Archive 1

Quantity of mines
The 1 million tons of explosive quote for the mines in Messines ridge is ludicrous, the only other quotation I found was 600 tons and it is much more believable, changing it... JidGom 02:18, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * The quote possibly comes from In Flanders Fields by Leon Wolff which says "By June 7 the total had come to a million pounds of explosives and almost five miles of gallery." I've read a few books on 3rd Ypres and Wolff's seems fast and loose with the details at times.  The figures I used in the trench warfare article reckon 399 tons (19 mines at an average of 21 tons).  As far as I know 22 mines were laid (so three mines weren't blown) and 24 mines had been dug (so I presume two were either counter-mined or abandoned).  I'll see if I can recall my sources. Geoff/Gsl 02:41, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I misread. To correct myself (and apologise to Mr Wolff), a million pounds is about right.  If my figures are right, 19 mines at 21 tons at 2200 pounds per ton is 880,000 pounds.  Throw in the unblown mines and it would be close to a million pounds.  A million tons is clearly wrong.  Hiroshima was 12 kilotons.  I don't think the British were up to delivering a megaton blast in 1917. Geoff/Gsl 06:14, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * A million pound makes for between 550 and 600 tonnes so what is now in the article should be correct... The page I added in the see also as a mine by mine explosive weight table... JidGom 21:45, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Correction, one million pounds makes about 450 tonnes and not 600, and I first put sixty in the text (was tired)... Should be fixed now... JidGom 22:40, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Somebody might want to check the Salient link.

This one? http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/messines.htm

Name of Mine Charge (lbs) Crater Diameter
 * Hill 60 A 53 500 191 feet
 * Hill 60 B 70 000 260 feet
 * St Eloi 95 600 176 feet
 * Hollandscheschour 1 34 200 183 feet
 * Hollandscheschour 2 14 900 105 feet
 * Hollandscheschour 3 17 500 141 feet
 * Petit Bois 1 30 000 175 feet
 * Petit Bois 2 30 000 217 feet
 * Maedelstede Farm 94 000 217 feet
 * Peckham 87 000 240 feet
 * Spanbroekmolen 91 000 250 feet
 * Kruisstraat 1 30 000 235 feet
 * Kruisstraat 4 19 500 (1 &4 linked explosions)
 * Kruisstraat 2 30 000 217 feet
 * Kruisstraat 3 30 000 202 feet
 * Ontario Farm 60 000 200 feet
 * Trench 127 Left 36 000 182 feet
 * Trench 127 Right 50 000 210 feet
 * Trench 122 Left 20 000 195 feet
 * Trench 122 Right 40 000 228 feet

I believe that the introduction of mustard gas at the third battle is significant and should be included here. This is a quote from another wikipedia article: "The most widely reported and, perhaps, the most effective gas of the First World War was mustard gas, a vesicant, which was introduced by Germany in July 1917 prior to the Third Battle of Ypres."

The significance of the damage of mustard gas should be included here. Descriptions of the damage caused by mustard gas and quotes about it should also appear here where it was first used. 69.213.44.72 14:01, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions
I don't know a great deal about this battle, so I thought I'd point out a few ways in which this article could be improved (i.e. I still feel confused after reading it). The intro mentions Passchendaele being taken by Canadian troops, so it was a place? That's the only mention of where the name comes from, although later "the town" is mentioned... is this Passchendaele?


 * There was a village named Passchendaele in the area that gave its name to the battle, i checked the Belgian yellow pages and no place of this name seems to exists anymore, we would need a Belgian to check if it has been incorporated in some other place or simply not rebuilt after its complete destruction in the battle... JidGom 22:50, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWpasschendaele.htm has a map with the location of Passchendaele marked. You might be able to match that to a modern map.  http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dccfarr/accom.htm has some information on the present day site of the battle there. - Bevo 23:34, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The info in the last paragraph about the tremendous losses should be mentioned in the introduction since Passchendaele is so commonly referred to as one of the bloodiest battles in WW1.

I need to see a map... I'm not really sure where all of this is taking place. A specific map designed to show the front(s) and the battles would be terrific. Well, just a few ideas. fabiform | talk 15:25, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Oh, and how is it pronounced? fabiform | talk 15:26, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Roughly "Passion-dale" Arwel 18:39, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I did a Google search on images, and came up with this link ( http://www.historyonmaps.com/BWSamples.htm - number I41). The guy who made it has a website full of maps (he's an historic cartographer). I don't know made he would say about usage of the map and copyright, but it sure it a nice map... TimothyPilgrim 18:09, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)
 * Those are nice maps, though looking at his site I would guess that this work is his major source of income. I wonder if it would be possible for Wikipedia to commission some maps from him? -- after all we do have some money in the bank now (the tech mailing list is talking of spending another $10,000 on another server...). Arwel 18:39, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

In the second paragraph under the topic Messines Ridge, it mentions that "one exploded during a thunderstorm on 17 July 1955, only killing two million cows." Two million cows? Anyone care to correct this? Skunkoceros 11:04, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at the German article. It has a map and a number of very good photographs. --217.228.232.165 23:53, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry if this doesn't go here, but I have one suggestion. Don't called the Entente the allies. It is very confusing, because the Alliance was Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary, not the Entente. Not until WWII were they the allies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tavis92 (talk • contribs) 01:19, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Photograph
Perhaps I'm being daft and I've only skimmed the article, but the relevance of the photograph to the article is not immediately clear to me apart from the fact that that they both concern Ypres. Could someone provide a more illuminating caption? Lupin 17:26, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, the caption can be improved. - Bevo 17:37, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I found better photos here

Weblinks
"Passchendaele" is called Passendale, nowadays part of the city of Zonnebeke. Look at the website (in Dutch):

http://www.zonnebeke.be/

You can find it there under the heading 'toerisme' -> "onze troeven" -> 1914-1918

Even now, the remains of soldiers are still being found and getting a decent burial

http://www.diggers.be/N/Ezine/2003/canada09062003.htm

Also of interest :

http://www.wfb.net/MAIN/Virtual/Pages_N/HighRes/VR_BE_01.htm

http://www.trabel.com/ieper/ieper-greatwar.htm

http://www.greatwar.be/ned/evenementen/erbij/body001.htm

JoJan 17:59, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)JoJan

Unexploded Mines
The article as of today says that there were only 2 unexploded mines after the war until the thunderstorm in 1955 which left one. I just watched a show on Discovery Channel (Canada) called Ultimate Explosions and they stated, with a map, that there were 4 unexploded mines after the battle. Now after the 1955 storm, there are 3 left. Does anybody have any references to check this discrepancy in numbers? TimothyPilgrim 00:39, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)


 * I just finished watching the show and at the end they said that the "history books would need to be rewritten" because what was once believed to be 2 unexploded mines has indeed been found to be 4 or more. It showed a map of the southeast extreme of the trenchline where there was a diamond of four mines called The Birdcage. The southernmost of this diamond was the one that exploded in 1955. But there was then a 5th mine described that has been found underneath a farmhouse further to the northwest of the diamond a distance. Experts who are currently looking for mines in Vimy Ridge said that the Messines mine tunnels were flooded and prevented access to the known mines. They also said that the water would protect the Amanol explosives, but the detonators may have degraded, making them even more sensitive. Fascinating stuff. Can anybody confirm this info? TimothyPilgrim 01:12, Dec 31, 2004 (UTC)

Misspelling
Isn't it supposed to be spelled PASCHENDALE?
 * No. Google shows about 44,000 hits for Passchendaele, 24,000 for Paschendale (of which the first few pages seem to refer exclusively to the Iron Maiden connection, or a place in Victoria, Australia), and 600 for Paschendaele. -- Arwel 19:36, 1 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Omitting the first "s" is a very common mistake, even for those who speak Dutch themselves :o)--MWAK 06:27, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Does anyone have any information about why the archaic spelling Passchendaele" is used rather than the current Passendale? Was Passchendaele" still used at the time of the battle, or was it simply a case of the Francophone upper strata of Belgium, from which Britain took the geographical names, not being familiar with the current spelling?

Also I think we should have something on the pronunciation of Passchendaele, most English speakers seem to say something like Passiondale (according to English spellings) but this cannot be correct. Is Passchendaele pronounced the same as Passendale? I do not claim a knowledge of the local dialect but am familiar with Low Franconian pronunciations and am sure Passendale should have four syllables not three (only English knows the strange feature of lengthening a penultimate vowel by adding an E to the end of the word) and be something like pus-sen-dah-luh (sorry, my IPA is not good enough to use that). Booshank 22:22, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation of WWI battle names is confused by the troops using English variations on French place names. So in Australia the Battle of Passchendaele is pronounced "passion-dale" and the Battle of Ypres is pronounced "wipers" because that is the pronunciation used by our troops that fought those battles. These days the place names, as opposed to the battle names, are pronounced as the people that live there pronounce it. 150.101.30.44 (talk) 11:08, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Misspelling
I believe that 'Amanol' is a misspelling of 'amatol', a mixture of ammonium nitrate and trinotrotoluene (TNT) that was developed as a budget explosive during WW1. My source for 'amatol' is Collins Dictionary 1995; it does not reference 'amanol'. I don't think that 'amatol' is a brand name, so it needn't be capitalised.--BrianMorris 14:29, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

Explosion of mines heard in Dublin ?
The sentence "The detonation of the mines was the loudest man-made noise ever made to that date, audible as far away as Dublin" to me seems to be very speculative. Is there anything but anecdotal evidence to support this? --Albrecht Conz 01:41, 31 July 2005 (UTC) Agreed - sounds a touch whimsical - it's been said, but is it factual? --MAdaXe 11:21, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

I think that it could easily be fixed by changing the wording to something along the lines of "It has been said that the detonation of the mines ...". I'll make the change, unless somebody else has found some sort of evidence that it could be true. --Lenar 13:56, 15 October 2005

Confused about the mines
The second paragraph under Messines Ridge says that both sides planted mines, but then seems to infer that all of the 21 mines mentioned were Allied mines. What happened to the German mines? Or were only 19 of them Allied, in which case it should say, "the nineteen Allied mines", not "19 of the Allied mines"? Osomec 23:01, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

More info needed
This page needs more data on the German casualties. It is written from a very Allied perspective. Squiddy 11:14, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

British Empire and Britain
Why isn't there an article on Passendale itself? I would have expected this to be under Battle of Passendale, with a separate entry for the village. Was the village completely wiped out by the battle? Is there no official information on the village up until the battle? There are plenty of trivial article abouts American villages and schools that list the population, location and not much else; I don't believe that Passendale was so unremarkable as to merit a separate article. Airport 1975 12:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * You're not forgetting this is the English Wikipedia, are you? Quite probably there hasn't been anyone with a sufficient interest in and/or knowledge of the village to provide an article. I don't think Passendale's "worthiness" has anything to do with it. Then again, do you have any reason to believe it does merit a separate article?Michael Dorosh 13:09, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Personally I think this should be at "Battle of Passchendaele" but as for an article about the town, that comes down to someone havign the time and knowledge to write it.say1988 17:59, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Unexploded mines (continued)
According to Battle of Messines, there were four mines left. This article says that there were two. There is some discussion about this above in another section, but the info should be uniform atleast within wikipedia. Tintin (talk) 03:30, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I am adding a fact tag to the mention of mines here and in the Battle of Messines. If there is a confusion, we should explain it. In the current form, one of the articles has to be incorrect. Tintin (talk) 08:02, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I changed the Battle of Messines entry based on the external source First World War.com, the two articles should be consistent with each other now. (unregistered guy)


 * Thank you. Tintin (talk) 08:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

British Empire includes Britain
The phrase "British and Empire soldiers" is incorrect, as Britain is part of the British Empire (which Empire refers to) and therefore reads "British and Australians, British, Canadians etc..." It could be corrected two ways: a) "British Empire soldiers" which includes everybody from the British Empire (including the Great Britain along with the Dominions and Colonies) with the British only referred to once. b) "British and Colonial and/or Dominion soldiers" Depending on whoo all is being referred to and the exact context. I will correct it the simple way by removing "and".say1988 22:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

c) "British and other Empire soldiers" --Usgnus 22:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * ok, I was a little annoyed at the time, yes there are more viable corrections, but my main point is it was wrong before, and I still think British Empire would be best as it is simple, correct and doesn't place Britons as being special and more important, which saying "British and the rest" (no matter how you prase "the rest") does. Though grammatically it would probably need to be "those soldiers of the British Empire who..." say1988 14:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it has anything to do with Britons being "special", but in the war Britons were by far the most numerous fighting for the British Empire, and if anything it makes the "others" whoever they may me look more "special", by distinguishing them from Britons, as one would naturally assume that that is what is meant when they see "British Empire soldiers". Now as far as this particular battle goes I don't know the exact breakdown of nationalities.Anomaly 54 18:39, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. "British and Empire" was the normal phraseology at the time. Yes, Britain was part of the Empire, but was usually distinguished from it. -- Arwel (talk) 15:15, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Popular Culture?
ALso please add the book by Jacqueline WInspear called Maisie Dobbs. It has a section on the battle of Passchedaele and the effect it had on those who returned and their families.69.213.44.72 14:05, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

The last few sections of the page listing movies, music, books, etc. relating to Passchendaele seem like they could be organized better. Anyway, I took the liberty of adding a brief entry for Robertson Davies' Fifth Business into the "further reading" section. Though it doesn't focus exclusively on Passchendaele, I feel that it deserves mention.--Warrior-Poet 22:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't you think that quoting the entire Iron Maiden song lyrics is a bit over-indulgent?

No maps???
NUMBERS

It's funny that there is a number of known casualties but the strength of either side isn't known, not even an approximation, hmmm. Anomaly 54 18:29, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Given the large number of formations that rotated in and out and the length of the battle, I don't find this particularly vexing or unusual. It may simply be a matter, however, that no one has looked up the figure in a knowledgeable source. If you're volunteering to do so, I am sure your work would be greatly appreciated by other editors. Don't forget to cite your source with a footnote.Michael Dorosh 15:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

A million shell holes in a square mile
Am I the only one who found this completely unbelievable? Presumably they'd have to be counted individually, by the naked eye. It seems unlikely that anyone would bother. Plus it means that they'd be a shell hole approximately every 1.6 metres in all directions, at which point they would quickly become indistinguishable from one another. Nor does it have any reference.
 * That's "half a million shell holes in half a square mile". It's an estimate from aerial photographs taken after the battle. This Australian site gives details - that site says that in the last two weeks of July alone the British fired 4,283,550 artillery shells at a cost of over £22 million 1917 pounds. Given the ferocity of the battle I don't find it at all unbelievable. -- Arwel (talk) 15:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Popular Culture Continued...
The inclusion of Iron Maiden's lyrics is beyond the beyond of over indulgence. It is firstly needless, a brief mention would have been enough; it secondly, over powers a very important article with its 'earnestness'. The contributor, if they so felt the need to subject us to this should have placed a redirect. This is an important historical article and should not be sullied by the likes of this. For this reason it has been removed.--The Three Jays 02:54, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

NAME OF ARTICLE

The battle for Passchendaele and the Third Battle of Ypres weren't one and the same. Third Ypres culminated in the Battle for Passchendaele. I think the name of this article should be made to reflect that. And won't "Battle of Passchendaele be more approriate than simply "Passhendaele" after all the article on the battle of the Somme isn't called "Somme". Anomaly 54 16:37, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Popular culture - Black Adder
The section claims that Blackadder dies in the battle of Passchendale, but Blackadder and Baldrick can be seen discussing the russian withdrawal from the war in the series, an event that occured later than the battle... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.109.95.85 (talk) 16:10, 16 December 2006 (UTC).
 * The three stars can also be seen hiding from an in-progress Push by impersonating Italian chefs in the first episode. The series begins with the battle and takes place during same. The advance seen in the final episode that kills the main characters was merely the advance of that company, taking place after the start of the battle and after the Russian withdrawal. VolatileChemical 23:58, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Merge
There's another article The Battle of Passchendaele, which should probably be merged into this article. Any thoughts? Carom 20:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree. -- Hongooi 07:41, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Agree. Rjm at sleepers 13:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Most definitely, this article specifically says that this spelling pretty much refers to the battle and Battle of Passchendaele (no the) already redirects here. Except for some AWB and bot maintenance, it is a single editor (I am notifying them). I will try to get to it tonite. &mdash; RevRagnarok  Talk Contrib 14:19, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Done. &mdash; RevRagnarok  Talk Contrib 11:23, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Intensifiers
This is a great battle, but intensifiers such as "very" add drama without adding data or helpful commentary. We already make it clear that this was a great hitoric and horrible battle only small one step above hand-to-hand combat of great masses of me. Let's leave it at that can use standard adjectives to descibe weather, morale, causualties, etc. Last I checked, we are not writing for Sport Illustrated, so flowery language is not helpful. We should "talk up" to our readers, assume that they are mature and that they will "do the math" and look at the causualty numbers and recognize the magnitude of this battle. Every death on the battlefield is a bad one and with numbers like these, there will obviously be deaths with prolonged horror and suffering, but we do not need to remind the reader with such dramatic characterizations: let the reader figure that part out for themselves. That is part of the "neutral" in NPOV that we often forget about: the writer of history should provide data (as if they were, say, an accountant) and let the reader decide if they are impressed by the numbers. Otherwise, we are taking on the role of Shakespeare and providing entertainment rather than NPOV. -- 70.231.142.200 17:16, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Byng
Was Julian Byng and the British Third Army present at this battle? I'm fairly sure they were. I'll check my sources later and then add him to the commanders if he was.

Climie.ca 18:53, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, he was but without operational control. I forget why. Roger 20:43, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Passchendaele/Passendale and Ypres/Ieper
We are going to get bogged with names unless we're careful :)) Can I suggest that we have a very brief note at the beginning explaining that Passchendaele is now called Passendale and Ypres is now called Ieper and then stick to the traditional names throughout? Roger 20:42, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Photo issue
Apparantly this page used to have photo of a First Aid Station at Retaliation Farm (Near Zonnebeke taken by the Allies on 4 Oct 1917). I would appreciate sighting this photo for my research.--Drowe1 15:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Too many quotations?

 * No I don't think so. They are all appropriate. -- Kleinzach 10:47, 8 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Not at all, it is the quotations - especially those of Harry Patch - that bring it to life, in fact additional quotations from local civillians and from German soldiers should also be included. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.153.26.145 (talk) 09:51, 22 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't think so either. They're all very appropriate and we should not be scared of adding more suitable quotations. I'll take the tag off. -- Arwel (talk) 15:15, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Casualty vs. Dead
The artitle states, "...the Allies had captured Passchendaele, which had been completely razed to the ground by artillery shelling, at a cost of 448,000 lives; and whilst the Germans were driven away, their casualties were significantly lower than those of the Allies, although still damaging, with 260,000 soldiers dead."
 * Isn't this mixing up the terms casualty and killed in action? Most of the numbers I've seen for Allied deaths were closer to high 200k low 300k. Konamaiki (talk) 05:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Casualties means killed, wounded or missing or sick i.e. no longer available. The figures I have for both British Empire and German casualties vary but they were just over 300,000 for the British and just under 300,000 for the Germans; about 1/3 of casualties actually died in WWI, hence about 100,000 dead on each side. Rcbutcher (talk) 03:45, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

"apocryphal anecdote"?
The Quotations had this comment, after the "Good God! Did we really send our men through that?" quotation: Note: This is an apocryphal anecdote used to illustrate the myth of British "chateau" generals. It was added on 05:18, July 15, 2008 by anonymous editor 70.53.123.138. Some of this editor's other contributions were thoughtful, though not particularly burdened by citations. I boldly decided to delete the comment, since it's unsourced. If the preceding quotation is in fact apocryphal, then it should be deleted, or it should be hedged with some sort of "this commentator said X, but that commentator said X was apocryphal, and the real situation was Y". I'm putting this comment here in case the other contributors to this article want to handle the situation differently. Thanks to everyone for great work here; I've found it interesting reading. --Jdlh | Talk 03:45, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

The German side of the battle
It would be good if somebody added the German side to this article. Rcbutcher (talk) 06:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The German article has a number of excellent photos that should be cribbed, particularly the one of the waterlogged trenches that are always mentioned in any description of the field.LeadSongDog (talk) 22:47, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Aftermath
"Passchendaele could be regarded, by some, as a re-play of the Somme; an offensive mounted by the British and French Forces designed to make large gains in terms of territory." - this comment ignores the fact that the Somme was as much an offensive to relieve pressure on French troops at Verdun as make large gains in terms of territory. More could be made of the fact that Haig had not "learned the lesson" of the Somme, that he had become immune to the horror of high casualty figures and had a belief in the capacity of his side winning the war of attrition - which was the final result of WWI as it turned out - the Germans ran out of men before we did thanks to the USA joining the war. General Currie, Commander of the Canadian Corps, comments about prospective casualties and attrition could be used as reference here (Currie had warned the British High Command that victory would cause 16,000 casualties - almost 15,654 Canadian casualties from October 26, 1917 to  November 14, 1917)see http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6972/is_/ai_n28225474  Mjchesnel (talk) 13:24, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was no consensus to support move. JPG-GR (talk) 23:45, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Battle of Passchendaele → Third Battle of Ypres — The article as it currently stands discribes more than simply Passchendaele. Rather it is a good framework for the entire flanders offensive (Third Battle of Ypres). Calling this article the Battle of Passchendaele creates confusion with the Second Battle of Passchendaele, which was in fact one element of the Third Battle of Ypres, and would like cause additional confusion should an article for the Oct 12/17 First Battle of Passchendaele be created. If approved this would provide a framework for creating a Campaignbox for the Ypres Offensive as many sub elements already have pages created. — Labattblueboy (talk) 20:36, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.


