Ypres salient

1914-18

The Belgian town of Ypres lies close to the French border. In the first weeks of the First World War the German forces swept through Belgium into France but after the Battle of the Marne, which halted the German advance towards Paris, both the German and Allied forces began to entrench their positions from the Swiss border to the North Sea coast.

First Battle of Ypres
As part of this race to the sea German troops entered Ypres on 3 October. But although they took Lille to the south on the 13th, and Ostend to the north on the 15th, the British Expeditionary Force managed, on 18 October, to recapture the town and push the German line back a few miles along the Menin Road. This created the Ypres Salient, a pocket of land projecting into German held territory, and it was in and around the salient over the next four years that much of the most ferocious fighting of the war was to take place.

On 5 November the Germans attacked to the south of Ypres along the Wytschaete ridge, but the move was not sufficiently determined to dislodge the Allies. One of the German troops in the operation was Adolf Hitler, who was subsequently awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class, for his role in the action.

German attempts to recapture Ypres continued until 22 November but British positions were strengthened by French troops and the front was established. German dead and wounded in the offensive are estimated at 135,000; the British suffered casualties of about 75,000 men.

The Second Battle of Ypres
On 22 April 1915, after an artillery bombardment, the Germans attacked Allied troops, mainly French and Algerian, to the north of Ypres, using chlorine gas for the first time. The effect was dramatic: the defenders fled, leaving a gap in the Allied line, but the Germans - using the gas experimentally - did not have enough troops in reserve to exploit the opportunity.

Gas continued to be used causing dreadful suffering and death, sometimes to the German troops by whom it was deployed, but the Allies maintained their hold on the town. It was, however, almost totally destroyed by German shelling.

The Germans introduced other fearsome weapons into the war at the Salient. The flamethrower was used for the first time on 30 July as British troops attacked the Hooge Crater, an important position in the German line. And on 19 December phosgene gas, far more toxic than chlorine, was deployed. Although the British troops were by now trained and equipped to deal with gas, 120 men were killed.

During the winter of 1915 the conditions of daily life in the trenches posed their own dangers, in addition to those the enemy might offer. Troops might stay wet and cold for days or weeks on end, with their feet continually in water. Thousands of men were afflicted by 'trench foot', which would swell their feet and lead to an intense burning sensation if touched.

Although the Salient had, more or less, become a static battleground both sides made regular raids on the other's positions; to keep their own troops on their toes as much as threaten the enemy. But larger offensives would also occur. On 2 June 1916, the Germans attacked the British lines across a 3,000 yard front, advancing some 700 yards, capturing a British general and killing another. Two days later, British counter attacks had recovered much of the lost ground.

On 12 July, mustard gas was used by the Germans, and over the following weeks more than a million gas shells were fired, killing 500 British soldiers and injuring thousands more. The British responded with chloropicrin gas, but neither side broke the lines of the other.

Battle of Passchendaele, 31 July-6 November 1917 (Third Battle of Ypres)
Passchendaele ridge lay to northwest of Ypres. British forces had captured the Messines ridge to the south of the town in June and it was believed that by taking the Passchendaele ridge the way would be clear to liberate the Belgian channel ports and further extend the Salient. Haig, the British Commander in Chief, even hoped that an advance would lead to a complete German defeat.

After an artillery assault from 3,000 guns, the offensive began with a push across a fifteen mile front by nine British and six French divisions. In two days the Allies advanced by up to two and a half miles and thousands of German prisoners were taken. But, as the fighting continued into August a combination of heavy German resistance and fierce rain slowed progress and the battle developed into the usual war of attrition.

Offensives were renewed in September and early October, by which time the British forces alone had suffered casualties of 163,000 dead and wounded. The Germans counter attacked on many occasions, sometimes with mustard gas, but by 12 October the British were within reach of Passchendaele ridge. The final assault on the ridge, by British and Canadian troops, was hampered by atrocious rain which again turned the battlefield into a swamp; many injured soldiers drowned in shell-holes because they could not crawl out. The village of Passchendaele itself was finally taken by Canadian troops on 30 October.

Allied dead and wounded at Passchendaele totalled 245,000, of which 66,000 were killed. The German casualties were probably 400,000. Allied plans to strike at German held territory beyond Passchendaele were postponed.

Fourth Battle of Ypres, September 1918
This offensive included the use of 500 Allied aircraft and for once the British advance was rapid. On the first day the villages of Wytschaete and Passchendaele were captured and 4,000 German soldiers surrendered, and in the evening of 28 September General Ludendorff, urged Hindenberg to go to the Kaiser to demand terms for an armistice.

© Historybookshop.com