 * Oppose Passchendaele is the common name for the Third Ypres. Dab by all means for the official First and Second but when Passchendaele is mentioned it generally measn the whole messy business.GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose : both names are still Allied-centric and represented a justification of Haig's tactics : Ypres to justify holding on to a tactically bad position and Passchendaele to present the final position reached as if it was some sort of major strategic accomplishment rather than the end of a failed campaign. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral, and the German army fought just as hard and honourably there. They called it Dritte Flandernschlacht (Third Battle in Flanders) which was a much more accurate description. The English language Wikipedia should avoid taking for granted that the terminology used by Britain in WWI is the only valid terminology, just because Britain spoke English. Wikipedia english is international english, free of cultural connections. Also, 'Passchendaele' is just plain historically incorrect and sloppy for use to describe the whole campaign, which was far more than that. My (English) family always called it 3rd Ypres, no mention of Passchendaele. Rcbutcher (talk) 04:23, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose: Passchendaele is the common English-language name for the campaign. What other languages call it is irrelevant. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 23:59, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Weak oppose - see coments below. Other languages are irrelevant. The two terms are used interchangeably by historians. Passchendaele IMV is more commonly used in English. The Land (talk) 09:50, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

 * I find both Third Battle of Ypres and Third Battle of Flanders to be perfectly acceptable and am not partial to either one or the other. Frankly, the Battle Passchendaele does not encompass the entire campaign and is not in line with the naming convention adopted by other language Wikipedias. --Labattblueboy (talk) 07:18, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I think Third Battle of Ypres is preferable to Passchendaele if we have to choose.. the official British campaign and battle names seem to have become the accepted names in English language usage.. I suspect this also applies to German names & usage. Problems arise when the different combatants define the dates and scopes of battles differently, then there is no single 1-1 correlation. Here it seems straightforward match with Dritte Flandernschlacht, so I have added the German name to the text introduction, which should eliminate any sense of Ango-centricness. Rcbutcher (talk) 09:35, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * By the way, has this been listed under proposed moves, it wasn't last time I looked.GraemeLeggett (talk) 08:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I have added the page to the requested moves list.--Labattblueboy (talk) 14:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't care what other Wikipedias are doing; they are communicating with a different readership in a different language. The assumption that two wikipedias should have an exact mapping from one to the other is wrong, and is likely to produce illiterate forms in one or both languages involved. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:00, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure where Rcbutcher gets his "accepted names in English language usage" basis. A quick google check of  vs  gives the current title a 20:1 edge. LeadSongDog (talk) 18:51, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Firstly, using the number of google hits is certainly not a an academically acceptable method of ascertaining nomenclature. Secondly, nearly half the Passchendaele hits are for the recently released Canadian movie (a story that surrounds the Second Battle of Passchendaele) and I would suspect a great number of the remainder cover the battle better know as the Second Battle of Passchendaele, failing to cover the entire flanders offensive, which is what the content of this article is about. The title, Third Battle of Ypres is widely accepted academically. I do however concede that it is sometimes written Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) - this being the case in the Official British History of the Great War. Either way, there are a number of academically reviewed works and official histories which use the term. Demonstrating, that at least in an academical capacity amongst those that discuss the topic, Third Battle of Ypres is the accepted name in English language usage. All of the listed works list the battle as either Third Battle of Ypres, Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) or Third Battle of Flanders --Labattblueboy (talk) 00:08, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914-1918, 1934
 * The History of the South African Forces in France, 1920
 * Strachan, The First World War (2000), The Historical Journal, 889-904. Strachan notes that Passchendaele does not provide a full account of the third battle of Ypres.
 * Griffiths, The Effects of Weather Conditions of the Third Battle of Ypres (1989)
 * Liddle, Passchendaele in Perspective: The Third Battle of Ypres (1997)
 * Jones & Ironside, Shell shock: an outcome study of a First World War'PIE'unit (2007), Journal of Psychological Medicine
 * Bostyn, Zero hour: Historical note on the British underground war in Flanders, 1915-1917 in Fields of Battle: Terrain in Military History ed. Doyle & Bennett
 * Doyle et al., The underground war 1914–18: the geology of the Beecham dugout, Passchendaele, Belgium (2001) Proceedings of the Geologists' Association
 * Merckle, They Called It Passchendaele: The Story of the Third Battle of Ypres and of the Men Who Foughtin It (1985), The Oral History Review
 * McCarthy, The Historiography of the Third Battle of Ypres: 1917-2002 (2002)
 * Second to None: The Fighting 58th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (2004), The Canadian Historical Review
 * Lt-Col Stevenson, The 1st Australian Division in 1917 (2007), Australian Army Journal
 * Holmes & Pimlott, The Hutchinson Atlas of Battle Plans (1999)
 * Grotelueschen, The AEF Way of War: The American Army and Combat in World War I (2007)
 * Ludendorff, My War Memories, 1914-1918 (1919) - In fairness he calls the battle The Third Battle of Flanders
 * Sheffield, War on the Western Front (2007), uses Third Battle of Flanders and Third Battle of Ypres interchangeably
 * Stevenson, 1918 Revisited (2005), Journal of Strategic Studies
 * Brown, British Logistics on the Western Front: 1914-1919
 * Rawling, Surviving Trench Warfare. Technology and the Canadian Corps 1914-1918
 * If we were writing for academics, I might agree, but we write for a general audience. Agreed that among scholarly works, both terms are widely used.  In popular usage, a single word name is much better retained.  That's why the movie title used it, why unit battle honours use it, why the poets use it, and why we should continue to use it.LeadSongDog (talk) 01:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Too many narratives have used the poetic "I died in hell, (they called it Passchendaele)" as some sort of analysis rather than the poetic invocation that it was. It is for those who get their history from movies and wallow in fact-free zones. This article is about the hard facts, which were an enormous battle, really an entire campaign, officially known as Third Battle of Ypres, which contained 2 separate smaller battles named Passchendaele. This was an artillery battle. So listen to General Sir Martin Farndale in the official history of the RA... he accepts that many call it Passchendaele, but is careful to point out  : "Strictly speaking, Passchendaele was part of the Third Battle of Ypres, which consisted of a series of battles..." and the chapter is headed "Third Battle of Ypres", as is the main map. Perhaps we can rename it Third Battle of Ypres and provide a footnote explanation of how the poem has influenced the name of Passchendaele being used in popular memory ? Rcbutcher (talk) 06:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Popular culture will be why many of our readers want to find out about the battle. (And the idea of treating an official history as the hard facts makes my hair stand on end.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:18, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, a survey of my bookshelves:
 * Bidwell & Graham, Fire-Power, 2004; "Passchendaele" or "the Passchendaele campaign".
 * Marix Evans, 1918 The Year of Victories, 2002; "Passchendaele, part of the Third Battle of Ypres"
 * McDonald, Lyn 1914-8 Voices and Images ; in editorial "Third Battle of Ypres" but more often "Passchendaele" in the source material (except when soldiers mention going into or out of the line when it is generally "at Ypres").
 * Ferguson, The Pity of War, 1998; "Third Ypres"
 * Stedman, M, Manchester Pals, 1994; "Passchendaele"
 * Terraine. J The Road to Passchendaele, 1977; "Passchendaele, officially called Third Ypres"; Passchendaele more often in souce materials, though even more often "the Flanders offensive".
 * Keegan, J The First World War, 1998; "The third Battle of Ypres, or Passchendaele"... later "Passchendaele, as the Third Battle of Ypres has become known..." (twice)
 * Travers, T The Killing Ground, 1987; "Passchendaele"
 * Griffiths, P Battle tactics of the Western Front, 1994; "Third Ypres"
 * I do not think anyone can say that of this selection the "academic" books use "Third Ypres" while the "popular" books do not. In fact I regard the usage by Terraine and Travers as conclusive proof that there is no academic consensus that Third Ypres is correct.
 * In any case Wikipedia policy is to use the most common name in English. While I share the view that too many people understand WWI from poems and movies, that's not a good reason for us not to use Passchendaele.
 * Going from google, which is one common method on Wikipedia:
 * "Battle of Passchendaele" -wikipedia -film gives 16,500 results http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22battle+of+passchendale%22+-wikipedia+-film&meta=
 * "Third Battle of Ypres" -wikipedia -film gives 33,600 results http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22third+battle+of+Ypres%22+-wikipedia+-film&meta=
 * But NB that when searching for "Passchendaele" many result pages are *titled* "Third Ypres" and the contrary is equally true.
 * In short, either name will do, though my mild preference is for Passchenndaele. The Land (talk) 22:40, 19 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I suspect the confusion began with  Had they called Third Ypres an "Offensive", a "Campaign" or anything other than the grotesquely understated "Battle" it would not have been conflated with the constituent battles, particularly Passchendaele. LeadSongDog (talk) 06:18, 20 December 2008 (UTC)


 * But that's precisely the point : this article covers the entire campaign, not just the individual battles, of which Passchendaele 1 & 2 were just part. The conflation error is made by those who try to characterise the entire campaign under the last battle, the 2nd Battle of Passchendaele, not the reverse as you imply. To allow the entire campaign to sit under the title of one small part is totally unhistoric : there were 2 battles of Passcendaele, the campaign's purpose was not to capture Passchendaele, it was just a small part of a large campaign. We do not have to pander to a paperback editor who tells us "You'll have to call it Passchendaele, Third Ypres won't sell". Rcbutcher (talk) 06:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Then write Ypres campaign and use much of the material from this article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:47, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Another view from Paddy Griffith, in the book I mentioned above: "I have not followed the elaborately pedantic official system of nomenclature .. .but have followed the far more straightforward popular usage by which "the Somme" is the whole battle fought between June and November 1916... 'Passchendale' or 'Third Ypres' is the whole of the autumnal mud bath of 1917.." The Land (talk) 23:47, 22 December 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Improving the article
I am thinking about having a go at improving the article. Obviously, we need references throughout. I also think that the sections on the battle(s) itself could do with considerably more material, while the aftermath and analysis section needs to be somewhat larger to take into account all the competing points of view. I think the 'quotations' section can be trimmed and moved into the media section. Any other thoughts on the matter? The Land (talk) 22:08, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Kiggell quote
It's been a few years but I distinctly recall that Bloody Red Tabs by Davies and Maddocks devotes an entire chapter to the legend of Lieutenant-General Launcelot Kiggell's comments following Passchendaele, and that he didn't make it. Next week I'll be in a position to check the book and then post the reference here. I'm not sure why the quote in question is even listed, since it is acknowledged to be a possible fabrication? --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 17:52, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Ooh, that would be interesting to hear :-) - I think the "quotations" section should be nuked in any case, and replaced by context-specific quotations in the article, together with a thorough (by Wikipedia standards) discussion of the historiography. I'm planning on doing it, just starting at the top of the article and working down... The Land (talk) 19:23, 20 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm, didn't expect to see you here! Not that I can talk, I'm updating Byng of Vimy for a change. I'll pre-empt your nuking of the quotations and remove the Kiggell quote.  I simply cannot see any good reason why something which "is an unsubtantiated story and may be a Post War invention" should be kept in - especially when it's wrong. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 11:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Finally checked the book, pp. 19-21. It described how first Duff Cooper published the story in his biography of Haig, and apparently got it from Liddell-Hart, who got it from (you can see a pattern of gossip emerging here) James Edmonds, the Official Historian in 1927.  Duff Cooper didn't name the Staff Officer involved, while Liddell Hart eventually did in 1958 in tht fine historical magazine The Spectator.  Montgomery then repeated the story in his memoirs published later that year.  Dennis Wheatley in his 1978 book The Time has Come named the crying officer as Sir Archibald Murray.  Both John Terraine and Brian Bond (a friend of Liddell Hart's) considered the story as unrealistic gossip.  It was found that Brigadier-General John Davidson admitted to weeping having viewed the battlefield, in a 21 April, 1945 interview with the officers of the Official War Histories section.  He stated that he cried because he knew that Third Ypres was going to have to continue in spite of the conditions the men were facing.  The section in the book is well referenced, which I think is fairly conclusive. --Harlsbottom (talk | library | book reviews) 12:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
 * This seems to be one of those "quotes" that the public really wants to believe, and I have no doubt that somebody will soon put it back. Perhaps some sort of reference needs to be made to this debunked myth in the article, similar to the way the Contemptible Little Army and Kindermoord myths are debunked in the BEF and German Wiki de:Erste_Flandernschlacht articles. Rcbutcher (talk) 14:24, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

For the record the removed section was
"This is an unsubtantiated story and may be a Post War invention:""Good God! Did we really send our men through that?" The man beside him, who had been through the campaign, replied tonelessly, "It's worse further on up.""

- Lt. Gen. Sir Launcelot Kiggell, also quoted in (Leon Wolff, In Flanders Fields: The 1917 Campaign)"

Haig, Gough and Plumer
I'm trying to work out what Haig's intentions were in terms of armies and commanders for the Battle of Passchendaele.


 * When did Haig decide that Gough should command the Ypres attack?
 * When did Gough take command in the Salient?
 * The 'Fifth Army' moved with Gough. Did this mean that an entire Army decamped to the Ypres salient relieving the troops there, or was it an administrative renaming. If the former, how much time did the move take?
 * I'm told Haig was keen to push ahead onto the Gheulvelt Plateau immediately after Messines. Did Plumer's reaction to this have anything to do with Haig's decision to put Gough in charge?

I have spent an hour or so this evening trying to get any sense out of the following books on this subject:


 * Haig's Command' by Denis Winter
 * Passchendaele: The Sacrificial Ground by Steel and Hart
 * The Road to Passchendaele by Terrraine
 * The Killing Ground by travers

and I have come up with no clear answers at all. Please help! The Land (talk) 22:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Check out 'Passchendaele: The Untold Story' by Robin Prior & Trevor Wilson (ISBN: 0-300-06692-9) - as all of the answers are included there, such as why Gough was chosen, the timing of the battles, and the interplay between Gough, Plumer and Haig as the battles progressed (as well as references to your other questions).MWadwell (talk) 17:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Oddly enough, this book landed on my doormat the other day, I'm just digesting it ;-) The Land (talk) 20:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Pour le Mérite
Can anyone suggest a source for Pour le Mérite citations. I would like to compile a list of Pour le Mérite associated to Third Ypres and could use some help in this respect.Labattblueboy (talk) 02:55, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Plagiarism
Most of the September 1917 section is directly copied and pasted from. It is an important part of the article, so an outright deletion is probably not warranted, but it should be changed a bit I suppose. Joel.labes (talk) 11:30, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * That is incorrect. KnowledgeRush has copied this article...please check and you will see that they credited Wikipedia on that same page. ⋙–Berean–Hunter—►  ((⊕)) 11:36, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You beat me to it. Wikipedia can't plagiarise itself. Have a look at the bottom of the knowledegrush page. You will find this..."This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Passchendaele"." --LiamE (talk) 11:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * OK, i take it all back. oops. sorry Joel.labes (talk) 10:32, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
 * No need to apologize...you are fine. You were reporting what you thought was a problem...and most of us have gotten confused over it at one point or another. Keep up the good work! ⋙–Berean–Hunter—►  ((⊕)</b>) 15:08, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Merge 2
It is very confusing to have articles such as First Battle of Passchendaele and Second Battle of Passchendaele in addition to this one. Is there any reason to keep separate articles for all of these? older ≠ wiser 17:43, 21 August 2009 (UTC)
 * This has come up as a result of my creation of a First Battle of Passchendaele article for the 12 October battle. The content is rather basic currently but that is quickly changing. I am in full agreement with User:Bkonrad that there is possibility for confusion, but it was previously decided that changing the name of the campaign article (Battle of Passchendaele) was not wanted. As unique military events, the First Battle of Passchendaele and Second Battle of Passchendaele have sufficient merit to exist on their own --Labattblueboy (talk) 18:21, 21 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Can we call this discussion closed with no consensus? No activity since late Aug.--Labattblueboy (talk) 19:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Losses
I've some doubt about the figures in the info box so I've looked at various sources.

'The Smoke and the Fire', Terraine J, P. 46. 244,000 British casualties.................1980.

'Passchendaele, the Untold Story', Prior & Wilson, P. 195. Ypres and Messines, approx 275,000, 70,000 killed. German casualties 'probably less than 200,000'............................................................1996.

'Imperial Germany and the Great War', Chickering R, P. 176. 324,000 British casualties..1998.

'The First World War, Germany and Austria-Hungary 1914-1918, Herwig H, P. 332. 271,000 British, 217,000 German.....1996.

'The Pity of War', Ferguson N, P. 293. Around 250,000 [British losses]...................1998.

'The first World War', Keegan J, P. 394, 70,000 British killed, 170,000 wounded (240,000). P. 395 'The Germans may have suffered worse.'..................................................................................1998.

'The Myth of the Great War', Mosier J, P.284. 399,821 British casualties.................2001.

'They Called it Passchendaele', MacDonald L, P. 233. '...their [German] casualties at Ypres were roughly similar.'...1978.

'Passchendaele in Perspective, The Third Battle of Ypres', Ed. Liddle P, PP. 486-487. '...John Terraine...concludes that it is reasonable to add 20% to the German official figures, thus giving a total of 260,400 for the period up to 31 December which was roughly equal to British and French casualties during the Third Ypres campaign....Ian Beckett gives a British total of 275,000 (including the operation at Messines) and suggests 220,000 for German casualties....'.....1997. ..Keith-264 (talk) 16:06, 28 October 2009 (UTC)


 * Are the differences primarily chronological/historiographical (i.e. broadly, the figures were thought to be higher in the past and have been revised) or methodological/interpretive (i.e. different historians continue to reach varying statistics)? The simplest solution may be to indicate a range in the Infobox with a note referring the reader to the casualties section, which can cite all/many of these and offer a brief explanation. Albrecht (talk) 14:48, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Albrecht. Battle of Arras (1917) employs a similar strategy and addressed the debate concerning casualties in a sub-section. Seems the most logical. --Labattblueboy (talk) 15:44, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I've put the dates on but the information in the books is often a citation of other work. I think the last book is the most auhoritative but I haven't had time to look at all the essays yet. 250,000-270,000 British and 200,000-220,000 German seem popular. I wonder if the 508,000 in the text is losses for the Ypres salient 1914-1918?Keith-264 (talk) 16:01, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Names
a section should be built explaining the various names used by various historians (Passchendaele, 3rd Ypres, 3rd Flanders, etc) 65.94.252.195 (talk) 07:49, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Casualty figures in infobox
I was wondering if I could get a consensus on reinserting basic casualty figures into the infobox. Dapi89 seems intent on having the term disputed inserted, which I don't believe is very helpful for readers. Is there any opposition to inserting the figures put forward by Keith-264 (250,000-270,000 British and 200,000-220,000 German) until we can get around to doing a proper edit of the casualties section. --Labattblueboy (talk) 10:10, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The OH for 1917 II has arrived. PP364-365 has 'The Battles of Ypres 1917, Total Battle and Trench Wastage in the Fifth and Second Armies 31st July-10th November' (Extracted from the Summaries of Operations Furnished Weekly to G.H.Q. by these Armies).


 * Total: 238,313 comprising, Officers (K/W/M) 2,118/8,398/452 = 10,968. Other Ranks, 33,713/164,596/29,036 = 227,345. P.361 has 'figures submitted to the Supreme War Council on the 25th February 1918... 244,897. It goes on to say that in the Medical History 64% of the wounded returned to duty at the front and 18% to lines of communication, garrison or sedentary occupations. On p.363 'The German Official Account puts the losses of the Fourth Army from 21st July to 31st December at "217,000 in round numbers, of whom 35,000 were killed and 48,000 "missing" - the British took 26,631 prisoners. For comparison with British statistics the total would be about 289,000; but this is by no means all, for several divisions rendered their returns after they had left Fourth Army and others belonging to the Rupprecht Group Of Armies, but not the Fourth Army, were engaged." There are then some statistical assumptions leading to a caculation of German losses of about 400,000.Keith-264 (talk) 11:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * You seem to have a handle on the casualtly stats. Would you be able to update the casualty section. That way we can get the stats updated in the infobox. I was thinking about dedicating some time to the article and seeign about getting up to GA.--Labattblueboy (talk) 15:52, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Dear Labatt, there are a few more winkles; in one of the other OH's some of the figures in the Medical OH [actually 'Military Effort....'] are disputed so I need to tread carefully. 1917 vol II is a birthday present so I'm not supposed to look at it until mid Feb. ;O)Keith-264 (talk) 08:56, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

I added a bit about Plumer's reorganisation of the infantry for the Menin Road gig but don't know how to cite it in the text so I've labelled the amendment instead. Interestingly, the German depth defence is described as being intended to create the conditions for an encounter battle (which is obvious once you think about it) which looks less like expertise and more like an expedient caused by waning strength.Keith-264 (talk) 08:56, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

Casualties
OH 1917 I pp.557-558 has, 'As the Adjutant-General gave 104,862 for the whole Expeditionary Force in the month of April, it was somewhat startling to find that in an official statistical compilation entitled "Military Effort of the British Empire" the British casualties on the Western Front for this month were given as 120,070....The "Military Effort" total for the year is 817,790, that of the medical history 750,249, a difference of 67,541. It may therefore be taken that not only the Arras casualties, but also those of Messines, "Passchendaele", and Cambrai, are considerably exaggerated by the "Military Effort". Keith-264 (talk) 11:40, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

The date of the below (Gas attack)incident may be 1917 (The year of the Battle of Passchendale) rather than 1918 or alternatively it could have occurred in a later battle.

Adolf Hitler fought in the Battle of Passchendaele as a member of the 6th Bavarian Reserve Division and was injured on the night of October 13, 1918, when he was caught in a British gas attack on a hill south of Werwick.Nnoddy (talk) 02:33, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

The gas attack is mentioned under casualities in the article on Hitler Nnoddy (talk) 03:34, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

On 15 October 1918, Hitler was admitted to a field hospital, temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack.

Was Hitler gassed during the final Flanders campaign? This is not clear from the article.

On 28 September 1918, it was an army group under the command of Albert of Belgium, comprising the Belgian Army, British Second Army, and French Sixth Army that broke the Flanders front. Ostend and Lille fell on 17 October, and Zeebrugge to the Belgians on 19 October, ending the Flanders Campaign Aftermath<Br>Nnoddy (talk) 01:33, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

Introduction
'Passchendaele has become synonymous with the misery of grinding attrition warfare fought in thick mud. Most of the battle took place on reclaimed marshland, swampy even without rain.' Not according to the Official History which I've just finished. It says that the marshes were further north near the coast and that most of the battle was fought on rising ground and on the Gheluvelt Plateau. It also points out that there were also periods of dryness in which dust thrown up by British artillery bombardments obscured British attacks, allowing them to surprise German defenders. Is there a source for the term 'reclaimed mashland'?Keith-264 (talk) 11:07, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I suspect it depends on whether you are talking about Passenchedaele proper (First and Second Battles of Passchendaele per Wikipedia), or Third Ypres as a whole, commonly referred to as Passenchendaele. David Underdown (talk) 12:38, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, the OH goes into some detail about the mud being worse at the end of the Somme (quoting from the Australian OH) and the ground at Ypres being dryer than further south around Givenchy. Considering that after August the fight was on the plateau and that the writer canvassed all the CRE's of the divisions who all gave early October as the time when the wet became difficult for supply there is a case for scepticism of the Lloyd-George and Liddell-Hart version. Passchendaele Ridge is the last place you'd find a marsh.Keith-264 (talk) 14:04, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I seem to keep coming back to this book on various different talk pages at the moment, but Christy Campbell's Band of Brigands:the Extraordinary Story of the First Men in Tanks has an account of the "bog map" produced by one fo the Tank Corps staff officers in the run up to the deployment of the tanks, and many of the tanks did indeed bog down when they went in to action. David Underdown (talk) 14:16, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Didn't they always? In the OH Elles is described (late in the campaign) asserting that there was only room for three Battalions of tanks (kept up to strength) and suggesting that the other five should withdraw for training and preparation for a try elsewhere; this was more to do with the concentration on the Gheluvelt plateau after the breakthrough atempts were abandoned in August. The OH doesn't dispute that there is mud in Flanders but does try to rebut the polemical claims that the wet summer was predictable, continuous and that it was always muddy everywhere (with some success when I read it).Keith-264 (talk) 15:05, 3 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It ahs been frequently alleged that the OH was a bit of whitewash job, used by various senior officers to recover thier reputations. Now I haven't read it so I can't really comment one way or the other.  David Underdown (talk) 15:12, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Andrew Green 'Writing the Great War: Sir James Edmonds and the Official Histories 1915-1948' begs to differ.Keith-264 (talk) 18:26, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

"Second Phase"
'Plumer abandoned tactics intended to achieve a break-through....' What tactics and what break through? Gough's attacks were step-by-step attacks. The two attacks before II Corps was transferred to 2nd army had a contingency in case the German defence crumpled but this only meant a further small advance to exploit the opportunity, not a pursuit. Gough's attempts on the Gheluvelt Plateau were the least successful so the centre of gravity of the attack was moved there and an even bigger preponderance of artillery was installed. The British attacks after this were inexorable. Note also that the mud that post war writers made such a fetish of was least evident here.
 * Haig's war diary, May 1st: 'Charteris reported on the situation. Enemy's reserves have still further been drawn upon and only 10 divisions remain available on Western Front. Documents also captured showing that orders were issued on 7 February and 12 March to reduce infantry battalions to 650 men fit for field service and 50 men fit for duty or labour. This is a distinct sign of shortage of men. Each company will be equipped with 3 light machine guns [the steady increase in automatic and other intrinsic support weapons was how every country adapted to decreasing numbers of 'riflemen' in infantry units]. An order, signed by von Hindenburg, was also captured, signed 13 April, ordering a reduction of food ration for the troops and in consequence of 'the considerable shortage of cereals'... The Enemy has already been weakened appreciably but time is required to wear down his great number of troops. The situation is not yet ripe for the decisive blow. We must therefore continue to wear down the Enemy until his power of resistance has been further reduced. The cause of General Nivelle's comparative failure appears, primarily, to have been a miscalculation in this respect, and the remedy now is to return to wearing-down methods for a further period the duration of which cannot be calculated yet. I recommended that the pause [which is forced upon us in] vigorous offensive operations be utilised to complete measures for clearing the coast this summer. Success seems reasonably possible. It will give valuable results on land and sea. If full measure of success is not gained we shall be attacking the Enemy on a front where he cannot refuse to fight, and our purpose of wearing him down will be given effect to. We shall be directly covering our own most important communications, and even a partial success will considerably improve our defensive positions in the Ypres salient and thus reduce the heavy wastage which must otherwise by expected to occur there next winter as in the past.' Source: G Sheffield & J Bourne (eds). 'Douglas Haig: War Diaries and Letters 1914-1918. p. 288-9. ISBN 0297847023 courtesy of R Dunlop.Keith-264 (talk) 12:11, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I would agree that Gough did not explicitly make a breakthrough the objective in the first phase but he set some extremely ambitious targets [5000-6000 yards on for day one (to the third line) with a push to the fourth line (the contigencies you spoke of) in the event of light resistence, followed by an attack on Paschendaele Ridge 4 days later] that are often presented and interpreted as such. There is however a significant contrast in tactics given Gough employed a wider offensive method and Plumber a more limited bite-and-hold strategy. I do believe that contrast is needed and would be glad to entertain a different source. I wouldn't be in favour of replacing it with a something from Haig's writings though (even the most newly edited ones), simply because it lacks a NPOV.--Labattblueboy (talk) 15:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The point is that the two attacks made least progress on the Gheluvelt Plateau and the changes under Plumer reflected the difficulty of the task not a change in intentions. It would have been pointless to try to advance north of Gheluvelt if II Corps wasn't getting forward. Haig's diary entry is significant for the date. Unless doubt is cast on its contemporaneity it demonstrates that 3rd Ypres was not conceived as a breakthrough offensive, unlike Nivelle's.Keith-264 (talk) 15:26, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Gough 'Fifth Army', 'The plan of attack was settled and the 31st July finally decided upon as the date. The first day's attack was organised in three stages, which were marked on the map by a blue, a black and a green line. The average distance of the first stage, to the blue line, was 1000 yards; the second stage, to the black line, averaged another 1000 yards; and the third stage, to the green line, was about 1500 yards in the centre and on our right, and 1000 yards on our left.Keith-264 (talk) 16:25, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * As I said, I have no issues removing the breakthrough element (replace it with wider advance?) if something other than Haig's personal documents are used as a second source. There is very obvious conflicts of interest and I am not comfortable with using a primary source (WP:PRIMARY), written by Haig, when his historical reputation is at stake, it's simply not appropriate. Surely, there is a secondary source available. If there are no quality secondary sources that can establish the claim then I would likewise oppose editing it.--Labattblueboy (talk) 17:44, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * It makes it difficult when the planning was done in Haig and Gough's names and they made most decisions. The wider advance seems to have been motivated by the need to avoid leaving the northern area unengaged, hence the French contribution. having got Pilckem Ridge, a narrower attack on the plateau was shielded to an extent from German observation necessary for the artillery around Houthoulst Forest (which was on a reverse slope.Keith-264 (talk) 19:44, 25 March 2010 (UTC)
 * How about this? Appendix XIII pp. 431-432 OH 1917 II, 'Fifth Army Instructions for the Offensive of the 31st July, 1917.... 27th June 1917.'.

...the following points...are to be taken as orders:

2. The barrage will be kept upon each successive objective until the last infantryman is in a position to assault. The whole of the objective will then be carried simultaneously all along our front. 3. The Green Line [third objective] is to be the main objective of the day's operations. The protective barrage will remain in front of this line for one hour after the time at which the infantry is to reach it. At this stage of the operations all commanders, including the army commander, will resume command of their troops. It is more important to ensure perfect control than to gain advantages of ground. 4. ....Patrols are then to be sent out to reconnoitre the enemy and to make good any ground which he has vacated.... In sending them forward ... it is all-important for us to have a clearly-defined line from which to start the next advance.... 5. ....we must be prepared to fight a series of organised battles on a wide front and on a large scale.... the reorganisation after each attack must be very carefully thought out and must be executed with the utmost possible rapidity. N Malcolm, MGGS 5th army."

This is hardly a recipe for a breakthrough. It looks to me to be an attempt to balance a desire to obtain maximum benefit from the bombardment short of making the advance vulnerable to counter-attack. Could Plumer have put it more cautiously?Keith-264 (talk) 11:05, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * That is still a primary document and makes no comment as to whether or not a breakthrough was the intent. It's better than the Haig documents but still does not provide the secondary source analysis that is more appropriate for such conclusions. By making the conclusion ourselves, it becomes original research, which is highly frowned upon.--Labattblueboy (talk) 12:14, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Quoted as a source in the Official History which is a secondary source. Its essence is that a breakthrough was not intended! OH 1917 II pp. 127-128, ".... the first day's objective (the second) was extended another mile, to a third objective, which included the the German Third Line. Moreover, without any settled pause along this farther objective, the advance was to be continued if possible, either immediately or within the next few hours, another mile to a fourth objective.... The strength of the advance to the fourth objective was left to the discretion of divisional commanders.... If the enemy seriously contested the advance to the fourth objective, it was not to be pressed;...."Keith-264 (talk) 12:38, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I am happy with that one. I have reservations with using the OH on some issues (simply because that volume had a great deal of controversy surrounding it), however it works for me in this instance. If a wide body of more modern material contests the issue I may change my opinion, but for now this addresses my previously stated issues.Labattblueboy (talk) 20:25, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've got a thesis on order from http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do by Andrew Green which is a study of the OH's reliability. OH 1917II is discussed in one of his chapters. If there's anything interesting in it I'll get in touch.Keith-264 (talk) 20:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

Mud
The introduction calls the area 'reclaimed marshland'. OH 1917II says, p.125, (fn1) "...the "polder" country, a close labyrinth of...drainage ditches known as "Wateringues"; les Moeures, between Furnes and Dunkirk, a reclaimed marsh.... as far south as Noordschoote, where the boundary turns west. Thus the area in which the 'Third Battle of Ypres' was fought was entirely outside the "low country"." P. 125, "....the Ypres sector was regarded as not so wet as the Hohenzollern sector near Loos, or the Ploegsteert Wood and Givenchy sectors, where sandbag parapets had to be built up." P. 126, ".... as their lower courses became obstructed by shell-fire, these tended to become sloughs; this was particularly the case near St Julien, and, a mile farther north, around the Stroombeek.... These bad patches were marked on maps so that they could be avoided." P.126, (fn1) "...that part of France which lies south of the marshy 'amphibious' region of the moeurs.".

P. 374, "In March 1935 the opinions... in writing from 51 of the Chief Engineers of Armies and corps and of the C.R.Es. of divisions engaged.... "There was no trouble at all... until about the 5th October. Some of the others put the date as "after the 4th October", others...7th, the 9th or even the 12th. That last day happens to be the date fixed by Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria... who records in his diary, "Rain. Our best ally". In the chapter "Retrospect" on pp.375 - 377 the Official Historian discusses the mud. On p.376 it is claimed that Hulluch or Givenchy was the worst ground on the Western Front. "Another C.R.E. speaking of October... 'where ground had been lost and won, or where the line had been static for, say, a week, it was badly cut up, but between these zones, the damage was not excessive'. Keith-264 (talk) 12:33, 15 June 2010 (UTC)


 * That's a fair point... but I would be a bit happier if it came from somewhere other than the Official History, to be honest! I see there has been a debate about the OH's reliability already on this page. In general I think we should take the approach that any statement which appears to be controversial should be justified with reference to several different sources. I have been trying to apply this principle to my edits and would recommend we do it to the discussion about mud. The Land (talk) 12:49, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Greetings Land, the OH also quotes the Australian OH as to the mud being worse at the Somme 1916 (the AOH not being known for subservience) as well as the French OH and Rupprecht; it also mentions the small sickness rate which should give a sceptic pause. The last sketch map in the book is from the AOH showing muddy areas. In Prior and Wilson the point that the OH makes about the unseasonal rain of 1917 being intermittent rather than a ceaseless downpour is made and they also quote complaints about dust and shells ricochetting in September. Having read the OH after P&W and various other sources I see no reason for more than the ordinary scholarly scepticism of any source. Controversy appears unavoidable if we make a priori judgements about sources as well as appearing to push POV. Where they differ I prefer to describe the differences with perhaps a historiographical gloss if different differences have been apparent at different times (er I think...;O)). As far as geography and geology are concerned the matter is one of fact so I'd urge removal of the comment about the area being a reclaimed marsh since you don't tend to find them on high ground even if you don't trust the evidence in the OH. Unfortunately Andrew Green's monograph on the OH isn't available as a download until someone bungs them £40 to digitise it (tight gits). If you've got a spare £22 it's on Amazon.... PP.211-212, Note I Rainfall quotes a French source 'Bigourdan's "Le Climat de la France"... founded on fifty years' records giving Flanders as the area of lowest average rainfall'. according to the rainfall data October was the most anomalous month in a generally wetter than average year (fn1, p.212). PP. 361-362, quotation from 'Medical History', General, vol III, p.171, "The sickness during the battles [of Ypres 1917] was comparatively slight.... The sick rate in France and Flanders in 1917 was less than in any year of the war except 1916 when ground conditions were worse: the daily percentage of sick off the strength was, in 1914, 0.26; in 1915, 0.24; in 1916, 0.13; in 1917, 0.15; and in 1918, 0.16. P. 246, Fortunately the first three weeks in September were mostly fine sunny days, with a drying wind, so that the sea of mud in the forward area gradually turned into a brown dusty desert....Keith-264 (talk) 14:54, 15 June 2010 (UTC)
 * P. 284, "The ground was now so powdery and dry that the bursts of the high explosive shell raised a dense wall of dust and smoke, and a morning mist added to the obscurity, direction had to be kept by compass-bearing; but so closely did the Australians follow the dust cloud that most of the German machine-gun detachments were rushed or out-flanked before they could fire a shot.". 'The Assault, Polygon Wood, 26th September' (ch 15).
 * Has anyone contibuting on this page read the OH for 3rd Ypres?Keith-264 (talk) 19:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Regarding the mud: you edit away as you see fit - I will review against the sources I have, and if necessary raise any issues here. There were, at times and in some areas, extreme problems with mud - and hence I think part of the inherited cultural memory of the battle is about mud. However, of course, we should be describing the military action as it actually occurred!
 * Regarding the Official History - I draw your attention to Chapter 8 of "The Killing Ground" by Tim Travers - entitled "The Official History, the Somme, and the planning of Passchendaele" - where Travers draws the conclusion that Edmonds displayed a significant bias towards Haig and GHQ and against Gough. Re-reading it, that doesn't seem to touch much on the mud issue, more the planning of the offensive. So I don't have any objection to relying on the OH for most things, but do think we should be very careful when the Oh is addressing questions like whether the attack was meant to be a breakthrough, etc. Regards, The Land (talk) 20:01, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the Travers reminder, I'll have a look later. I have ordered Andrew Green's book and damn the expense. I won't go overboard until I have a chance to see what he says and compare it. From what I can gather at the moment, Gough got the gig because of the optimism about the prospects of the offensive reaching beyond Passchendaele ridge and triggering the attack up the coast and the landing. After the mediocre success of Langemarck and the delay because of the (unseasonable) rain in August Haig decided that even more emphasis needed to be given to the Gheluvelt Plateau than Gough had done and that the prospecs for a big advance had dimmed due to the vigour of the German defence. I can't see any grounds for concluding that Gough's two goes were different to Plumer's given that the details for Pilckem Ridge and Langemark were ones consistent with a step-by-step intent, albeit slightly modified by the belief that Messines Ridge had been too pessimistically planned resulting in an opportunity not being taken*. Much of the debate in 5th Army seems to have been due to Gough insisting that the possibility of a bigger than expected success be catered for and the Div and Corps commanders insisting that this be left to local commanders to decide - which Gough accepted.

Apropos the OH, I'd dismissed the idea that they were worth the bother for years but then relented because it's not scholarly to judge a book without even looking at its cover. I read 1916II and was pleasantly surprised. I thought that there were three passages which looked like ripostes to criticism and all three were reasonable. There's a lot more commentary in 1917II much of it aimed at Lloyd George and Liddell-Hart, both of whom have previous; plus some analysis of the statistics in "Military Effort" which seem to exaggerate British losses in France in 1917.Keith-264 (talk) 08:56, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * In 'Development of Tactics, World War' (1922) W Balck on p. 103 writes (of Messines) that "Apparently the British did not think of a prompt exploitation of the success. Their reserves were used for relieving the troops in the first line, but not for increasing the entry to a penetration. Even the subsequent battles [3rd Ypres] show the same: Destroying by "drum" fire a relatively small sector of the front line through enormous artillery effect; the attacking infantry satisfied wth assaults of minor depth; the advantages of surprise, not utilized." [A five line paragraph despatches 3rd Ypres called by other Germans 'the greatest martydom of the war] This is also the first book I've seen which contains the dolchstoss myth as if it's true so another scepticism warning is indicated.Keith-264 (talk) 08:56, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Next steps
I am planning to spend a bit of time on this article this summer, with a view to getting it to FA status (though might have to settle for A-class). Obviously there are a group of people watching this page who know what they're talking about, so I though I'd post here before making any more big changes. What I think the article needs is: Any views or comments on any of the above? The Land (talk) 09:23, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * a bit more expansion of the planning section to take into account the "bite and hold" vs "breakthrough" controversy. In particular, development of the attack plan post-Messines.
 * a more thorough and referenced chronological account of 7 June to November. (I am not sure that all the subheadings are needed, but more content & references definitely are)
 * probably introduce a section on historical controversy as well as remembrance
 * a better lead section, probably shorter by about a paragraph


 * I agree. I'm looking for more sources from the German side (which is difficult as I need them in English). Much of the information I'm using about the intentions of the offensive in its 'Gough' stage is I fear original research (mostly on view at Great War forum). An interesting criterion for a decision about the intentions of the British command is the decisions that Government and army made for 1918. Continuity would suggest that 3rd Ypres was not expected to be a war-winning offensive a la Nivelle and change such as plans to run down training establishments and redeploy people away from infantry recruitment would imply a belief that the war would end in 1917. None of that was done; although the army lost first call on manpower this was to keep the war effort going). I fancy adding material to the sub-sections on the battles but as you point out some of that depends on your views about the concept and intentions of the campaign (the OH has much interesting material on the artillery side of Broodseinde for example).Keith-264 (talk) 10:15, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I am happy to help out where I can. The First phase section needs extensive work given it currently contains no referencing once so ever, same with German defences and Changes to German defences sections. A controversies section would have to be done very carefully, it could very quickly deviate from a NPOV. I do fully agree that the Commemoration section needs to be expanded. The article needs more German side content as there is very little currently.--Labattblueboy (talk) 12:48, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Have done some work on the "First phase". Propose to split the July-November section into two, the first regarding Gough's period of command, the second rgarding Plumer's. This is a bit anglocentric but it also makes some sense. In terms of the German sources, I have Sheldon, "The German Army at Passchendaele" which covers German strategy, tactics, command, the experience of German troops and generally the German viewpoint. It's quite a good starting point. Does anyone have anything which goes into depth about the aerial battle over Ypres? The Land (talk) 23:08, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I have the RAF OH II, III & IV plus an essay by Bruce J. and Kelly K. The RFC and the Struggle for Supremacy in the Air over the Salient, Ch 11 in Peter Liddle 'Passchendaele in Perspective, The Third Battle of Ypres' (1997). It also has Ch 4 'The German High Command' by H Hagenluke and Ch 20, 'Flanders 1917 and the German Soldier' by German Werth.
 * I'm pleased to say Andrew Green's book arrived today and I read the chapter on 3rd Ypres. Oddly enough he contradicts Tim Travers by saying that far from whitewashing Haig, Edmonds put a subtle but unmistakable boot into him and while critical of Gough, substantially softned the criticism of him in the first draft (G C Wynne) which was much more pro-Haig.

The way I see it at the moment is; 'Haig's Big Plan', Messines>Ypres>coastal attack+landing, because; French army's bolt shot in April-May>Russia going down the drain>US army a long way from a significant presence in France>Germany's eastern front force likely to appear in France so British army would lose the strategic initiative in months. Big Plan offers best chance to exploit a relative advantage in mid-late 1917, dish Ll-G's treachery and make sure that Britain doesn't forfeit its place at the top table when the post-war carve-up is done. The consequence of this is the appointment of Gough to handle the first part of Big Plan for a ambitious but still limited (step-by-step) offensive out of the Salient. The result is two attacks which gain substantial and tactically valuable ground at Ypres but which fail at the most tactically and operationally valuable point (Gheluvelt Plateau) despite Gough putting more resources into this area than further north, with the unseasonable rains of August making 'Haig's Big Plan' less and less likely. Haig decided to salvage what he could by putting the gig back in the hands of Plumer & 2nd army who are clearly better placed than 5th army HQ for a much less operationally and strategically ambitious campaign ('Haig's Small Plan') which may have got the Big Plan going again but which needed a three week delay to move the "schwerpunkt" south to Gheluvelt and reorganise and rehearse the divisions to be ready for the German counter-attack method and turn it against the Germans better than Gough's efforts did. Three attacks ensue which are inexorable and which precipitate a crisis in the German High Command as their methods implode. The fourth attack was premature and thus ill-supported by artillery and succeeded in the least important area only. In October the unseasonable rains returned but two more attacks were made to gain Passchendaele and the observation this gave of the German defences. The first attack had a mediocre result but the second finally established the army on the best drained and most commanding ground in the area. The Germans heave a sigh of relief at the weather. Apropos, has anyone ever compared winter losses 1917-1918 with the earlier years when the army was overlooked?Keith-264 (talk) 22:39, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

My basic plan of attack is to go through the account of the battle chronologically, doing a first run based on Prior & Wilson, then follow up by reading my other sources for relevant material and trying to add it in. Once I've exhausted my bookshelf or my patience I will move on to the next phase of the battle. That will give us a decent factual article, then we can go back through and make sure that the historiographical disputes are dealt with appropriately. So if you ever wonder what I'm doing with my edits, that is probably it. :-) The Land (talk) 23:08, 24 June 2010 (UTC) I fear that you value P&W rather more than I do as a source. ;O)Keith-264 (talk) 23:18, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Menin Road
"The Germans by this time had a semi-permanent front line, with very deep dugouts and concrete pillboxes...." Notice how detail like this tends to contradict the 'swamp' legend? Keith-264 (talk) 09:22, 25 June 2010 (UTC) P&W, just had another look at the conclusion and then the introduction to TUS. As with their recent Somme book the Germans are conspicuous by their absence, consequences and alternatives are given one sidedly (3rd Ypres cost the British '10 divisions' but no figure is offered for the cost to the Germans) and there seems to be precious litle mention of supply and transport constraints on British offensive methods. Like Travers they seem to think that the OH is tendentious in favour of Haig when Green says the published draft is much more sympathetic to Gough than Wynne's original. I don't know how to reference material under the text of the article so I'll put suggested material on here for now.Keith-264 (talk) 13:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Pilckem Ridge
A "4000-5000 yard" advance. I can't find a source for this in the OH. P&W include the Red Line which as Gough noted in his reply to Davidson's memo (Davidson advocated a minimum of 1,500 yards and a max of 3,000 p. 436 OH) was strictly opportunistic. The Green line was to be the line consolidated (see OH p. 432, '3. The Green Line [third objective] is to be the main objective of the day's operations.'. (27th Jun instruction to 5th Army by Malcolm N, MGGS 5th Army. The RAF OH (1934) vol IV, p. 160 gives 'The main attack by the Fifth Army, was organised in three stages to objectives marked on the map by blue, black, and green lines. The first and second stages each called for an advance of about 1,000 yards, and the third stage for one of 1,000-1,500 yards.'. I don't know where P&W get 1,750 yards from re Davidson.Keith-264 (talk) 16:30, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

German casualty stats
Regarding German casualty stats I recommend the following article from  The Journal of Military History; Jul 2006 The Blood Test Revisited: A New Look at German Casualty Counts in World War I James McRandle; James Quirk

The article has a scholarly discussion of German casualty statistics. I will not post it to Wiki because it cannot be reproduced without permission of the copyright owner. Check with your local library, I found it at the NY Public Library online database.

Here Are Stats for the 3rd Ypres from three standard reference sources and the Official government actual figures for losses on the entire Western Front

First Source

''Grey, Randal (1991). Chronicle of the First World War, Vol II: 1917–1921. Facts On File. ISBN 0816025959. Page 281''

31 July-10Nov 1917

British-(Nov12) 244,987 (14,000POWs, nearly 40,000 gassed since 7/12) 50+tanks

French-(8July-Oct31)8,525

German-(73Div engaged)c230,000 (37,000Pows) 86guns? lost/captured

Second Source

''Ellis, John (1993). World War I–Databook. Aurum Press. ISBN 1854107666. Page 272''

7-11/1917

BEF- 396,000(60,300 KIA)

France- 112,000

Germany-348,300

Third Source

''Michael Clodfelter. Warfare and Armed Conflicts- A Statistical Reference to Casualty and Other Figures, 1500–2000. 2nd Ed. 2002 ISBN 0-7864-1204-6. Page 449''

July 31-Nov 10, 1917

Allies-36 divisions(30British, 6 French) 244,897 British, 8,528 French killed, wounded or missing (British casualties to the end of the year totaled 380,335, including POWs)

Germans-15 Divisions(total casualties to the end of the year were 260,000, including 83,000 dead and 37,000 captured)

--Woogie10w (talk) 23:22, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Woogie, most helpful.Keith-264 (talk) 23:29, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

The following data is from the actual and final offical government reports on casualties for the entire Western Front

German Casualties for the entire Western Front

Source:

''Heeres-Sanitaetsinspektion im Reichskriegsministeriums (1934) (in German). Sanitaetsbericht über das deutsche Heer, (deutsches Feld- und Besatzungsheer), im Weltkriege 1914–1918. Volume 3, Sec 1. Berlin.''

BEF Casualties for the entire Western Front

Source:

Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War 1914–1920, The War Office March 1922

French Casualties for the entire Western Front

Source

Huber, Michel La Population de la France pendant la guerre, Paris 1931

--Woogie10w (talk) 20:54, 12 August 2010 (UTC) Thanks Woogie.Keith-264 (talk) 21:25, 12 August 2010 (UTC)


 * My questions are

1-"how did our sources derive the figure of 244,000 BEF casualties?"

2-"what role did Haig and his staff have in generating the figure of 244,000 BEF casualties?"

3-in other words "what is the original secondary source(not a tertiary source)of 244,000 BEF casualties?"

I am from Missouri. You have got to show me--Woogie10w (talk) 23:30, 12 August 2010 (UTC) I've always found your contributions to be models of scholarly rectitude;O)

The Official History pp. 360-365 has, 'The total battle and trench wastage casualties in the second and fifth armies... 31st July-10th November 1917, were, as rendered week by week at the time, 238,313.(2) Except in the case of the report of one army for one week, this total includes "Missing" (of whom there were 29,036), some of whom subsequently returned. The figures submitted to the Supreme War Council on the 25th of February 1918, by the British section of the Military Representatives were: 31st July-3rd October...138,787, 4th October-12th November 106,110...Total 244,897(1).

[Footnote p. 360.] '(2) Details are given in note at end of chapter. The infantry casualties in the various battles only amount to 170,534 all ranks (AG's Returns) The balance, 67,779, is made up by the other arms and the trench wastage in the periods between battles.' [Fn p. 361.] '(1) The clerk-power to investigate the exact losses was not available....' PP. 364-365 have a tabulation of losses divided by officers-and-other ranks and fifth-and-second army, 'Extracted from the Summaries of Operations Furnished Weekly to GHQ by these armies' of battle and trench wastage with a total of 238.313.Keith-264 (talk) 07:37, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The figures from The Official History belong in this articles Casualty section, not the current laundry list of tertiary sources that are being disputed.--Woogie10w (talk) 10:24, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Which list, there are several on here.Keith-264 (talk) 11:36, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

IMO, the section Battle of Passchendaele devotes too much space to the tertiary sources and neglects the details in the UK Official History, the details Keith-264 provided here on the talk page far are more relevant to the topic. I read the book In Flanders Fields 36 years ago, so my knowledge of this battle is at best sketchy.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:20, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see what you mean. Does anyone else agree to use the OH figures for British losses?Keith-264 (talk) 14:00, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * They're probably as good a starting point as any, though if other reliable sources have challenged the figures, this probably should be mentioned (and the grounds on which this has been done). I also have an idea that I've read that stats produced directly from Roayl Army Medical Corps returns differed from the figures in tehofficial history.  I have a copy of The First World War : the essential guide to sources in the UK national archives ISBN 1903365414.  I'll try and have a look in there, and anything else I have which might shed light.  David Underdown (talk) 14:21, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Look at total UK losses for the period of Aug to Nov of 355,000 and the Official History data for Passchendaele of 238,000 up until 11/12/17 . That tells me that the BEF participated in battles at the same time that cost roughly 120,000 men. That does not make sense to me, where and when did the other 120,000 losses occur? I wonder if Haig and his staff may have mannipulated the data. What do our sources say? I read the book In Flanders Fields 36 years ago, so my knowledge of this battle is at best sketchy.--Woogie10w (talk) 15:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I see a timing difference in the casualty stats- The Battles in June and July are not included in the figure of 244K in the Official history which covers the period of 1 Aug to 12 Nov. That is the root cause of the current "disputed" figures on the current Wikipedia page--Woogie10w (talk) 16:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Messines, 7th-14th June, 24,562 casualties in the 2nd army, Lens-Lille diversion attacks 26th-30th June ('very costly' p. 115), German attack at Nieuport 10th-11th July (3,126 British losses, p.122). BEF losses 7th-12th June, 20,940 (OH p. 88 & fn.). Hill 70, 15th-20th Aug, 8,418 (OH, p.230). Note also the British policy of raiding rather than the 'live-and-let-live' system elsewhere.

5th army casualties weeks, 6-13, 13-20, 20-27 July, 2,275, 5,930, 7,354 (OH pp. 137-8 fn 4). German mustard gas made its debut at Nieuport 12th July and was used on Ypres, night of 12th-13th with 2,014 casualties (most recovered in seven days, OH p.138 fn 4).Keith-264 (talk) 17:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * @ D Underdown, OH 1917 I pp.557-558 has, 'As the Adjutant-General gave 104,862 for the whole Expeditionary Force in the month of April, it was somewhat startling to find that in an official statistical compilation entitled "Military Effort of the British Empire" the British casualties on the Western Front for this month were given as 120,070....The "Military Effort" total for the year is 817,790, that of the medical history 750,249, a difference of 67,541. It may therefore be taken that not only the Arras casualties, but also those of Messines, "Passchendaele", and Cambrai, are considerably exaggerated by the "Military Effort".Keith-264 (talk) 17:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

The Statistics Report of 1922 lacks credibility from the POV of an accountant. Take the campaign in France for example, the statistics on pages 253-271 for monthly total casualties add down to 2,706,134, however the total losses for the campaign on page 271 are given as 2,722,242. I presume they plugged in losses at the end when they did not know the month of occurrence. The Medical History is in close agreement, they put the total losses for France & Flanders at 2,722,152. This tells me we have timing differences with regard to casualties. The clerks probably reported casualties on a periodic basis when they finished their paperwork not bothering to assign the actual date of the casualty occured, in my opinion these are the figures posted in the 1922 report. However he Medical Report published in 1931 reconciled these timing differences and posted casualties in the period that they actually occurred. --Woogie10w (talk) 19:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Also Keith, does the Official History break out losses by month for each of the five BEF Armies in 1917?--Woogie10w (talk) 19:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

OH Casualty reports
Sadly not, 1917I has a chapter on casualties for Arras (9th April-24th May) pp. 556-561 3rd Army; 87,226, 1st Army; 18,331, 5th Army 13,215, total 158,660 but these include flanking forces as well 'outside the battle zone'. For the offensive 'rather less than 150,000' is given (p. 556). Chapter XXI 'Events outside the battlefield' refer to 4th and 2nd armies. 4th Army continued to close up to the Hindenburg Line, no loss figure given. Second Army did lots of mining and raiding (some 'exceptionally large'). On p. 534, 'nearly 20,000 casualties... in the first five months of 1917' is given. On page 557 there is a comparison of the 1917 total in 'Military Effort of the British Empire' of 817,790 whereas 'Medical Services: Casualties and Medical Statistics of the Great War', 750,249 on p. 158 is cited with a lament that they are annual not monthly. 1917III (Cambrai) gives 44,207 casualties, 20th Nov-8th Dec.Keith-264 (talk) 20:29, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

B.E.F. Total Casualties France/Flanders 1914-1918

Note:The 1931 Medical Report figures include 32,098 deaths due to disease or injury. Broken out as follows- 1914-508; 1915-2,907; 1916-5,841; 1917-8,422; 1918-14,420

What do our sources say about these differences? Were Haig and French holding back the bad news from London in 1915 and 1916? or were the bookkeepers simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of casualties caused by the tactics of Haig and French? --Woogie10w (talk) 20:59, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Could the 1931 figures reflect a relatively generous postwar system for awarding disability pensions? I also read somewhere that casualties were counted into 1919, presumably to cater for wartime wounds, injuries and illnesses worsening and for the evaluation of returned POWs (presumably wounds etc worsening or relapses would be recorded more after the war because of the pension implications). Haig couldn't fiddle the books (if it were possible) until December 1915 because he wasn't BEF commander until then and anyway he'd have an interest in inflating 1915 losses to make French look bad. 1917 is anomalous which is surprising since I would have thought that the March Retreat of 1918 would be the only time that record keeping was seriously disrupted. Why does it contradict the trend? Edmonds does complain that the Germans bombarded dressing stations during 3rd Ypres, could some of the records been lost? Near 60,000 seems unlikely. Keith-264 (talk) 22:52, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Don't know about the pensions side too much, but certainly for the purposes of Commonwealth War Graves Commission, deaths up to 1 August 1921 are counted as First World War casualties, where the person died in service, or as the result of wounds or illnesses which led to discharge. British forces were involved in the Russian Civil War, the Third Anglo-Afghan War, Waziristan campaign 1919–1920 and the Irish War of Independence. David Underdown (talk) 09:25, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

'Military Effort' has 'Approximate monthly casualties' pp. 253-271. PP.237 has a note saying that these are subject to correction.Keith-264 (talk) 23:15, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Both the 1922 and 1931 reports have a grand total of 2.722 million, look at the table I posted, you can see the bump up in 1917. It strikes me as a bit odd that the OH does not give a breakdown for each Army group by month that ties out to the 1922 Official Statistics. French had a motive to sit on the figures in 1915 as well as Haig after the Somme debacle. It would seem logical that French & Haig may have delayed the accounting process and pushed  losses into the quite months during the winter to cover up their failures. Again what have the historians said about casualties reporting in the war?--Woogie10w (talk) 23:26, 13 August 2010 (UTC) I've just been looking at a download of Military Effort and further on (p. 280 ish) it gives losses for the Somme, Arras, Messines, 3rd Ypres for all the BEF. I really don't think Haig bent the figures at the time because it would be the basis for the army's bid for replacement manpower. If he concealed losses there would be corresponding gaps in the BEF divisons. It's also arguable that the Somme (with Verdun and the Brusilov Offensive) began the demolition of the German army so Haig wouldn't have seen it as a debacle. Approx casualties (all BEF) pp. 324-327; Somme period 498,024, Arras 187,783, Messines 108,882, Ypres 263,374 (to 31 Dec), Cambrai 75,681. Keith-264 (talk) 00:16, 14 August 2010 (UTC) I looked at the spreadsheet and noticed that the ME and Med Hist figures balance. ?Overestimates in Med hist minus the ?1917 underestimate and the 'no period 16,108' = 75137-75227 = -90. Add the 90 difference between the grand totals and the numbers balance. I wonder if the 1917 figure in the Med Hist has a correction for previous overcounting and the 16,108 is another correction?Keith-264 (talk) 00:32, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The Medical History was published 9 years after the Military effort and both reports give total casualties of 2.722 million. The reports differ due the timing of reported losses. My assumption is that the 1931 report is the corrected version that reconciled the timing differences in the Military effort. Unfortunately,  the 1931 Medical History does not give a breakdown by month. The statistics from the 1922 Military Effort often appear in historical literature. The whole foundation of these often quoted statistics for the B.E.F losses in the Somme and Ypres becomes rather flimsy in light of the data in the 1931 Medical Report. Have military historians ever questioned this discrepancy?--Woogie10w (talk) 01:12, 14 August 2010 (UTC) Edmonds certainly did in the OH as regards the 1917 figures and the use of the Military Effort figures in Churchill's World Crisis and Lloyd-George's memoirs. I've only read from 1916II to 1917II so far though so I don't know if he also commented on statistics for earlier in the war.Keith-264 (talk) 08:26, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Obviously there's some serious work going on here so I won't get in your way, but my recollection of the argument in the statistical appendix in Terraine's "Road to Passchendaele" is that the total British casualties listed above (>400,000) need to be adjusted by stripping out Cambrai and "natural wastage" of OTOH average 30,000 casualties per month even when not a lot else was going on. That gets you British casualties of approx 250-270,000 for Passchendaele.Paulturtle (talk) 10:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Summary of research on 3rd Ypres
I. The decision to attack at Ypres put the Germans on the spot, stand fast and get another battering or withdraw to buy time and risk compromising the German hold on the area further north and the Belgian coast. Haig's preparations with 4th Army were taken seriously by the Germans.

II. The operation was far bigger than Messines so it is potentially misleading to compare them.

III. The 'delay' between Messines and Pilckem Ridge was a practical matter because the British had to shift artillery from further south around Arras and the north end of the Hindenburg Line and because poor weather and the German unveiling of Mustard gas before 31st July inhibited the counter-battery effort.

IIIa. French support was less than expected due to the effect of the failure of the breakthrough attempts of the Nivelle Offensive but it showed a promising revival later on at Malmaison and Verdun as well as on the northern flank of the Ypres operation from the start.

IV. The width of the front attacked on the 31st was as wide as practical and a narrower front attack along the ridge would have caused more problems than the attack that did take place by inviting enfilade fire from the area of Houthoulst Forest and hampering French flank support.

V. The 'neglect' of the Gheluvelt Plateau is hindsight since II Corps was the biggest corps in the BEF and had an unprecedented amount of artillery support.

VI. Gough's 'breakthrough' efforts amount to a desire not to let opportunities go begging so making provision for a further push by advance guards to the Red Line, which was conditional on the state of the German defence (to be determined by the local div and corps commanders) and that the Green Line was the line to consolidate on. An advance to the Green Line was 3,000-3,500 yards which doesn't amount to a breakthrough attempt and exceeds Davidson's recommendation by 500 yards only, in one part of the attack front.

VII. Gough envisaged a series of similar set pieces, which is what did happen except that the lousy unseasonable weather in August and the German relative defensive success on the plateau inhibited the advance further north after the 31st.

VIII. The armies regrouped to counter the relative success of the German defence of the Plateau and demolished it in late September-early October in much better weather using a refinement of the methods used earlier, against which German defensive methods were unavailing.

IX. The lousy weather returned but the British used their refined method to overcome the obstacles created by the weather and the German defence to capture Passchendaele village and ground beyond in three more short bounds which left the Germans hanging on by their fingernails.Keith-264 (talk) 20:56, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Gough's command: July–August 1917
Do you mean that Gough took the Fifth Army headquarters to the Salient? Reserve Army (re-named Fifth Army in late 1916) was always his command until he was sacked in 1918.Keith-264 (talk) 22:40, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

File:A scene at Ypres, ca. 1917.jpg
The recent inclusion of the image File:A scene at Ypres, ca. 1917.jpg in the casualties section creates, at least on my system, about 8 lines of whitepace. Not to mention the image doesn't contain any casaulties within the image. Any oppsition to the image being removed?--Labattblueboy (talk) 20:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Passchendaele or Third Ypres again
It would be better, I feel, to rename the article from 'Battle of Passchendaele' to 'Battle of Third Ypres'. I know this has been discussed before and that a defence put forward has been the number of Google search hits for each title, with Passchendaele coming out on top and thus that being what the article was named. I don't think that such events should be categorised according to what is most searched online. Most people are taught about the Great War through English literature classes, rather than history during primary and secondary education. As such most are likely to search for Passchendaele as it was one of the most written about individual engagements, rather than the more accurate reference to the entire Third Ypres operation. Historically this is what the battle was named by the BEF, with the Passchendaele title being added postwar. From an organisational standpoint the campaign was a series of battles that took place around the Ypres salient, with Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Passchendaele, etc. all being but individual engagements in a much larger battle. To name the article and the events that took place during the battle after just one of the engagements does not really make sense, despite the fact that Passchendaele is one of the more commonly used terms of reference to the battle in the UK. The article title is also misleading when put forward in this way, as it implies that the objective of the offensive was to secure the village of Passchendaele, when in fact it was designed to seize Roulers and link up with the amphibious landings planned against Ostend and Zeebrugge. Another reason for changing the article title is that the word 'Passchendaele' is limiting the opportunity for historical objectivity within the article. The word translated from the native Flemish into English comes out as 'The Vale of the Passion', referencing the Passion of Christ. Combined with the events that took place during the Battle of Third Ypres the name became synonymous with the suffering and pain that the BEF had to endure, in line with the suffering that was inflicted upon Christ. As such I feel that religious undertones limit the objectivity of the historian when discussing the battle as 'Passchendaele' over 'Third Ypres' because of the associations linguistically brought in that colour the argument. The subsequent socialist interpretation of history during the 1920s/30s latched onto this popular feeling to vilify commanders that were from the upper classes due to their abuse of the lower classes (by forcing them to suffer akin to the manner of Christ as mentioned). This issue has been recognised within much of the revisionist historiography, such as Gary Sheffield, John Bourne, Paddy Griffith and notably Robert Thompson, therefore I would petition that the name be changed in order to maintain a neutral stance on the subject and avoid invoking emotional bias.--Carv01 (talk) 14:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The OH has 'The Battles of Ypres 1917 (31st July-10th Nov).' with, 'The Battles of Passchendaele (12th October-10th November)' and 'First Battle of Passchendaele (12th October)' and 'Second Battle of Passchendaele (26th October-10th November)'. I'd go for something like '3rd Ypres Campaign ("Passchendaele")' so that the English literature faculty is catered for.
 * I think you're being a little unfair to refer to 'socialist' revisionism since the mud, blood and futility version was not a left-wing phenomenon (unless you think Robert Graves was a socialist?) but a subtext which had existed since the war began. In the late 20s it became fashionable that's all. Post 1960 'revisionism' is more a partial return to the orthodoxy of the 1914-1930 era, I don't think that counts as revisionism so much as scholarship.Keith-264 (talk) 18:29, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry Keith I think I may have confused the issue with poor sentence structure. I meant that the problem of the 1920s socialist history trend had been identified by revisionists, not that they too were adopting a socialist stance akin to the 1920s, so I think we're on the same wavelength here (if only I'd made it clear in the first place!). I think your suggestion of including 'Passchendaele' within the article title is a good compromise.--Carv01 (talk) 11:25, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with calling the article Passchendaele, but why is 3rd Ypres reduced to a footnote? It should be in the intro also.LRT24 (talk) 14:22, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Official History
"The volume of the British Official History of the War that covered Passchendaele was the last to be published, and there is evidence it was biased to reflect well on Field Marshal Douglas Haig and badly on General Hubert Gough, the commander of the Fifth Army.[2]"
 * Writing the Great War by Andrew Green (2004) contradicts this by pointing out that the published version is the fourth draft and that this is considerable more critical of Haig than the first draft. He also points out that some of Tim Travers's critique of the OH actually supports its credibility.Keith-264 (talk) 14:02, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Casualties Again
Have added in Terrain'e debunking of Wolff's inflated figure (latter still widely quoted in shoddily-researched populist accounts). Terraine assumes 6 months' worth of normal wastage, which is an exaggeration, as when full offensives were underway there would have been less wastage on the quiet sectors than when the whole front was quiet. But 448,000-75,000 for Cambrai -a deduction of some kind for wastage (but not as much as 6x35,000) gets you to c 275,000 easily enough. The Thought Police are hereby reminded that "simple arithmetic calculation" does not qualify as OR.Paulturtle (talk) 22:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The article on here gives casualties for Cambrai of c40,000, but I merely reproduce what Terraine wrote, and in this case he says he's quoting from the Official History.Paulturtle (talk) 08:32, 11 July 2011 (UTC) OH1917III p. 382 gives 41,817 casualties for the British 3rd army 20th Nov-8th Dec 1917. The German Army at Passchendaele (Jack Sheldon, 2007) p. 319, (endnote 58) gives German casualties as (excluding those before 1 Jun and after 10 Nov) 67,272 killed and missing, wounded 149,922 = 217,194. 182,396 slightly wounded and sick not struck off unit strength are added this gives 399,590. Discrepancies arise because the British counted casualties quantitatively (everyone receiving medical treatment) and the Germans counted them quantitatively (everyone wounded or ill enough to cease duties). If you reduce the gross figure of British casualties by the same proportion of 'slightly wonded and sick' as the German won't you get a net figure of c.165,000?Keith-264 (talk) 13:16, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

What you say about the Germans not including lightly wounded men is true but the usual method of dealing with this is to multiply up their figures by 30% or so to bring into line with British methodology. German figures for dead (in old 1930s accounts) are also sometimes KIA only, and missing and wounded who died in hospital need to be added in to bring German deaths in line with Allied methodology.Paulturtle (talk) 17:50, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That's the Official Historian's view (in OH1916I) which has attracted varying degrees of scepticism but (to my surprise) Sheldon's book is recent. Terraine suggests a 20% premium on German figures but on the whole I'm interested in the effect losses had on the military capacity of the countries involved. Clearly the Allies had far more men to hazard on the battlefield than the Germans so lower losses in the German army could have worse effects than the losses in the Allied colition.Keith-264 (talk) 15:40, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I thought the point of "lightly wounded" was that they returned to duty relatively quickly and so made little impact on miltary capacity. Re total Allied strength, Allied populations were much greater but that included a lot of men who for one reason or another were never going to get conscripted. In terms of military strength I'm not sure the Allied lead was ever that huge before autumn 1918 when the Americans turned up in strength. So taking losses of 3:2 at Third Ypres did, in relative terms, wear down the Germans more than the Allies (even Leon Wolff, amidst a lot of erroneous reasoning about casualties, makes this point, which is to his credit) but only just, and of course less than Haig was allowing himself to be told by Charteris at the time.Paulturtle (talk) 12:44, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * 'Lightly wounded yes but then we must reduce British (and French) casualties by 20-30% to make them comparable to German criteria which then puts German losses higher than Allied.Keith-264 (talk) 14:34, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * No, that would clearly be wp:SYNTH. If we can't find a reliable source that does it, we should add a footnote explaining the difference in methodology.LeadSongDog come howl!  17:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I haven't read the Sheldon book (yet) so am unwilling to comment further - may revert when I have done so. German losses exceeding British is obviously not a consensus view. On the other hand, the number of people who are numerate, sensible and willing to think is often surprisingly small so it's not self-evident that he's wrong.Paulturtle (talk) 17:16, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Have now amended the article in line with what Sheldon says (my copy turned up last night). As a final sanity check on these figures the British had 440,000 casualties in the second half of 1917 (call it 150,000 deaths, give or take). The Germans had around 40,000 KIA for that period on the British sector in the initial Reicharchiv figures, which even when doubled up (my estimate to approximate for wounded who died and missing who never returned - initial Reichsarchiv figure c800,000 Western Front KIA, final figure more like 1.5m out of the 2.1m total German dead), is still only 80,000. So anyone who claims the Germans had more casualties at Third Ypres at least has some explaining to do.

Oman tried to critique Churchill's claim that Allied losses exceeded German at the Somme. Robin Prior (1983) poured scorn on Oman, and on Edmonds for simple error in quoting figures from two different periods and thinking he had deduced a stable ratio for "gross" and "net" German casualties. But that does not mean in itself that Edmonds was wrong to add on a premium for lightly wounded. I think in order to resolve this further one would have to find a study explaining in more detail the differences between British and German methodology (I understand the Germans sometimes counted the same man more than once if he had several light wounds), but that is beyond the scope of my bookshelves.Paulturtle (talk) 13:58, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Prior's got previous, hence picking a low figure for the Germans and a high one for the British. Notice that 440,000 is for the BEF not for units engaged at Ypres.Keith-264 (talk) 15:59, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I have a lot of time for Robin Prior, and on that particular topic he is usually thought to be right, and debunks Oman pretty thoroughly in the essays in question - Churchill (embarrassing political nuisance though he was at the time) was right to argue that German losses at the Somme were less than British, and Oman's "official" line was based on patent error (confusing British sector German losses with losses for the whole German front - the German figure I've quoted for second half 1917 are also British sector only but not just Third Ypres) and far-fetched reasoning about unit-rotation and casualties. That said, I'm aware he gives a very low German figure in his recent book on the Somme, but I need to read up more on that one.Paulturtle (talk) 09:57, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
 * In Sheldon's book on Cambrai he writes "Casualties were practically identical at something over 40,000 suffered by each side though, in the usual way, the British Official History chose to inflate the German losses to more than 53,000 for no good reason." which suggests that his opinion has hardened. ;O)Keith-264 (talk) 18:20, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Allied
Isn't the use of the word Allied possibly confusing since Germany was part of the Triple Alliance and the opposing armies were part of the Triple Entente? SpeakFree (talk) 12:08, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Not all of the countries in the war against Germany were part of the Entente - Serbia, Belgium, USA, Italy, Rumania etc.Keith-264 (talk) 18:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Passchendaele, passion dale, vale of suffering
Should the article not mention (a) the English pronunciation of the place name as 'passion dale' and (b) the fact that this can be seen to mean 'vale of suffering'? This is one reason why the name of this battle resonates movingly all these decades later and stands as a kind of archetype of all the battles on the Western Front. Admittedly I have no reference for this. APW (talk) 17:01, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Also because it was such a political hot potato: no unequivocal need to attack whatever Haig may have claimed about U-boats and French mutiny, LG signed off on it and then let it continue, perhaps as part of a cynical political strategy to let Haig and Robertson hang themselves so that he could reassert political control, and LG made it the centrepiece of his memoirs after Haig and Robertson were dead. The Somme replaced Third Ypres in the popular memory in the 1960s.Paulturtle (talk) 17:16, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * "The costly August battles... imposed a heavy strain on the western troops.... they no longer displayed that firmness.... The state of affairs in the West appeared to prevent the execution of our plans elsewhere. Our wastage had been so high as to cause grave misgivings and had exeeded all expectation." Ludendorff, ii, p. 480. Someone thought that Haig was right. ;O)Keith-264 (talk) 15:15, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Large pinch of salt needed for this I'm afraid. Elsewhere Ludendorff claimed that that Third Ypres showed that the British were about to defeat the Germans, and caused him to resort to the Spring Offensives in 1918 (not sure where the 30 or so divisions coming in from the East fit into either of these claims). Well he would say that, wouldn't he. No disputing that the British had (tactically) got their act together by 1917, Third Ypres wasn't the mindless bashing of popular myth and came a lot closer to breaking through than is often realised, and Lloyd George allowed it to happen (if it had succeeded he would doubtless have tried to take the credit!). That said, lots of relatively sane critics have always argued that Sir Douglas got a bit carried away and lost sight of the fact that he was bleeding his own army white in an offensive which was not, in itself, going to win the war unless the French joined in with a major offensive of their own, which they weren't going to do. That's why the battle has always been controversial, with dubious claims on both sides, eg. Haig claiming that Petain had secretly begged him to carry on the offensive, or that German losses exceeded his own (a claim which found its way into the Official History despite Robertson at the time urging Haig not to make himself look a fool by telling the politicians this), or Trenchard saying Haig "saved the world" by saving France from defeat, or Gough trying to get the Official History fiddled to exculpate himself - on the other hand LG claiming he'd begged Robertson to put a stop to it.Paulturtle (talk) 15:13, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Rupprecht, Kuhl, Armin, Lossberg, (and the German Official History) and all said the same - in their diaries, memoirs and in the orders and policy directives of the time. Haig's 'wearing out the enemy' aim was met and by the end the Germans were hanging on by their fingernails. That's why Rupprecht began planning to make a general withdrawal on 7th October.See Sheldon's translations.Keith-264 (talk) 16:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm aware of all that, although I'm not aware that von Kuhl and the others all went as far as Ludendorff in claiming that it had made the 1918 Spring Offensives - which needed an apologia as they'd hastened German defeat, but not before they'd dealt the British a worse blow, especially in terms of ruptured front and panic, than Haig had dealt the Germans the previous year, largely because they were able to mass greatly superior numbers at the point of impact. All might have been very different if Third Ypres had started in April (no Nivelle) or if the weather had been clearer in August or at the bitter end at Passchendaele, but then we'd have been in a completely different alternative history with the British defending the newly-gained ground in western Belgium against the reinforced Germans - hard to say how that would have played out. As it was, the fact remains that Haig persisted (possibly over the rumbling discontent of Plumer and Gough and certainly over the rumbling discontent of Robertson, Milner and Lloyd George) with an offensive whose chances of breakthrough (one of its several objectives) were becoming very slim. The Germans may have perceived themselves as hanging on, but sadly for Haig's reputation they did manage to hang on whilst the British for their part perceived themselves as stuck in the mud, with great difficulty in maintaining sufficient artillery cover.

Third Ypres also wore out his own army as well is why Haig and his allies were so keen to make exaggerated claims (about German casualties and saving the French) and why many players were so keen to distance themselves after the event. This goes to the heart of the Terraine/Final Despatch view of the war ("Haig wore out the Germans then inflicted the coup de grace") - German military losses were only part, albeit a large part, of the reason their morale finally collapsed and only about a third of those losses were inflicted by the British. Liddell Hart made this point in his 1930s history of the war - that Haig got carried away into wanting to win the war, or at least win a cracking victory, on his own, Prior & Wilson say much the same thing. "Lions led by Donkeys" may be a myth - but mythology grows up and falls on receptive ears for a reason. Haig wasn't a bloodthirsty idiot either, but for reasons like these few people apart from his wife, his son and John Terraine have ever been willing to hail him as a military genius.Paulturtle (talk) 18:06, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Notice that German elastic defence in 1917 failed more often than not - Arras, Messines, Verdun, Ypres, Malmaison. In the second half of the year they became more attacking than ever so the distinction between attack and defence became much smaller when Germany's strategic position after the failure at Verdun by mid-1916 dictated a defensive strategy. The artillery based operational methods of the Anglo-French armies in 1917 left the Germans with no counter - that's why the Germans still lost ground at Ypres in October and November when the weather was like that in August. The Cambrai offensive also left the Germans in a quandary - anywhere feasible for tanks could no longer be considered a 'quiet front' and stripped for reinforcements. The loosening of the Western Front in 1917 (as the semi-open warfare of the latter part of the Battle of the Somme got more and more open) continued in 1918. As you rightly point out the British Fifth Army retreated a lot in March 1918. The even bigger retreats of the French and then the German armies seem to me to be understood better as part of a trend that began in 1916.Keith-264 (talk) 19:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Again, all of these things are true, but only as far as they go. British tactics had improved enormously from the fiasco of 1 July 1916 (which since the 1960s has done so much to colour modern memory of WW1). The BEF had become a formidable force by 1917, and the German quotes reflect this, but there’s more to war than tactics, and battles like Third Ypres don’t take place in a vacuum. Manpower also matters, as does politics/morale. Once you pass a certain level of tactical competence manpower makes a big difference – it mattered a lot to the success of “Michael”, for example, and the failure of “Mars”, “Gneisenau”, so some extent “Georgette” etc. 30 or more German divisions turned up from the east, relatively fresh, against worn down British divisions (almost all the BEF was rotated through Third Ypres, was it not?).

The War Cabinet were deeply worried about British morale, understandably in view of what had happened in Russia, France and Italy, and there is some evidence that it was starting to get a bit grim. Cambrai was briefly welcomed by Northcliffe and even Robertson like water in a desert, then looked extremely embarrassing when the Germans retook the lost ground, costing Haig his press support, and showing that Germany was in much better shape, both in terms of manpower and morale, than he’d been claiming. Then followed one of those horrible moments when people realise that they’ve badly miscalculated and are about to get hit by a whirlwind. Robertson and Derby were the first to realise, but Lloyd George was sick – as he saw it – of listening to rubbish from the brasshats and didn’t want to know until it was too late. I’m not sure Haig ever entirely did – right through the winter he was urging a resumption of the Ypres Offensive.

Nobody has ever tried to spin Third Ypres as a British victory, unlike the Somme which generated results (pushed the Germans back, showed that they were unlikely to win, contributed to changes in policy and leadership of their military junta etc). Indeed that is part of the tragedy of WW1 – the Allies couldn’t make their material superiority tell, until the Americans came in and Ludendorff threw away his last cards. Third Ypres has always been a topic from which the main players tried to distance themselves and for which excuses are deemed to be needed. It can’t just be assessed in terms of tactical improvements that the BEF had made - not that I'm necessarily accusing you of doing that, it's just the aspects on which you've chosen to concentrate so far.

Lots of people were to blame for Third Ypres. The War Cabinet signed up for it because they had explicitly rejected the “Petain option” (limited attacks) and wanted some kind of result, and by summer 1917 it was clear that the French or the Italians weren’t going to provide it. Then they passed up on numerous chances to order a halt, whatever Lloyd George later claimed.Paulturtle (talk) 17:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You're offering 3rd Ypres without the Germans! Many of the sources I've used are German and come from transations in Terraine and Sheldon. The whole point of attacking at Ypres was that the Germans couldn't withdraw, ([un]like on the Somme in early 1917) because they had pinned their hopes on the U-boat campaign. Haig pointed this out before the offensive began as well as saying that capturing Passchendaele Ridge might be all that could be done that year. As for victory, all of the German sources testify to the Allied success in 'wearing out the enemy' (Haig) and that by October Rupprecht was making plans for a general withdrawal into the Flandern Stellung if things got any worse, which would have meant the loss of the coast. 'Elastic defence stopped the bleeding but not the haemhorrage' (Paul Kennedy in Military Efectiveness Vol 1.). I don't know why you use the term 'spin' but as I've pointed out above, the mistaken 'failed breakthrough' of July and August comes from the OH, otherwise a roundly and unjustly condemned source. Look at the operation orders for Fifth Army in the appendices (and those for 8th Division) and it's obvious that it was nothing of the sort. As for British losses, where did the flood of trained replacements in 1918 come from? Both armies were near their peak in mid-1917, the British going up and the Germans down. Both adapted to the circumstances as best they could. In August the Germans mostly held their ground, albeit at high cost. In September the Germans were devastated. When the rains came back in October the British managed to overcome them and resume their advance - clearly the British got better at exploiting their advantages during the campaign and the Germans wilted under the pressure. The British army recovered from the strain but the Germans didn't. Tactical superiority, strategic victory and operational failure. Two out of three isn't bad, is it?Keith-264 (talk) 19:01, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

An article overly based on accounts of British tactical improvements and the pain suffered by the Germans – both things that need to be covered – is going to be open to accusations of missing the bigger picture. Not sure how Third Ypres was a “strategic victory” (postponing the attack on Riga and lessening the exploitation of Caporetto aren’t really enough to qualify as victories, surely?), and whatever benefits it delivered the Allies were outweighed by loss of political credibility for the British generals. One out of four is rather less good.

The usual line is that German sources are reliable for tactical detail, but need to be used with caution for the bigger picture (Ludendorff especially). Lots of German sources were lost in WW2, and Edmonds was inevitably going to pick (or ignore, as he seems to have done with the casualty figures) German sources which bolstered his case. Von Kuhl (and Sheldon) were clear that Haig was no nearer a breakthrough by the end of Third Ypres than at the start (still time for the Germans to get something in place behind the lines), although of course it would probably have been different had the weather held up, hence Rupprecht’s contingency plans to abandon the coast. Sheldon is also clear that although Haig had got as far as the fifth or sixth German line his units were also being worn down and suffering diminishing returns (problems getting enough artillery forward) and some sagging of morale as Third Ypres wore on.

The Fifth Army certainly was expected to break through, ready to link up with the seaborne landing in early August. They were just not expected to break through in one go. Everyone apart from Nivelle realised by now that this was impossible. There has always been dispute about just how important the Belgian coast was for U-boats. It may be that Haig wheeled Jellicoe out to bolster his case despite nobody really believing him. But Haig had lots of potential objectives.

There is a bit of a difference between inflicting wear on the enemy, which almost any offensive is going to do, and “wearing out” in the technical sense, ie. inflicting attrition in such a way as to make the enemy more vulnerable to the decisive blow (not that Germans ever were decisively beaten in that classical sense – their army’s ability to fight back degraded when their morale, for a variety of reasons, only some of which were battle defeats and combat losses, fell off a cliff in the summer of 1918 – but that’s a debate for another occasion). If you inflict attrition at an unfavourable ratio then you have inflicted wear on the enemy but the “wearing out battle” has still been a failure. The elephant in the room here is the 30 or more German divisions arriving from the East, which briefly tipped the balance of manpower in their favour. This was not foreseeable in June and July when Kerensky was still planning offensives, but it was by the autumn. Nor did it help matters that Haig had exceeded what had been agreed by the War Cabinet in the summer – that the offensive was to be broken off if quick results were not forthcoming (“no more Sommes”), although they were to blame for not enforcing their decision. Instead he kept on through the autumn, even through the bad weather, to reach a ridge which had been among the original objectives. October 1917 was almost the worst month for British casualties that year, although narrowly pipped by April (Arras).

The bottom line is that the German Army was a lot larger than the British – 196 divisions by March 1918. Many of the German divisions were worn out trench divisions (although, frankly, many of the British ones were of lesser quality as well, something we tend to hear less about in British accounts – although it is false to claim, as some US and Dominion accounts do, that all the British divisions were worn out) but there were still enough effective German divisions to concentrate and deal the BEF a vicious blow. Of Haig’s 2 million men, less than half were combat infantry, so a few hundred thousand fewer men - whether from combat deaths or because they were being withheld because he had run out of political capital - was a lot more serious than it sounded. In business or gambling terms Haig had “risked ruin”. Or, alternatively, the German strength could have been husbanded to hold the Hindenburg Line and make the Allied Grand Offensive even more costly.

The heart of the (sensible) case against Haig is that he never had a realistic idea of the damage his offensives were inflicting on German manpower or morale. I’m not saying he was any worse than anyone else at the time – many generals (Patton, for example) are absurdly overpraised because they were in the right place at the right time, whilst poor old Haig gets demonised for things like stalemate and a large (by British standards) casualty bill which were both largely caused by factors beyond his control.Paulturtle (talk) 17:51, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Both sides showed considerable tactical flair within the constraints imposed by resources. The British army overcame the German army and the weather. This is one of the most interesting and significant developments of late 1917. Riga and Caporetto were Mickey Mouse victories against secondary opponents in strategic backwaters. Russia was finished long before Riga and Caporetto was a diversion needed to prop up the Austro-Hungarians. German records were lost but plenty reappeared after the USSR went out of business. Foley and Sheldon have been eloquent on this. Damning Edmonds won't do, especially if you insist that Gough attempted a breakthrough - that canard is one of the biggest mistakes in the OH! It was intended to push the Germans back in stages at a fast tempo like the Germans and A-Hs did to the Russians at Gorlice-Tarnow and the Anglo-French did at the Somme. The coast gig was to exploit this and add to the pressure. The weather in August slowed the tempo and allowed the Germans a breather, Plumer's three big successes had the Germans on the ropes. Even when the rains set in in October and the British tempo slowed again the Germans had less success than in August. At the end they were hanging on by their fingernails. Had the weather been better, further advances would have been from ground much better sheltered from German observation.

Haig didn't risk ruin, he rescued the Allies by keeping the initiative and forcing the Germans to make their main effort in Flanders when the Russians (and A-Hs) were folding and the French were in dire straits after the Nivelle gig. The Germans had no chance if they stayed on the defensive in 1918, 30 odd divisions from Russia wasn't a big enough addition of numbers and the transport problems that dogged the British at Ypres were nothing compared to what the Germans encountered in March 1918. Haig was shrewder than many obsolete accounts portray, 'wearing the enemy down but having an objective' added considerably to German woes. Bear in mind that attacking at Ypres because the Germans wouldn't be able to retire like they did at the Somme contraicts the 'breakthrough' thesis. It's much more logical to see it as an expectation that the Germans would be drained of resources and eventually have to withdraw for fear of worse. It's what happened in 1918 after all (once the Russia peace dividend was exhausted).Keith-264 (talk) 19:33, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have a copy of OH 1917 II? PP. 427-431 has a 'Note on the strategic situation with special reference to the present condition of German resources and probable German operations' (11 June 17). There's quite a bit on the possibility of eastern front divisions moving west.Keith-264 (talk) 22:40, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Additions of detail and evidence.
I've added quite a bit of material to the early part of the page. Most of it is detail of the German experience of the fighting and also its effect on the German high command. There is also some more on British operations after 31st July showing that the attritional aspect of the British campaign was succeeding even as most of the geographical objectives were retained by the Germans and the French get a bit of a look in too. The effect of the August weather on British operations is still to my mind lacking emphasis in allowing the Germans to escape the worst effects of Allied fire-power by hampering air reconnaissance and spotting etc. I'd be grateful if it were scrutinised, especially the references as I've forgotten the difference between op.cit. and ibid ;O). Some of the detail I want to add might be better being split off so I'd like suggestions about it. Thanks.Keith-264 (talk) 13:25, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Hill 70, does anyone know how to link this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_70 to Passchendale?Keith-264 (talk) 14:59, 21 September 2011 (UTC) No need, I remembered.Keith-264 (talk) 20:19, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Gnome N Klatura
Does anyone object to the title having (Third Battle of Ypres) added?Keith-264 (talk) 20:18, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

German defensive changes
Does anyone have a timeline on these changes as the authorities I have are contradictory?Keith-264 (talk) 16:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

How do I link 'tanks' to Tanks in WWI page? Keith-264 (talk) 16:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

French 1st Army
3rd Ypres and the restoration of confidence in the ranks of the French Army - Allain Bernede (P in Perspective, pp. 88-101. (1997) Ed, Liddle, P.)

GOC Gen Anthoine, COS Col Peschart d'Ambly, HQ Rexpoede 16 June, 1st Corps (Gen Lacapelle), divisions arrived from mid-July. Artillery: 240x75mm, 270x58-240mm, 164x155-280mm. Counter-battery = 148x105-155mm, 64x305-370mm for concrete busting. 2 x aircraft detachments for artillery spotting, 3 x fighter sqn (inc Les Cigognes), 2 x bomber, 1 x recce and 1 x reserve.

1st & 51st Divs relieved Belgian units 26 Jun (1st next to 5th army). 1st Corps took over 19 Jul. 1st Army began CB fire 15 Jul.

Note from Ops Office 1st armee 17 July - 1st Div to cooperate with Br on r flank "the British who commit to this attack a great number of troops and equipment for a series of successive efforts intended to force the Germans into swampy and unprepared areas, to weaken them thoroughly."

15 Sep Gen Nollet (OC 36 Corps, {133rd, 29th divs}) relieved Lacapelle. Field guns moved south to Malmaison as less useful in Flanders, 623 pieces remained. 2nd & 162nd Divs reviewed by Petain 6 Oct. (9 Oct, 150 prisoners, 44 mg, 6 mortars. 6 div, 135,000 men 1,625 killed-missing, 6,902 wounded-POW. 1,500 POW taken, 43 guns 'numerous' minenwerfers, 100s mg. 10 km advance to S & W edges of Houthoulst forest.Keith-264 (talk) 17:53, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Note 4
"For instance, Haig's biographer Brig. John Charteris, who was also his Intelligence Officer, says that "Careful investigation of the records of 80 years showed that in Flanders the weather broke early with the regularity of the Indian monsoon". Lt Col Ernest Gold, the BEF's meteorological expert at the time, later went on record to contradict him, saying "It is quite contrary to the evidence of the records which show that the weather in August 1917 was exceptionally bad...". Historians nonetheless differ on whether the weather of Flanders in 1917 was typical; Winter takes the view that Haig had conclusive evidence that should have led him to expect heavy rainfall and hence mud. Steel and Hart by contrast take the view that Haig was unlucky."

Charteris's comment appears on p.272 of 'Field-Marshal Earl Haig' (1929).

Careful investigation of the records of 80 years showed that in Flanders the weather broke early with the regularity of the Indian monsoon: once the autumn rains set in difficulties would be greatly enhanced.

Did Charteris mean that autumn began in August? I doubt it. Why do people miss of the end of the sentence?

On p. 273 there is, 'Unfortunately, there now set in the wettest August recorded for thirty years.' so much for regular monsoons.Keith-264 (talk) 17:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Bite and hold
Is there a description of this anywhere on Wiki?Keith-264 (talk) 08:22, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Interesting link
http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/dose/08-Flandern-01.htm

German defences
The six week pause after the Battle of Messines allowed both sides time to prepare. There was some debate among German commanders about how to meet the looming British offensive,


 * ... to decide whether or not to learn from experience and avoid the first blows of the forthcoming offensive in Flanders by conducting a planned withdrawal.... it would have been necessary to withdraw to the great Flandern Stellung [giving] up the entire depth of the current defensive system. In addition the Flandern Stellung was still not ready.

In the event the Germans decided to stand their ground.

The Germans transferred defensive expert Colonel Fritz von Lossberg to the German 4th Army as Chief of Staff on 13 June. Lossberg decided that there was to be no withdrawal from the Oosttaverne Line to the Flandern Line. The area from the Oosttaverne Line to Flandern Line was now to be held at all costs as a Flandern position backing on to the Flandern Line, now to be Flandern I. A New line, Flandern II was to be built a mile west of Menin to Terhand and Passchendaele, forming the back of of a Flandern II position (Flandern II Stellung). Another line Flandern III was begun, east of Menin, north through Moorslede. went to work improving the defences in the area and training infantry in the methods of 'elastic defence', using assault squad tactics to fight an aggressive, mobile battle in their area. Four lines of defence existed before the attack; the German first, second and third lines, plus Flandern I the strategic defence line begun in February 1917. The Germans began two more strategic defensive lines, Flandern II behind the recently lost territory to the south of Ypres and Flandern III along the reverse slope of Passchendaele Ridge. There was a forward zone, battle zone and rear zone, each 2,000–3,000 yards deep, backing on to the second (Albrecht) line, third (Wilhelm) line and Flanders I.

Numerous concrete machine gun emplacements were constructed between the German first line of defence, through to the Flandern I strategic defensive line. The purpose of these machine gun posts was to disrupt, confuse and slow an Allied attack, allowing the German Eingreif divisions time to attack 'den sofortigen Gegenstoss' (the instant-immediate counterthrust) before the Allied troops had re-organised themselves after breaching the main defensive lines. In addition to this, the number of German troops defending the front zone had been reduced (both to man the machine gun emplacements between the defensive lines, as well to reduce the number of soldiers vulnerable to Allied artillery fire). Into these defences, the Germans had put 13 divisions (5 in the front zone, 4 in close reserve and another 4 in strategic reserve) with 1,150 pieces of artillery.Keith-264 (talk) 12:50, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Losses
http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=68452

http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=68460

http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=68468

http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=68446

Keith-264 (talk) 10:11, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Start of the page
'Background, prelude, strategic background, geography and planning the campaign' seem to me to be repetitive and in the wrong order. I'm working on a short narrative of the strategic importance to Britain (and Belgium) of the Belgian coast-Ypres area and its subordination to French interests further south until the Nivelle gig blew out. Then there's local conditions - the salient, loss of commanding ground in 1915, climate and German naval operations from the ports. After that I think the specifics of the 1917 operations should be delved into separately (i.e. similarities of the Plumer-Rawlinson-Macmullen-Gough plan reflecting things like the importance of the Gheluvelt Plateau and the differences between Gough's eventual plan and the earlier ones). Any thoughts?Keith-264 (talk) 06:58, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh and not to forget that the Germans had an interest in Flanders too, hence their three offensives, 1914, 1915 & 1918.Keith-264 (talk) 09:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Background (section removed temporarily)
The British launched several massive attacks with limited geographical objectives, heavily supported by artillery, aircraft and often tanks. The British did not attain a decisive strategic success against a resolutely defended, extensive and sophisticated German defensive system; nonetheless the implications for the Germans of the effort required to defend the area left them with grave doubts as to their ability to withstand another defensive campaign in 1918. The British and French armies eventually obtained a tactical superiority and came close to an operational victory late in the year,


 * No great victory had been won; it was - to use a German distinction - an ordinary, not an annhilating victory....(British Official Historian)

the battle caused


 * ... the gradual disappearance of infantry equal in quality to that of their opponents, and the tragic feeling of inferiority to the artillery and air forces of their opponents. (H. Bath)

The battles consisted of 'bite-and-hold' attacks by the British army to overcome the defender's advantage of rapid reinforcement, by capturing tactically valuable ground, reverting to the defensive and then holding it against German attempts to recapture it, thus wearing down the German army by forcing it into costly attacks and counter-attacks, lasting until the Canadian Corps took Passchendaele on 6 November 1917; the battle ending on 10 November, apart from minor operations. Inflicting irreplaceable casualties on the Germans, the Allies captured 5 miles (8 km) of some of the most heavily defended territory in the world at a cost of 140,000 dead, a ratio of roughly 2 inches (5 cm) gained per dead soldier. The Germans reoccupied the lost ground when the line was shortened five months later, during the Battle of the Lys, losing it for good on 28 September 1918.

Passchendaele has become synonymous with the misery of grinding attrition warfare often fought in thick mud. The land between Dixmude and the river Lys was criss-crossed by streams and drainage ditches, most of which flowed west towards the Ypres—Comines canal which ran north—south. The land was flat and swampy but for good drainage. August 1917 was unusually cold and wet and huge artillery bombardments destroyed the ground surface. There were dry periods, particularly in September but mud was a feature of parts of the battlefield; tanks bogged down and some soldiers and horses drowned in it. As a German soldier recorded:


 * A machine-gunner fell in the stream, complete with his load, and it was not possible to save him. (Hauptmann Biermann, Commander 11th Company)

and on the British side of the line:


 * The ground has been churned up to a depth of 10 feet, and, before the rain, was like powder; now it has turned into a material of the consistency of porridge. As soon as the rain stopped the ground dried quickly, 'It has not rained today and with a warm sun and a 20-foot-second wind the ground is drying up fast.', 'It is still fine and the ground is drying up very rapidly; in a few days it will be dusty. I never saw such a soil as Flanders.' (Diary, 5, 17 & 18 August)

ground conditions could be just as changeable.

Ridges ran in curves from south of Ypres, east then north to Passchendaele and Staden, rising to a maximum of sixty metres above sea level. This high ground had been bitterly contested since 1914.

The battle is a subject of debate among historians, particularly in Britain. The volume of the British Official History of the War that covered Passchendaele was the last to be published and there are claims that it was biased to reflect well on Field Marshal Douglas Haig and badly on General Hubert Gough, the commander of the Fifth Army; this reading has been challenged by Andrew Green who points out that the published fourth draft is far less favourable to Haig than the first draft but does not scapegoat Gough for every failure. The heavy casualties the British Army suffered in return for slender territorial gains have led many historians to follow the example of David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister and use it as an example of senseless waste and poor generalship. Lloyd George, almost certainly influenced by Basil Liddell Hart, devoted a hundred pages of his memoirs (three times as many as he devoted to the British victories from August 1918) to a critique of British generalship at Third Ypres.

There is also a counter revisionist school of thought which seeks to emphasize the achievement of the British Army in the battle in inflicting great damage on the German Army, relieving pressure on the French and developing offensive tactics capable of overcoming German defensive positions, leaving the Germans desperate for winter weather


 * It was with a feeling of absolute longing that we waited for the beginning of the wet season. (Hindenburg)

and which were significant in winning the war in 1918.

Casualties for the battle are still a matter of controversy. Some accounts suggest that the Allies suffered significantly heavier losses than the Germans, while others offer more even figures. However, no one disputes that hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides became casualties. The last survivor of the battle (and the last survivor of the Western Front in the United Kingdom) Private Harry Patch, died on 25 July 2009.


 * Request opinion on whether any of this should be returned to the page.Keith-264 (talk) 15:55, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Geography
Two paragraphs removed from this section as irrelevant to geography or duplicated from elsewhere.

Ypres was the only Belgian city not in German hands and had become an important political symbol as well as a strategic bastion; if the Germans captured Ypres, they would be able to threaten the Channel ports and thus British supply lines. Driving the Germans away from Ypres would be a valuable objective. Roughly one-third of the U-boats which had recently begun unrestricted submarine warfare against Britain were based in occupied Belgian ports. The U-boat bases assumed great importance in spring 1917 as shipping losses mounted. Taking Passchendaele and then Roulers beyond, would threaten the Belgian ports. If the attack went very well it would be possible to outflank the German position in Belgium and threaten the German industrial heartland on the Ruhr, which might win the war quickly. For the British generals, it was also considered advantageous that the German Army would fight hard to retain its positions in Flanders. The strategic importance of Flanders and the proximity of the Dutch frontier meant that the Germans would be loath to allow a general withdrawal. Haig was optimistic that the German Army would soon run out of manpower because of the heavy losses suffered on the Somme and at Verdun.

The Germans were aware that an attack in the Flanders sector was likely and had prepared extensive defences. German experience during 1916 indicated that it was relatively easy for an Allied assault to capture the first line of defence with the covering fire of the increasing amount and quality of Allied artillery. The terrain in some parts of the salient was waterlogged so digging in was not always possible. The Germans controlled the forward area with mutually supporting positions, generally based on breastworks, concrete pillboxes or blockhouses protected by barbed wire, making use of existing buildings and vegetation. To the rear of this zone were built five reserve lines of defence.

This section removed in favour of rewritten section.

Geography
The front line around Ypres had changed relatively little since the end of the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914. The British held the city of Ypres, while the Germans held the high ground of the Messines-Wytschaete ridge to the south, the lower ridges to the east and the flat ground to the north. Ypres was therefore in a salient sticking into German positions and overlooked by German artillery on the higher ground. It was difficult for the British forces to gain ground observation of the German rear areas east of the ridges.

A feature of the Ypres salient was mud. Apart from the ridges, the battlefield was low-lying; Ypres was on the 20-metre contour, Gheluvelt Plateau at 55 to 60 metres. Naturally boggy, farming in this area was possible only because of an extensive drainage system. Since 1914 much of the drainage had been destroyed, although some parts had been restored by Land Drainage Companies brought from England; the area was considered by the British to be drier than Loos, Givenchy and Ploegsteert Wood further south. 1917 turned out to be a year of particularly foul weather, with a very late spring and not much summer; there were thunderstorms in July and August and while September was dry, October and onwards were wet. The mud was to become a defining feature of the battle for soldiers on both sides and did a great deal to hamper operations. Haig was certainly aware of the nature of the ground he was launching his campaign and closely monitored the weather. What Haig knew about the climate is one of the controversies about the battle. Sheffield says that the 'predictable' rain in August '... has no foundation in fact. The rain in Flanders during the battle was abnormally heavy.' Keith-264 (talk) 15:35, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Prelude
Operations in Flanders had been desired by the Cabinet, Admiralty and War Office since 1914. Sir Douglas Haig had succeeded Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF on 19 December 1915 and a week after his appointment Haig met Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon who emphasised the importance of obtaining control of the Belgian coast, because of the threat from German naval forces based there. The Germans had begun unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1915 (until April 1916) and about a third of their U-Boats were based in Belgian ports; On 14 January 1916 Haig ordered General Plumer to plan offensives against Messines Ridge, Lille and Houthoulst Forest. General Rawlinson was also ordered to plan an attack from the Ypres Salient on 4 February. Planning by Plumer continued but the Battle of Verdun beginning in February 1916 and the demands of the Somme battles later in the year absorbed the BEF's offensive capacity. On 7 July Haig accepted that large operations in Flanders could not be conducted in 1916.

Several small operations took place in the Salient in 1916, some were German initiatives to distract the Allies from the preparations for the offensive at Verdun and later to try to divert Allied attention from the Battle of the Somme and others begun by the British to regain territory or to evict the Germans from ground overlooking their positions. Engagements took place on 12 February at Boesinge and on 14 February at Hooge and Sanctuary Wood. There were actions on 14—15 February and 1—4 March at The Bluff, 27 March—16 April at the St Eloi Craters and the Battle of Mount Sorrel 2—13 June.

On 15 and 29 November 1916, as the Battle of the Somme paused during the wet weather, Sir Douglas Haig met Général d'Armée Joffre and the other Allies at Chantilly and agreed to continue the operations in progress, (weather permitting) through the winter and resume the coordinated Somme offensive between the Somme and Arras, together with the French army between the Somme and Oise on fronts of about 25 miles each, by the first fortnight in February. A Flanders operation was not discussed at the conference but after a meeting on 22 November 1916 in London of Sir Douglas Haig, Sir William Robertson Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Admiral Sir Henry Jackson First Sea Lord, Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon commander of the Dover Patrol and others, it was decided to write to General Joffre urging that the Flanders operation be undertaken in 1917; Joffre replied on 8 December agreeing to the proposal for a Flanders campaign after the spring offensive. Joffre was appointed 'technical adviser' to the French Government and General Nivelle became Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the North and North-East; Joffre resigned on 26 December. The plan for a year of steady attrition on the Western Front, with the main effort being made by the British Expeditionary Force was scrapped by Nivelle and the French government in favour of a decisive battle conducted by the French army, with the British army returned to a supporting role, in what became the Battle of Arras (9 April—16 May).

Strategic background
In late 1916 and early 1917, military leaders in Britain and France were optimistic that the casualties they had inflicted on the German army at Verdun and on the Somme meant that the German army was near to exhaustion. At the same time, the civilian political leaders of both nations were growing wary of the immense cost to their countries. At a conference in Chantilly in November 1916 and a series of subsequent meetings, the Entente agreed on an offensive strategy where they would overwhelm the Central Powers by means of attacks on the Western, Eastern and Italian Fronts. The British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, sought to find ways of avoiding a repeat of the British casualties involved in the Battle of the Somme and proposed an alternative strategy at a conference in Rome, for an offensive on the Italian front. British and French artillery would be transferred to Italy to add weight to the offensive. This suggestion was opposed by the French and Italian delegations, as well as (at least covertly) the British officers present and was discarded.

The new French Commander-in-Chief, Nivelle, believed that a concentrated attack by French forces on the Western Front in Spring 1917 could break the German front and lead to a decisive victory. Nivelle's plan was welcomed by the British; while many were sceptical that the French would deliver a breakthrough, a French attack would nonetheless mean less of the burden of the war in 1917 falling on the British. Haig was ordered to co-operate with Nivelle's plan but secured Nivelle's agreement that in the event the first two phases, preliminary offensives by the British at Arras and the French between the Somme and the Oise (the latter was cancelled because of Operation Alberich, the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in February and March 1917) to pin German reserves, followed by a French breakthrough offensive on the Aisne (the Nivelle Offensive) failed to lead to a pursuit and exploitation, the British would shift their forces north for the Flanders operation, made more urgent when the Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare on 1 February 1917.


 * In short, the first two phases of the battle cannot be of "une durée prolongée", as you suggest.... If these two phases are not so successful as to justify me in entering on the third phase, then I must transfer my main forces to the north.
 * Thus there is, in fact, a fourth phase of the battle to be provided for in our plans. The need to carry it out may not, and, I hope, will not, arise. But the clearance of the Belgian coast is of such importance to the British government that it must be fully provided for....(Haig, 6 January 1917).

On 1 May 1917, Haig made a diary note of a letter to the War Cabinet,


 * The enemy has already been weakened appreciably, but time is required to wear down his great numbers of troops. The situation is not yet ripe for the decisive blow. We must therefore continue to wear down the enemy until his power of resistance has been further reduced.


 * The cause of Gen. Nivelle's comparative failure appears primarily to have been a miscalculation in this respect, and the remedy now is to return to wearing-down methods for a further period, the duration of which cannot yet be calculated. I recommend that the pause which is forced upon us in vigorous offensive operations is utilised to complete measures for clearing the coast this summer. Success seems reasonably possible.

in the letter Haig had added


 * The guiding principles on which my general scheme of action is based are those which have proved successful in war from time immemorial, viz, that the first step must always be to wear down the enemy's power of resistance until he is so weakened that he will be unable to withstand a decisive blow; and, finally, to reap the fruits of victory.
 * The enemy has already been weakened appreciably; but a long time is required to wear down such great numbers of troops composed of fine fighting material... Our action must therefore continue for the present to be of a wearing-down character....
 * ... we shall be attacking the enemy on a front where he cannot refuse to fight, and where, therefore, our purpose of wearing him down can be given effect to - while even a partial success will considerably improve our defensive positions in the YPRES salient and thus reduce the heavy wastage which must otherwise be expected to occur there next winter as in the past (Haig, 1 May 1917).

by 21 June 1917 the principle of a Flanders offensive had met with the grudging approval of Lloyd George and the approval of the British Cabinet.

Planning the campaign
Several plans for the Ypres offensive were produced between November 1916 and May 1917. Sir Douglas Haig first ordered General Plumer, the commander of the Second Army which occupied the Ypres salient, to produce a plan. Haig was dissatisfied with the limited scope of Plumer's plan for the capture of Messines Ridge and Pilckem Ridge. Haig felt that the more ambitious French attempt at a decisive battle planned by General Nivelle, would either force the Germans to abandon the Belgian coast if successful or seriously weaken the German army if not. Plumer produced a revised plan, in which the first stage of the operation would capture Messines and Pilckem while also pushing some distance across the Gheluvelt plateau. Shortly afterwards, this would be followed by an attack across the plateau, advancing to Passchendaele and then further on. Plumer reckoned that a force of 42 divisions and 5,000 guns would be necessary for this but the British Expeditionary Force had nowhere near 5,000 artillery pieces. Haig also asked for an assessment from Colonel Macmullen on his GHQ staff, who proposed that the plateau be taken by a massed tank attack, reducing the need for artillery; in April a reconnaissance by Captain G. le Q Martel found that the area was unsuitable for tanks, because of the narrow defiles between the three woods obstructing the approaches and the broken state of the ground and woods on the high ground; the tanks would have to detour north of Bellewaarde lake to Westhoek then wheel right at the German Albrecht (second) Line. Plumer then produced a second revision of his plan; Messines Ridge and the west end of the Gheluvelt plateau would be taken first and then Pilckem Ridge attacked a short while later. The involvement of General Rawlinson GOC Fourth Army produced yet another iteration of the plan; Messines Ridge should be first and Gheluvelt plateau and Pilckem Ridge attacked within 47–72 hours. After discussions with Rawlinson and Plumer and the incorporation of Haig's changes, Macmullen submitted his memorandum on 14 February. This version became the plan for the 1917 Flanders campaign and on 13 May 1917 Haig appointed General Hubert Gough GOC of the Fifth Army to the command of the 'northern operation' and the coastal force. Macmullen gave Gough the 1917 plan on 14 May and this plan was adapted by Gough and the Fifth Army staff on the understanding that Haig wanted a more ambitious version. The third objective, which included the German Wilhelm (third) Line, was added to the first and second objectives, all to be taken on the first day. A fourth objective was also given for the first day but only to be attempted opportunistically, in places where the German defence had collapsed.

In April 1917, the French Nivelle Offensive took place, with the main effort by the French on the Aisne, while British and Empire forces undertook a preliminary attack at Arras. The French attack gained ground but at the cost of great casualties and failed to obtain the breakthrough Nivelle had promised; Nivelle was relieved and replaced by Philippe Petain. Over the summer it became clear that the failure of the offensive had caused a collapse in morale amongst French troops. The failure of the French breakthrough attempt meant that any offensive on the Western front would be a largely British affair as the French were exhausted. Lloyd George, while still attempting to promote his favoured Italian campaign, had little option but to support Haig's Flanders offensive. On 7 May, Haig set the timetable for his Flanders offensive, with 7 June the date for a preliminary attack on Messines Ridge. A week after Messines Ridge was captured Haig gave his objectives to his Army commanders, which were 'wearing out the enemy' and 'securing the Belgian coast and connecting with the Dutch frontier' by the capture of Passchendaele Ridge, an advance on Roulers and Operation Hush an attack along the coast with an amphibious landing


 * If effectives, or guns inadequate it may be necessary to call a halt after No1 is gained.'(Haig: Diary 14 June 1917)

also putting his views to the War Cabinet in a memorandum of 12 June where he wrote


 * With the drafts and guns already promised, however, I consider, on present indications, that it will be possible to carry through at least a portion of the operations intended....

and that the extent of the success to be gained was dependent on War Cabinet priorities, the state of Russia and German staying power.

Gough's command: July–August 1917
Do you mean that Gough took the Fifth Army headquarters to the Salient? Reserve Army (re-named Fifth Army in late 1916) was always his command until he was sacked in 1918.Keith-264 (talk) 22:40, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

File:A scene at Ypres, ca. 1917.jpg
The recent inclusion of the image File:A scene at Ypres, ca. 1917.jpg in the casualties section creates, at least on my system, about 8 lines of whitepace. Not to mention the image doesn't contain any casaulties within the image. Any oppsition to the image being removed?--Labattblueboy (talk) 20:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Passchendaele or Third Ypres again
It would be better, I feel, to rename the article from 'Battle of Passchendaele' to 'Battle of Third Ypres'. I know this has been discussed before and that a defence put forward has been the number of Google search hits for each title, with Passchendaele coming out on top and thus that being what the article was named. I don't think that such events should be categorised according to what is most searched online. Most people are taught about the Great War through English literature classes, rather than history during primary and secondary education. As such most are likely to search for Passchendaele as it was one of the most written about individual engagements, rather than the more accurate reference to the entire Third Ypres operation. Historically this is what the battle was named by the BEF, with the Passchendaele title being added postwar. From an organisational standpoint the campaign was a series of battles that took place around the Ypres salient, with Polygon Wood, Broodseinde, Passchendaele, etc. all being but individual engagements in a much larger battle. To name the article and the events that took place during the battle after just one of the engagements does not really make sense, despite the fact that Passchendaele is one of the more commonly used terms of reference to the battle in the UK. The article title is also misleading when put forward in this way, as it implies that the objective of the offensive was to secure the village of Passchendaele, when in fact it was designed to seize Roulers and link up with the amphibious landings planned against Ostend and Zeebrugge. Another reason for changing the article title is that the word 'Passchendaele' is limiting the opportunity for historical objectivity within the article. The word translated from the native Flemish into English comes out as 'The Vale of the Passion', referencing the Passion of Christ. Combined with the events that took place during the Battle of Third Ypres the name became synonymous with the suffering and pain that the BEF had to endure, in line with the suffering that was inflicted upon Christ. As such I feel that religious undertones limit the objectivity of the historian when discussing the battle as 'Passchendaele' over 'Third Ypres' because of the associations linguistically brought in that colour the argument. The subsequent socialist interpretation of history during the 1920s/30s latched onto this popular feeling to vilify commanders that were from the upper classes due to their abuse of the lower classes (by forcing them to suffer akin to the manner of Christ as mentioned). This issue has been recognised within much of the revisionist historiography, such as Gary Sheffield, John Bourne, Paddy Griffith and notably Robert Thompson, therefore I would petition that the name be changed in order to maintain a neutral stance on the subject and avoid invoking emotional bias.--Carv01 (talk) 14:55, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The OH has 'The Battles of Ypres 1917 (31st July-10th Nov).' with, 'The Battles of Passchendaele (12th October-10th November)' and 'First Battle of Passchendaele (12th October)' and 'Second Battle of Passchendaele (26th October-10th November)'. I'd go for something like '3rd Ypres Campaign ("Passchendaele")' so that the English literature faculty is catered for.
 * I think you're being a little unfair to refer to 'socialist' revisionism since the mud, blood and futility version was not a left-wing phenomenon (unless you think Robert Graves was a socialist?) but a subtext which had existed since the war began. In the late 20s it became fashionable that's all. Post 1960 'revisionism' is more a partial return to the orthodoxy of the 1914-1930 era, I don't think that counts as revisionism so much as scholarship.Keith-264 (talk) 18:29, 9 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry Keith I think I may have confused the issue with poor sentence structure. I meant that the problem of the 1920s socialist history trend had been identified by revisionists, not that they too were adopting a socialist stance akin to the 1920s, so I think we're on the same wavelength here (if only I'd made it clear in the first place!). I think your suggestion of including 'Passchendaele' within the article title is a good compromise.--Carv01 (talk) 11:25, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with calling the article Passchendaele, but why is 3rd Ypres reduced to a footnote? It should be in the intro also.LRT24 (talk) 14:22, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Official History
"The volume of the British Official History of the War that covered Passchendaele was the last to be published, and there is evidence it was biased to reflect well on Field Marshal Douglas Haig and badly on General Hubert Gough, the commander of the Fifth Army.[2]"
 * Writing the Great War by Andrew Green (2004) contradicts this by pointing out that the published version is the fourth draft and that this is considerable more critical of Haig than the first draft. He also points out that some of Tim Travers's critique of the OH actually supports its credibility.Keith-264 (talk) 14:02, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Casualties Again
Have added in Terrain'e debunking of Wolff's inflated figure (latter still widely quoted in shoddily-researched populist accounts). Terraine assumes 6 months' worth of normal wastage, which is an exaggeration, as when full offensives were underway there would have been less wastage on the quiet sectors than when the whole front was quiet. But 448,000-75,000 for Cambrai -a deduction of some kind for wastage (but not as much as 6x35,000) gets you to c 275,000 easily enough. The Thought Police are hereby reminded that "simple arithmetic calculation" does not qualify as OR.Paulturtle (talk) 22:31, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

The article on here gives casualties for Cambrai of c40,000, but I merely reproduce what Terraine wrote, and in this case he says he's quoting from the Official History.Paulturtle (talk) 08:32, 11 July 2011 (UTC) OH1917III p. 382 gives 41,817 casualties for the British 3rd army 20th Nov-8th Dec 1917. The German Army at Passchendaele (Jack Sheldon, 2007) p. 319, (endnote 58) gives German casualties as (excluding those before 1 Jun and after 10 Nov) 67,272 killed and missing, wounded 149,922 = 217,194. 182,396 slightly wounded and sick not struck off unit strength are added this gives 399,590. Discrepancies arise because the British counted casualties quantitatively (everyone receiving medical treatment) and the Germans counted them quantitatively (everyone wounded or ill enough to cease duties). If you reduce the gross figure of British casualties by the same proportion of 'slightly wonded and sick' as the German won't you get a net figure of c.165,000?Keith-264 (talk) 13:16, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

What you say about the Germans not including lightly wounded men is true but the usual method of dealing with this is to multiply up their figures by 30% or so to bring into line with British methodology. German figures for dead (in old 1930s accounts) are also sometimes KIA only, and missing and wounded who died in hospital need to be added in to bring German deaths in line with Allied methodology.Paulturtle (talk) 17:50, 12 July 2011 (UTC)
 * That's the Official Historian's view (in OH1916I) which has attracted varying degrees of scepticism but (to my surprise) Sheldon's book is recent. Terraine suggests a 20% premium on German figures but on the whole I'm interested in the effect losses had on the military capacity of the countries involved. Clearly the Allies had far more men to hazard on the battlefield than the Germans so lower losses in the German army could have worse effects than the losses in the Allied colition.Keith-264 (talk) 15:40, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

I thought the point of "lightly wounded" was that they returned to duty relatively quickly and so made little impact on miltary capacity. Re total Allied strength, Allied populations were much greater but that included a lot of men who for one reason or another were never going to get conscripted. In terms of military strength I'm not sure the Allied lead was ever that huge before autumn 1918 when the Americans turned up in strength. So taking losses of 3:2 at Third Ypres did, in relative terms, wear down the Germans more than the Allies (even Leon Wolff, amidst a lot of erroneous reasoning about casualties, makes this point, which is to his credit) but only just, and of course less than Haig was allowing himself to be told by Charteris at the time.Paulturtle (talk) 12:44, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * 'Lightly wounded yes but then we must reduce British (and French) casualties by 20-30% to make them comparable to German criteria which then puts German losses higher than Allied.Keith-264 (talk) 14:34, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
 * No, that would clearly be wp:SYNTH. If we can't find a reliable source that does it, we should add a footnote explaining the difference in methodology.LeadSongDog come howl!  17:01, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

I haven't read the Sheldon book (yet) so am unwilling to comment further - may revert when I have done so. German losses exceeding British is obviously not a consensus view. On the other hand, the number of people who are numerate, sensible and willing to think is often surprisingly small so it's not self-evident that he's wrong.Paulturtle (talk) 17:16, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Have now amended the article in line with what Sheldon says (my copy turned up last night). As a final sanity check on these figures the British had 440,000 casualties in the second half of 1917 (call it 150,000 deaths, give or take). The Germans had around 40,000 KIA for that period on the British sector in the initial Reicharchiv figures, which even when doubled up (my estimate to approximate for wounded who died and missing who never returned - initial Reichsarchiv figure c800,000 Western Front KIA, final figure more like 1.5m out of the 2.1m total German dead), is still only 80,000. So anyone who claims the Germans had more casualties at Third Ypres at least has some explaining to do.

Oman tried to critique Churchill's claim that Allied losses exceeded German at the Somme. Robin Prior (1983) poured scorn on Oman, and on Edmonds for simple error in quoting figures from two different periods and thinking he had deduced a stable ratio for "gross" and "net" German casualties. But that does not mean in itself that Edmonds was wrong to add on a premium for lightly wounded. I think in order to resolve this further one would have to find a study explaining in more detail the differences between British and German methodology (I understand the Germans sometimes counted the same man more than once if he had several light wounds), but that is beyond the scope of my bookshelves.Paulturtle (talk) 13:58, 19 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Prior's got previous, hence picking a low figure for the Germans and a high one for the British. Notice that 440,000 is for the BEF not for units engaged at Ypres.Keith-264 (talk) 15:59, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

I have a lot of time for Robin Prior, and on that particular topic he is usually thought to be right, and debunks Oman pretty thoroughly in the essays in question - Churchill (embarrassing political nuisance though he was at the time) was right to argue that German losses at the Somme were less than British, and Oman's "official" line was based on patent error (confusing British sector German losses with losses for the whole German front - the German figure I've quoted for second half 1917 are also British sector only but not just Third Ypres) and far-fetched reasoning about unit-rotation and casualties. That said, I'm aware he gives a very low German figure in his recent book on the Somme, but I need to read up more on that one.Paulturtle (talk) 09:57, 21 August 2011 (UTC)
 * In Sheldon's book on Cambrai he writes "Casualties were practically identical at something over 40,000 suffered by each side though, in the usual way, the British Official History chose to inflate the German losses to more than 53,000 for no good reason." which suggests that his opinion has hardened. ;O)Keith-264 (talk) 18:20, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Allied
Isn't the use of the word Allied possibly confusing since Germany was part of the Triple Alliance and the opposing armies were part of the Triple Entente? SpeakFree (talk) 12:08, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Not all of the countries in the war against Germany were part of the Entente - Serbia, Belgium, USA, Italy, Rumania etc.Keith-264 (talk) 18:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Passchendaele, passion dale, vale of suffering
Should the article not mention (a) the English pronunciation of the place name as 'passion dale' and (b) the fact that this can be seen to mean 'vale of suffering'? This is one reason why the name of this battle resonates movingly all these decades later and stands as a kind of archetype of all the battles on the Western Front. Admittedly I have no reference for this. APW (talk) 17:01, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

Also because it was such a political hot potato: no unequivocal need to attack whatever Haig may have claimed about U-boats and French mutiny, LG signed off on it and then let it continue, perhaps as part of a cynical political strategy to let Haig and Robertson hang themselves so that he could reassert political control, and LG made it the centrepiece of his memoirs after Haig and Robertson were dead. The Somme replaced Third Ypres in the popular memory in the 1960s.Paulturtle (talk) 17:16, 2 August 2011 (UTC)


 * "The costly August battles... imposed a heavy strain on the western troops.... they no longer displayed that firmness.... The state of affairs in the West appeared to prevent the execution of our plans elsewhere. Our wastage had been so high as to cause grave misgivings and had exeeded all expectation." Ludendorff, ii, p. 480. Someone thought that Haig was right. ;O)Keith-264 (talk) 15:15, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Large pinch of salt needed for this I'm afraid. Elsewhere Ludendorff claimed that that Third Ypres showed that the British were about to defeat the Germans, and caused him to resort to the Spring Offensives in 1918 (not sure where the 30 or so divisions coming in from the East fit into either of these claims). Well he would say that, wouldn't he. No disputing that the British had (tactically) got their act together by 1917, Third Ypres wasn't the mindless bashing of popular myth and came a lot closer to breaking through than is often realised, and Lloyd George allowed it to happen (if it had succeeded he would doubtless have tried to take the credit!). That said, lots of relatively sane critics have always argued that Sir Douglas got a bit carried away and lost sight of the fact that he was bleeding his own army white in an offensive which was not, in itself, going to win the war unless the French joined in with a major offensive of their own, which they weren't going to do. That's why the battle has always been controversial, with dubious claims on both sides, eg. Haig claiming that Petain had secretly begged him to carry on the offensive, or that German losses exceeded his own (a claim which found its way into the Official History despite Robertson at the time urging Haig not to make himself look a fool by telling the politicians this), or Trenchard saying Haig "saved the world" by saving France from defeat, or Gough trying to get the Official History fiddled to exculpate himself - on the other hand LG claiming he'd begged Robertson to put a stop to it.Paulturtle (talk) 15:13, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Rupprecht, Kuhl, Armin, Lossberg, (and the German Official History) and all said the same - in their diaries, memoirs and in the orders and policy directives of the time. Haig's 'wearing out the enemy' aim was met and by the end the Germans were hanging on by their fingernails. That's why Rupprecht began planning to make a general withdrawal on 7th October.See Sheldon's translations.Keith-264 (talk) 16:58, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm aware of all that, although I'm not aware that von Kuhl and the others all went as far as Ludendorff in claiming that it had made the 1918 Spring Offensives - which needed an apologia as they'd hastened German defeat, but not before they'd dealt the British a worse blow, especially in terms of ruptured front and panic, than Haig had dealt the Germans the previous year, largely because they were able to mass greatly superior numbers at the point of impact. All might have been very different if Third Ypres had started in April (no Nivelle) or if the weather had been clearer in August or at the bitter end at Passchendaele, but then we'd have been in a completely different alternative history with the British defending the newly-gained ground in western Belgium against the reinforced Germans - hard to say how that would have played out. As it was, the fact remains that Haig persisted (possibly over the rumbling discontent of Plumer and Gough and certainly over the rumbling discontent of Robertson, Milner and Lloyd George) with an offensive whose chances of breakthrough (one of its several objectives) were becoming very slim. The Germans may have perceived themselves as hanging on, but sadly for Haig's reputation they did manage to hang on whilst the British for their part perceived themselves as stuck in the mud, with great difficulty in maintaining sufficient artillery cover.

Third Ypres also wore out his own army as well is why Haig and his allies were so keen to make exaggerated claims (about German casualties and saving the French) and why many players were so keen to distance themselves after the event. This goes to the heart of the Terraine/Final Despatch view of the war ("Haig wore out the Germans then inflicted the coup de grace") - German military losses were only part, albeit a large part, of the reason their morale finally collapsed and only about a third of those losses were inflicted by the British. Liddell Hart made this point in his 1930s history of the war - that Haig got carried away into wanting to win the war, or at least win a cracking victory, on his own, Prior & Wilson say much the same thing. "Lions led by Donkeys" may be a myth - but mythology grows up and falls on receptive ears for a reason. Haig wasn't a bloodthirsty idiot either, but for reasons like these few people apart from his wife, his son and John Terraine have ever been willing to hail him as a military genius.Paulturtle (talk) 18:06, 17 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Notice that German elastic defence in 1917 failed more often than not - Arras, Messines, Verdun, Ypres, Malmaison. In the second half of the year they became more attacking than ever so the distinction between attack and defence became much smaller when Germany's strategic position after the failure at Verdun by mid-1916 dictated a defensive strategy. The artillery based operational methods of the Anglo-French armies in 1917 left the Germans with no counter - that's why the Germans still lost ground at Ypres in October and November when the weather was like that in August. The Cambrai offensive also left the Germans in a quandary - anywhere feasible for tanks could no longer be considered a 'quiet front' and stripped for reinforcements. The loosening of the Western Front in 1917 (as the semi-open warfare of the latter part of the Battle of the Somme got more and more open) continued in 1918. As you rightly point out the British Fifth Army retreated a lot in March 1918. The even bigger retreats of the French and then the German armies seem to me to be understood better as part of a trend that began in 1916.Keith-264 (talk) 19:33, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Again, all of these things are true, but only as far as they go. British tactics had improved enormously from the fiasco of 1 July 1916 (which since the 1960s has done so much to colour modern memory of WW1). The BEF had become a formidable force by 1917, and the German quotes reflect this, but there’s more to war than tactics, and battles like Third Ypres don’t take place in a vacuum. Manpower also matters, as does politics/morale. Once you pass a certain level of tactical competence manpower makes a big difference – it mattered a lot to the success of “Michael”, for example, and the failure of “Mars”, “Gneisenau”, so some extent “Georgette” etc. 30 or more German divisions turned up from the east, relatively fresh, against worn down British divisions (almost all the BEF was rotated through Third Ypres, was it not?).

The War Cabinet were deeply worried about British morale, understandably in view of what had happened in Russia, France and Italy, and there is some evidence that it was starting to get a bit grim. Cambrai was briefly welcomed by Northcliffe and even Robertson like water in a desert, then looked extremely embarrassing when the Germans retook the lost ground, costing Haig his press support, and showing that Germany was in much better shape, both in terms of manpower and morale, than he’d been claiming. Then followed one of those horrible moments when people realise that they’ve badly miscalculated and are about to get hit by a whirlwind. Robertson and Derby were the first to realise, but Lloyd George was sick – as he saw it – of listening to rubbish from the brasshats and didn’t want to know until it was too late. I’m not sure Haig ever entirely did – right through the winter he was urging a resumption of the Ypres Offensive.

Nobody has ever tried to spin Third Ypres as a British victory, unlike the Somme which generated results (pushed the Germans back, showed that they were unlikely to win, contributed to changes in policy and leadership of their military junta etc). Indeed that is part of the tragedy of WW1 – the Allies couldn’t make their material superiority tell, until the Americans came in and Ludendorff threw away his last cards. Third Ypres has always been a topic from which the main players tried to distance themselves and for which excuses are deemed to be needed. It can’t just be assessed in terms of tactical improvements that the BEF had made - not that I'm necessarily accusing you of doing that, it's just the aspects on which you've chosen to concentrate so far.

Lots of people were to blame for Third Ypres. The War Cabinet signed up for it because they had explicitly rejected the “Petain option” (limited attacks) and wanted some kind of result, and by summer 1917 it was clear that the French or the Italians weren’t going to provide it. Then they passed up on numerous chances to order a halt, whatever Lloyd George later claimed.Paulturtle (talk) 17:46, 18 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You're offering 3rd Ypres without the Germans! Many of the sources I've used are German and come from transations in Terraine and Sheldon. The whole point of attacking at Ypres was that the Germans couldn't withdraw, ([un]like on the Somme in early 1917) because they had pinned their hopes on the U-boat campaign. Haig pointed this out before the offensive began as well as saying that capturing Passchendaele Ridge might be all that could be done that year. As for victory, all of the German sources testify to the Allied success in 'wearing out the enemy' (Haig) and that by October Rupprecht was making plans for a general withdrawal into the Flandern Stellung if things got any worse, which would have meant the loss of the coast. 'Elastic defence stopped the bleeding but not the haemhorrage' (Paul Kennedy in Military Efectiveness Vol 1.). I don't know why you use the term 'spin' but as I've pointed out above, the mistaken 'failed breakthrough' of July and August comes from the OH, otherwise a roundly and unjustly condemned source. Look at the operation orders for Fifth Army in the appendices (and those for 8th Division) and it's obvious that it was nothing of the sort. As for British losses, where did the flood of trained replacements in 1918 come from? Both armies were near their peak in mid-1917, the British going up and the Germans down. Both adapted to the circumstances as best they could. In August the Germans mostly held their ground, albeit at high cost. In September the Germans were devastated. When the rains came back in October the British managed to overcome them and resume their advance - clearly the British got better at exploiting their advantages during the campaign and the Germans wilted under the pressure. The British army recovered from the strain but the Germans didn't. Tactical superiority, strategic victory and operational failure. Two out of three isn't bad, is it?Keith-264 (talk) 19:01, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

An article overly based on accounts of British tactical improvements and the pain suffered by the Germans – both things that need to be covered – is going to be open to accusations of missing the bigger picture. Not sure how Third Ypres was a “strategic victory” (postponing the attack on Riga and lessening the exploitation of Caporetto aren’t really enough to qualify as victories, surely?), and whatever benefits it delivered the Allies were outweighed by loss of political credibility for the British generals. One out of four is rather less good.

The usual line is that German sources are reliable for tactical detail, but need to be used with caution for the bigger picture (Ludendorff especially). Lots of German sources were lost in WW2, and Edmonds was inevitably going to pick (or ignore, as he seems to have done with the casualty figures) German sources which bolstered his case. Von Kuhl (and Sheldon) were clear that Haig was no nearer a breakthrough by the end of Third Ypres than at the start (still time for the Germans to get something in place behind the lines), although of course it would probably have been different had the weather held up, hence Rupprecht’s contingency plans to abandon the coast. Sheldon is also clear that although Haig had got as far as the fifth or sixth German line his units were also being worn down and suffering diminishing returns (problems getting enough artillery forward) and some sagging of morale as Third Ypres wore on.

The Fifth Army certainly was expected to break through, ready to link up with the seaborne landing in early August. They were just not expected to break through in one go. Everyone apart from Nivelle realised by now that this was impossible. There has always been dispute about just how important the Belgian coast was for U-boats. It may be that Haig wheeled Jellicoe out to bolster his case despite nobody really believing him. But Haig had lots of potential objectives.

There is a bit of a difference between inflicting wear on the enemy, which almost any offensive is going to do, and “wearing out” in the technical sense, ie. inflicting attrition in such a way as to make the enemy more vulnerable to the decisive blow (not that Germans ever were decisively beaten in that classical sense – their army’s ability to fight back degraded when their morale, for a variety of reasons, only some of which were battle defeats and combat losses, fell off a cliff in the summer of 1918 – but that’s a debate for another occasion). If you inflict attrition at an unfavourable ratio then you have inflicted wear on the enemy but the “wearing out battle” has still been a failure. The elephant in the room here is the 30 or more German divisions arriving from the East, which briefly tipped the balance of manpower in their favour. This was not foreseeable in June and July when Kerensky was still planning offensives, but it was by the autumn. Nor did it help matters that Haig had exceeded what had been agreed by the War Cabinet in the summer – that the offensive was to be broken off if quick results were not forthcoming (“no more Sommes”), although they were to blame for not enforcing their decision. Instead he kept on through the autumn, even through the bad weather, to reach a ridge which had been among the original objectives. October 1917 was almost the worst month for British casualties that year, although narrowly pipped by April (Arras).

The bottom line is that the German Army was a lot larger than the British – 196 divisions by March 1918. Many of the German divisions were worn out trench divisions (although, frankly, many of the British ones were of lesser quality as well, something we tend to hear less about in British accounts – although it is false to claim, as some US and Dominion accounts do, that all the British divisions were worn out) but there were still enough effective German divisions to concentrate and deal the BEF a vicious blow. Of Haig’s 2 million men, less than half were combat infantry, so a few hundred thousand fewer men - whether from combat deaths or because they were being withheld because he had run out of political capital - was a lot more serious than it sounded. In business or gambling terms Haig had “risked ruin”. Or, alternatively, the German strength could have been husbanded to hold the Hindenburg Line and make the Allied Grand Offensive even more costly.

The heart of the (sensible) case against Haig is that he never had a realistic idea of the damage his offensives were inflicting on German manpower or morale. I’m not saying he was any worse than anyone else at the time – many generals (Patton, for example) are absurdly overpraised because they were in the right place at the right time, whilst poor old Haig gets demonised for things like stalemate and a large (by British standards) casualty bill which were both largely caused by factors beyond his control.Paulturtle (talk) 17:51, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Both sides showed considerable tactical flair within the constraints imposed by resources. The British army overcame the German army and the weather. This is one of the most interesting and significant developments of late 1917. Riga and Caporetto were Mickey Mouse victories against secondary opponents in strategic backwaters. Russia was finished long before Riga and Caporetto was a diversion needed to prop up the Austro-Hungarians. German records were lost but plenty reappeared after the USSR went out of business. Foley and Sheldon have been eloquent on this. Damning Edmonds won't do, especially if you insist that Gough attempted a breakthrough - that canard is one of the biggest mistakes in the OH! It was intended to push the Germans back in stages at a fast tempo like the Germans and A-Hs did to the Russians at Gorlice-Tarnow and the Anglo-French did at the Somme. The coast gig was to exploit this and add to the pressure. The weather in August slowed the tempo and allowed the Germans a breather, Plumer's three big successes had the Germans on the ropes. Even when the rains set in in October and the British tempo slowed again the Germans had less success than in August. At the end they were hanging on by their fingernails. Had the weather been better, further advances would have been from ground much better sheltered from German observation.

Haig didn't risk ruin, he rescued the Allies by keeping the initiative and forcing the Germans to make their main effort in Flanders when the Russians (and A-Hs) were folding and the French were in dire straits after the Nivelle gig. The Germans had no chance if they stayed on the defensive in 1918, 30 odd divisions from Russia wasn't a big enough addition of numbers and the transport problems that dogged the British at Ypres were nothing compared to what the Germans encountered in March 1918. Haig was shrewder than many obsolete accounts portray, 'wearing the enemy down but having an objective' added considerably to German woes. Bear in mind that attacking at Ypres because the Germans wouldn't be able to retire like they did at the Somme contraicts the 'breakthrough' thesis. It's much more logical to see it as an expectation that the Germans would be drained of resources and eventually have to withdraw for fear of worse. It's what happened in 1918 after all (once the Russia peace dividend was exhausted).Keith-264 (talk) 19:33, 20 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have a copy of OH 1917 II? PP. 427-431 has a 'Note on the strategic situation with special reference to the present condition of German resources and probable German operations' (11 June 17). There's quite a bit on the possibility of eastern front divisions moving west.Keith-264 (talk) 22:40, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Additions of detail and evidence.
I've added quite a bit of material to the early part of the page. Most of it is detail of the German experience of the fighting and also its effect on the German high command. There is also some more on British operations after 31st July showing that the attritional aspect of the British campaign was succeeding even as most of the geographical objectives were retained by the Germans and the French get a bit of a look in too. The effect of the August weather on British operations is still to my mind lacking emphasis in allowing the Germans to escape the worst effects of Allied fire-power by hampering air reconnaissance and spotting etc. I'd be grateful if it were scrutinised, especially the references as I've forgotten the difference between op.cit. and ibid ;O). Some of the detail I want to add might be better being split off so I'd like suggestions about it. Thanks.Keith-264 (talk) 13:25, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Hill 70, does anyone know how to link this page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_70 to Passchendale?Keith-264 (talk) 14:59, 21 September 2011 (UTC) No need, I remembered.Keith-264 (talk) 20:19, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Gnome N Klatura
Does anyone object to the title having (Third Battle of Ypres) added?Keith-264 (talk) 20:18, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

German defensive changes
Does anyone have a timeline on these changes as the authorities I have are contradictory?Keith-264 (talk) 16:57, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

How do I link 'tanks' to Tanks in WWI page? Keith-264 (talk) 16:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

French 1st Army
3rd Ypres and the restoration of confidence in the ranks of the French Army - Allain Bernede (P in Perspective, pp. 88-101. (1997) Ed, Liddle, P.)

GOC Gen Anthoine, COS Col Peschart d'Ambly, HQ Rexpoede 16 June, 1st Corps (Gen Lacapelle), divisions arrived from mid-July. Artillery: 240x75mm, 270x58-240mm, 164x155-280mm. Counter-battery = 148x105-155mm, 64x305-370mm for concrete busting. 2 x aircraft detachments for artillery spotting, 3 x fighter sqn (inc Les Cigognes), 2 x bomber, 1 x recce and 1 x reserve.

1st & 51st Divs relieved Belgian units 26 Jun (1st next to 5th army). 1st Corps took over 19 Jul. 1st Army began CB fire 15 Jul.

Note from Ops Office 1st armee 17 July - 1st Div to cooperate with Br on r flank "the British who commit to this attack a great number of troops and equipment for a series of successive efforts intended to force the Germans into swampy and unprepared areas, to weaken them thoroughly."

15 Sep Gen Nollet (OC 36 Corps, {133rd, 29th divs}) relieved Lacapelle. Field guns moved south to Malmaison as less useful in Flanders, 623 pieces remained. 2nd & 162nd Divs reviewed by Petain 6 Oct. (9 Oct, 150 prisoners, 44 mg, 6 mortars. 6 div, 135,000 men 1,625 killed-missing, 6,902 wounded-POW. 1,500 POW taken, 43 guns 'numerous' minenwerfers, 100s mg. 10 km advance to S & W edges of Houthoulst forest.Keith-264 (talk) 17:53, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Note 4
"For instance, Haig's biographer Brig. John Charteris, who was also his Intelligence Officer, says that "Careful investigation of the records of 80 years showed that in Flanders the weather broke early with the regularity of the Indian monsoon". Lt Col Ernest Gold, the BEF's meteorological expert at the time, later went on record to contradict him, saying "It is quite contrary to the evidence of the records which show that the weather in August 1917 was exceptionally bad...". Historians nonetheless differ on whether the weather of Flanders in 1917 was typical; Winter takes the view that Haig had conclusive evidence that should have led him to expect heavy rainfall and hence mud. Steel and Hart by contrast take the view that Haig was unlucky."

Charteris's comment appears on p.272 of 'Field-Marshal Earl Haig' (1929).

Careful investigation of the records of 80 years showed that in Flanders the weather broke early with the regularity of the Indian monsoon: once the autumn rains set in difficulties would be greatly enhanced.

Did Charteris mean that autumn began in August? I doubt it. Why do people miss of the end of the sentence?

On p. 273 there is, 'Unfortunately, there now set in the wettest August recorded for thirty years.' so much for regular monsoons.Keith-264 (talk) 17:52, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

Bite and hold
Is there a description of this anywhere on Wiki?Keith-264 (talk) 08:22, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Interesting link
http://net.lib.byu.edu/estu/wwi/dose/08-Flandern-01.htm

German defences
The six week pause after the Battle of Messines allowed both sides time to prepare. There was some debate among German commanders about how to meet the looming British offensive,


 * ... to decide whether or not to learn from experience and avoid the first blows of the forthcoming offensive in Flanders by conducting a planned withdrawal.... it would have been necessary to withdraw to the great Flandern Stellung [giving] up the entire depth of the current defensive system. In addition the Flandern Stellung was still not ready.

In the event the Germans decided to stand their ground.

The Germans transferred defensive expert Colonel Fritz von Lossberg to the German 4th Army as Chief of Staff on 13 June. Lossberg decided that there was to be no withdrawal from the Oosttaverne Line to the Flandern Line. The area from the Oosttaverne Line to Flandern Line was now to be held at all costs as a Flandern position backing on to the Flandern Line, now to be Flandern I. A New line, Flandern II was to be built a mile west of Menin to Terhand and Passchendaele, forming the back of of a Flandern II position (Flandern II Stellung). Another line Flandern III was begun, east of Menin, north through Moorslede. went to work improving the defences in the area and training infantry in the methods of 'elastic defence', using assault squad tactics to fight an aggressive, mobile battle in their area. Four lines of defence existed before the attack; the German first, second and third lines, plus Flandern I the strategic defence line begun in February 1917. The Germans began two more strategic defensive lines, Flandern II behind the recently lost territory to the south of Ypres and Flandern III along the reverse slope of Passchendaele Ridge. There was a forward zone, battle zone and rear zone, each 2,000–3,000 yards deep, backing on to the second (Albrecht) line, third (Wilhelm) line and Flanders I.

Numerous concrete machine gun emplacements were constructed between the German first line of defence, through to the Flandern I strategic defensive line. The purpose of these machine gun posts was to disrupt, confuse and slow an Allied attack, allowing the German Eingreif divisions time to attack 'den sofortigen Gegenstoss' (the instant-immediate counterthrust) before the Allied troops had re-organised themselves after breaching the main defensive lines. In addition to this, the number of German troops defending the front zone had been reduced (both to man the machine gun emplacements between the defensive lines, as well to reduce the number of soldiers vulnerable to Allied artillery fire). Into these defences, the Germans had put 13 divisions (5 in the front zone, 4 in close reserve and another 4 in strategic reserve) with 1,150 pieces of artillery.Keith-264 (talk) 12:50, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

Losses
http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=68452

http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=68460

http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=68468

http://forum.axishistory.com/download/file.php?id=68446

Keith-264 (talk) 10:11, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Start of the page
'Background, prelude, strategic background, geography and planning the campaign' seem to me to be repetitive and in the wrong order. I'm working on a short narrative of the strategic importance to Britain (and Belgium) of the Belgian coast-Ypres area and its subordination to French interests further south until the Nivelle gig blew out. Then there's local conditions - the salient, loss of commanding ground in 1915, climate and German naval operations from the ports. After that I think the specifics of the 1917 operations should be delved into separately (i.e. similarities of the Plumer-Rawlinson-Macmullen-Gough plan reflecting things like the importance of the Gheluvelt Plateau and the differences between Gough's eventual plan and the earlier ones). Any thoughts?Keith-264 (talk) 06:58, 10 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh and not to forget that the Germans had an interest in Flanders too, hence their three offensives, 1914, 1915 & 1918.Keith-264 (talk) 09:00, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Background (section removed temporarily)
The British launched several massive attacks with limited geographical objectives, heavily supported by artillery, aircraft and often tanks. The British did not attain a decisive strategic success against a resolutely defended, extensive and sophisticated German defensive system; nonetheless the implications for the Germans of the effort required to defend the area left them with grave doubts as to their ability to withstand another defensive campaign in 1918. The British and French armies eventually obtained a tactical superiority and came close to an operational victory late in the year,


 * No great victory had been won; it was - to use a German distinction - an ordinary, not an annhilating victory....(British Official Historian)

the battle caused


 * ... the gradual disappearance of infantry equal in quality to that of their opponents, and the tragic feeling of inferiority to the artillery and air forces of their opponents. (H. Bath)

The battles consisted of 'bite-and-hold' attacks by the British army to overcome the defender's advantage of rapid reinforcement, by capturing tactically valuable ground, reverting to the defensive and then holding it against German attempts to recapture it, thus wearing down the German army by forcing it into costly attacks and counter-attacks, lasting until the Canadian Corps took Passchendaele on 6 November 1917; the battle ending on 10 November, apart from minor operations. Inflicting irreplaceable casualties on the Germans, the Allies captured 5 miles (8 km) of some of the most heavily defended territory in the world at a cost of 140,000 dead, a ratio of roughly 2 inches (5 cm) gained per dead soldier. The Germans reoccupied the lost ground when the line was shortened five months later, during the Battle of the Lys, losing it for good on 28 September 1918.

Passchendaele has become synonymous with the misery of grinding attrition warfare often fought in thick mud. The land between Dixmude and the river Lys was criss-crossed by streams and drainage ditches, most of which flowed west towards the Ypres—Comines canal which ran north—south. The land was flat and swampy but for good drainage. August 1917 was unusually cold and wet and huge artillery bombardments destroyed the ground surface. There were dry periods, particularly in September but mud was a feature of parts of the battlefield; tanks bogged down and some soldiers and horses drowned in it. As a German soldier recorded:


 * A machine-gunner fell in the stream, complete with his load, and it was not possible to save him. (Hauptmann Biermann, Commander 11th Company)

and on the British side of the line:


 * The ground has been churned up to a depth of 10 feet, and, before the rain, was like powder; now it has turned into a material of the consistency of porridge. As soon as the rain stopped the ground dried quickly, 'It has not rained today and with a warm sun and a 20-foot-second wind the ground is drying up fast.', 'It is still fine and the ground is drying up very rapidly; in a few days it will be dusty. I never saw such a soil as Flanders.' (Diary, 5, 17 & 18 August)

ground conditions could be just as changeable.

Ridges ran in curves from south of Ypres, east then north to Passchendaele and Staden, rising to a maximum of sixty metres above sea level. This high ground had been bitterly contested since 1914.

The battle is a subject of debate among historians, particularly in Britain. The volume of the British Official History of the War that covered Passchendaele was the last to be published and there are claims that it was biased to reflect well on Field Marshal Douglas Haig and badly on General Hubert Gough, the commander of the Fifth Army; this reading has been challenged by Andrew Green who points out that the published fourth draft is far less favourable to Haig than the first draft but does not scapegoat Gough for every failure. The heavy casualties the British Army suffered in return for slender territorial gains have led many historians to follow the example of David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister and use it as an example of senseless waste and poor generalship. Lloyd George, almost certainly influenced by Basil Liddell Hart, devoted a hundred pages of his memoirs (three times as many as he devoted to the British victories from August 1918) to a critique of British generalship at Third Ypres.

There is also a counter revisionist school of thought which seeks to emphasize the achievement of the British Army in the battle in inflicting great damage on the German Army, relieving pressure on the French and developing offensive tactics capable of overcoming German defensive positions, leaving the Germans desperate for winter weather


 * It was with a feeling of absolute longing that we waited for the beginning of the wet season. (Hindenburg)

and which were significant in winning the war in 1918.

Casualties for the battle are still a matter of controversy. Some accounts suggest that the Allies suffered significantly heavier losses than the Germans, while others offer more even figures. However, no one disputes that hundreds of thousands of soldiers on both sides became casualties. The last survivor of the battle (and the last survivor of the Western Front in the United Kingdom) Private Harry Patch, died on 25 July 2009.


 * Request opinion on whether any of this should be returned to the page.Keith-264 (talk) 15:55, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Geography
Two paragraphs removed from this section as irrelevant to geography or duplicated from elsewhere.

Ypres was the only Belgian city not in German hands and had become an important political symbol as well as a strategic bastion; if the Germans captured Ypres, they would be able to threaten the Channel ports and thus British supply lines. Driving the Germans away from Ypres would be a valuable objective. Roughly one-third of the U-boats which had recently begun unrestricted submarine warfare against Britain were based in occupied Belgian ports. The U-boat bases assumed great importance in spring 1917 as shipping losses mounted. Taking Passchendaele and then Roulers beyond, would threaten the Belgian ports. If the attack went very well it would be possible to outflank the German position in Belgium and threaten the German industrial heartland on the Ruhr, which might win the war quickly. For the British generals, it was also considered advantageous that the German Army would fight hard to retain its positions in Flanders. The strategic importance of Flanders and the proximity of the Dutch frontier meant that the Germans would be loath to allow a general withdrawal. Haig was optimistic that the German Army would soon run out of manpower because of the heavy losses suffered on the Somme and at Verdun.

The Germans were aware that an attack in the Flanders sector was likely and had prepared extensive defences. German experience during 1916 indicated that it was relatively easy for an Allied assault to capture the first line of defence with the covering fire of the increasing amount and quality of Allied artillery. The terrain in some parts of the salient was waterlogged so digging in was not always possible. The Germans controlled the forward area with mutually supporting positions, generally based on breastworks, concrete pillboxes or blockhouses protected by barbed wire, making use of existing buildings and vegetation. To the rear of this zone were built five reserve lines of defence.

This section removed in favour of rewritten section.

Geography
The front line around Ypres had changed relatively little since the end of the First Battle of Ypres in October 1914. The British held the city of Ypres, while the Germans held the high ground of the Messines-Wytschaete ridge to the south, the lower ridges to the east and the flat ground to the north. Ypres was therefore in a salient sticking into German positions and overlooked by German artillery on the higher ground. It was difficult for the British forces to gain ground observation of the German rear areas east of the ridges.

A feature of the Ypres salient was mud. Apart from the ridges, the battlefield was low-lying; Ypres was on the 20-metre contour, Gheluvelt Plateau at 55 to 60 metres. Naturally boggy, farming in this area was possible only because of an extensive drainage system. Since 1914 much of the drainage had been destroyed, although some parts had been restored by Land Drainage Companies brought from England; the area was considered by the British to be drier than Loos, Givenchy and Ploegsteert Wood further south. 1917 turned out to be a year of particularly foul weather, with a very late spring and not much summer; there were thunderstorms in July and August and while September was dry, October and onwards were wet. The mud was to become a defining feature of the battle for soldiers on both sides and did a great deal to hamper operations. Haig was certainly aware of the nature of the ground he was launching his campaign and closely monitored the weather. What Haig knew about the climate is one of the controversies about the battle. Sheffield says that the 'predictable' rain in August '... has no foundation in fact. The rain in Flanders during the battle was abnormally heavy.' Keith-264 (talk) 15:35, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Prelude
Operations in Flanders had been desired by the Cabinet, Admiralty and War Office since 1914. Sir Douglas Haig had succeeded Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF on 19 December 1915 and a week after his appointment Haig met Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon who emphasised the importance of obtaining control of the Belgian coast, because of the threat from German naval forces based there. The Germans had begun unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1915 (until April 1916) and about a third of their U-Boats were based in Belgian ports; On 14 January 1916 Haig ordered General Plumer to plan offensives against Messines Ridge, Lille and Houthoulst Forest. General Rawlinson was also ordered to plan an attack from the Ypres Salient on 4 February. Planning by Plumer continued but the Battle of Verdun beginning in February 1916 and the demands of the Somme battles later in the year absorbed the BEF's offensive capacity. On 7 July Haig accepted that large operations in Flanders could not be conducted in 1916.

Several small operations took place in the Salient in 1916, some were German initiatives to distract the Allies from the preparations for the offensive at Verdun and later to try to divert Allied attention from the Battle of the Somme and others begun by the British to regain territory or to evict the Germans from ground overlooking their positions. Engagements took place on 12 February at Boesinge and on 14 February at Hooge and Sanctuary Wood. There were actions on 14—15 February and 1—4 March at The Bluff, 27 March—16 April at the St Eloi Craters and the Battle of Mount Sorrel 2—13 June.

On 15 and 29 November 1916, as the Battle of the Somme paused during the wet weather, Sir Douglas Haig met Général d'Armée Joffre and the other Allies at Chantilly and agreed to continue the operations in progress, (weather permitting) through the winter and resume the coordinated Somme offensive between the Somme and Arras, together with the French army between the Somme and Oise on fronts of about 25 miles each, by the first fortnight in February. A Flanders operation was not discussed at the conference but after a meeting on 22 November 1916 in London of Sir Douglas Haig, Sir William Robertson Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Admiral Sir Henry Jackson First Sea Lord, Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon commander of the Dover Patrol and others, it was decided to write to General Joffre urging that the Flanders operation be undertaken in 1917; Joffre replied on 8 December agreeing to the proposal for a Flanders campaign after the spring offensive. Joffre was appointed 'technical adviser' to the French Government and General Nivelle became Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the North and North-East; Joffre resigned on 26 December. The plan for a year of steady attrition on the Western Front, with the main effort being made by the British Expeditionary Force was scrapped by Nivelle and the French government in favour of a decisive battle conducted by the French army, with the British army returned to a supporting role, in what became the Battle of Arras (9 April—16 May).

Strategic background
In late 1916 and early 1917, military leaders in Britain and France were optimistic that the casualties they had inflicted on the German army at Verdun and on the Somme meant that the German army was near to exhaustion. At the same time, the civilian political leaders of both nations were growing wary of the immense cost to their countries. At a conference in Chantilly in November 1916 and a series of subsequent meetings, the Entente agreed on an offensive strategy where they would overwhelm the Central Powers by means of attacks on the Western, Eastern and Italian Fronts. The British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, sought to find ways of avoiding a repeat of the British casualties involved in the Battle of the Somme and proposed an alternative strategy at a conference in Rome, for an offensive on the Italian front. British and French artillery would be transferred to Italy to add weight to the offensive. This suggestion was opposed by the French and Italian delegations, as well as (at least covertly) the British officers present and was discarded.

The new French Commander-in-Chief, Nivelle, believed that a concentrated attack by French forces on the Western Front in Spring 1917 could break the German front and lead to a decisive victory. Nivelle's plan was welcomed by the British; while many were sceptical that the French would deliver a breakthrough, a French attack would nonetheless mean less of the burden of the war in 1917 falling on the British. Haig was ordered to co-operate with Nivelle's plan but secured Nivelle's agreement that in the event the first two phases, preliminary offensives by the British at Arras and the French between the Somme and the Oise (the latter was cancelled because of Operation Alberich, the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in February and March 1917) to pin German reserves, followed by a French breakthrough offensive on the Aisne (the Nivelle Offensive) failed to lead to a pursuit and exploitation, the British would shift their forces north for the Flanders operation, made more urgent when the Germans resumed unrestricted submarine warfare on 1 February 1917.


 * In short, the first two phases of the battle cannot be of "une durée prolongée", as you suggest.... If these two phases are not so successful as to justify me in entering on the third phase, then I must transfer my main forces to the north.
 * Thus there is, in fact, a fourth phase of the battle to be provided for in our plans. The need to carry it out may not, and, I hope, will not, arise. But the clearance of the Belgian coast is of such importance to the British government that it must be fully provided for....(Haig, 6 January 1917).

On 1 May 1917, Haig made a diary note of a letter to the War Cabinet,


 * The enemy has already been weakened appreciably, but time is required to wear down his great numbers of troops. The situation is not yet ripe for the decisive blow. We must therefore continue to wear down the enemy until his power of resistance has been further reduced.


 * The cause of Gen. Nivelle's comparative failure appears primarily to have been a miscalculation in this respect, and the remedy now is to return to wearing-down methods for a further period, the duration of which cannot yet be calculated. I recommend that the pause which is forced upon us in vigorous offensive operations is utilised to complete measures for clearing the coast this summer. Success seems reasonably possible.

in the letter Haig had added


 * The guiding principles on which my general scheme of action is based are those which have proved successful in war from time immemorial, viz, that the first step must always be to wear down the enemy's power of resistance until he is so weakened that he will be unable to withstand a decisive blow; and, finally, to reap the fruits of victory.
 * The enemy has already been weakened appreciably; but a long time is required to wear down such great numbers of troops composed of fine fighting material... Our action must therefore continue for the present to be of a wearing-down character....
 * ... we shall be attacking the enemy on a front where he cannot refuse to fight, and where, therefore, our purpose of wearing him down can be given effect to - while even a partial success will considerably improve our defensive positions in the YPRES salient and thus reduce the heavy wastage which must otherwise be expected to occur there next winter as in the past (Haig, 1 May 1917).

by 21 June 1917 the principle of a Flanders offensive had met with the grudging approval of Lloyd George and the approval of the British Cabinet.

Planning the campaign
Several plans for the Ypres offensive were produced between November 1916 and May 1917. Sir Douglas Haig first ordered General Plumer, the commander of the Second Army which occupied the Ypres salient, to produce a plan. Haig was dissatisfied with the limited scope of Plumer's plan for the capture of Messines Ridge and Pilckem Ridge. Haig felt that the more ambitious French attempt at a decisive battle planned by General Nivelle, would either force the Germans to abandon the Belgian coast if successful or seriously weaken the German army if not. Plumer produced a revised plan, in which the first stage of the operation would capture Messines and Pilckem while also pushing some distance across the Gheluvelt plateau. Shortly afterwards, this would be followed by an attack across the plateau, advancing to Passchendaele and then further on. Plumer reckoned that a force of 42 divisions and 5,000 guns would be necessary for this but the British Expeditionary Force had nowhere near 5,000 artillery pieces. Haig also asked for an assessment from Colonel Macmullen on his GHQ staff, who proposed that the plateau be taken by a massed tank attack, reducing the need for artillery; in April a reconnaissance by Captain G. le Q Martel found that the area was unsuitable for tanks, because of the narrow defiles between the three woods obstructing the approaches and the broken state of the ground and woods on the high ground; the tanks would have to detour north of Bellewaarde lake to Westhoek then wheel right at the German Albrecht (second) Line. Plumer then produced a second revision of his plan; Messines Ridge and the west end of the Gheluvelt plateau would be taken first and then Pilckem Ridge attacked a short while later. The involvement of General Rawlinson GOC Fourth Army produced yet another iteration of the plan; Messines Ridge should be first and Gheluvelt plateau and Pilckem Ridge attacked within 47–72 hours. After discussions with Rawlinson and Plumer and the incorporation of Haig's changes, Macmullen submitted his memorandum on 14 February. This version became the plan for the 1917 Flanders campaign and on 13 May 1917 Haig appointed General Hubert Gough GOC of the Fifth Army to the command of the 'northern operation' and the coastal force. Macmullen gave Gough the 1917 plan on 14 May and this plan was adapted by Gough and the Fifth Army staff on the understanding that Haig wanted a more ambitious version. The third objective, which included the German Wilhelm (third) Line, was added to the first and second objectives, all to be taken on the first day. A fourth objective was also given for the first day but only to be attempted opportunistically, in places where the German defence had collapsed.

In April 1917, the French Nivelle Offensive took place, with the main effort by the French on the Aisne, while British and Empire forces undertook a preliminary attack at Arras. The French attack gained ground but at the cost of great casualties and failed to obtain the breakthrough Nivelle had promised; Nivelle was relieved and replaced by Philippe Petain. Over the summer it became clear that the failure of the offensive had caused a collapse in morale amongst French troops. The failure of the French breakthrough attempt meant that any offensive on the Western front would be a largely British affair as the French were exhausted. Lloyd George, while still attempting to promote his favoured Italian campaign, had little option but to support Haig's Flanders offensive. On 7 May, Haig set the timetable for his Flanders offensive, with 7 June the date for a preliminary attack on Messines Ridge. A week after Messines Ridge was captured Haig gave his objectives to his Army commanders, which were 'wearing out the enemy' and 'securing the Belgian coast and connecting with the Dutch frontier' by the capture of Passchendaele Ridge, an advance on Roulers and Operation Hush an attack along the coast with an amphibious landing


 * If effectives, or guns inadequate it may be necessary to call a halt after No1 is gained.'(Haig: Diary 14 June 1917)

also putting his views to the War Cabinet in a memorandum of 12 June where he wrote


 * With the drafts and guns already promised, however, I consider, on present indications, that it will be possible to carry through at least a portion of the operations intended....

and that the extent of the success to be gained was dependent on War Cabinet priorities, the state of Russia and German staying power.