Mud & Blood: Battle of Passchendaele | Animated History

In the summer of 1917, British forces on the Western Front prepared for a sweeping offensive through German-occupied Belgium. As British commanders perfected their battle plans and jittery soldiers anxiously checked their rifles near the town of Ypres, they expected to crush German resistance in one massive attack. And then, it started to rain. The bloody aftermath of the Somme saw little improvement for the beleaguered Entente powers. Several costly offensives on the Western Front had failed to significantly move the stubborn front line and subsequent mutinies racked the French army. On the Eastern Front, the Tsar had been toppled and Russian morale was quickly collapsing, threatening to turn the already unstable theatre into a rout. Making matters worse, Germany had unleashed a tsunami of unrestricted submarine warfare onto the Atlantic, threatening to choke Britain from its vital trade. 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In the meantime, Britain appeared increasingly alone, desperate to break German defenses before the situation deteriorated even further, British Commander Sir Douglas Haig proposed a bold plan. A decisive push through Belgium, coupled with an amphibious landing would dislodge the German army from its defensive positions and deprive the deadly German submarine fleet of many strategic bases on the Flemish coast. The starting point of this grand offensive was to be the Belgian town of Ypres. Ypres had already been the site of two indecisive battles, and was hardly ideal terrain for a new offensive. The Germans held most of the high ground in the area, giving them a defensive advantage while allowing them to easily observe British movements. This would have to be dealt with. To accomplish this critical preparation for his offensive, Haig turned to Sir Herbert Plumer, who proposed a novel plan to capture the vital Messines Ridge. For several years, British engineers had been secretly digging under German positions on the ridge, slowly filling over five miles of tunnels with explosives. Thus, when the time came on June 7, 1917, the world's largest bomb went off. In what was then the largest man-made explosion in history, over a million pounds of high explosives were detonated simultaneously. Residents of nearby towns experienced an earthquake, and the sound of the explosion reached as far as London. In an instant, craters up to 400 feet across swallowed entire sections of the front, burying up to 10,000 German soldiers in superheated Belgian soil. Just seconds later, thousands of British guns opened up in a murderous barrage, adding to the apocalyptic carnage. Faced with legions of advancing British infantry, German defenses on the Messines Ridge crumbled, just like the ground beneath their feet. Though the operation at Messines had achieved its objectives with spectacular success, Haig wanted to advance further than was originally planned. Unaffected by the opening explosion, German defenders in these rear areas put up fierce resistance, and British troops only achieved victory after a week of grim fighting. What had begun as a crushing triumph, faltered into a costly victory. Nevertheless, with the Germans dislodged from their strategic positions on the Messines Ridge, the path lay open for Haig to launch his decisive hammer blow near Ypres. Instead, what followed was almost seven weeks of inaction. Hoping to ensure that his offensive had an appropriately aggressive commander, Haig spent precious time integrating a new general, Sir Hubert Gough, into the planned attack, with deadly consequences to come. In the weeks of British delay, the Germans had been busy strengthening their defenses near Ypres. Due to the swampy nature of the terrain, the Germans erected breastworks rather than trenches, reinforced with thousands of concrete bunkers and fortified farmhouses. Behind this primary line of defense lay an additional German trench line housing thousands of German reserves. Artillery was dragged into position, machine guns were sighted, and poison gas was stockpiled. In their seven weeks of hesitation, the soggy Flemish landscape facing the British had become a killing field. On July 31st, the long-delayed British offensive finally began. Originally timed to take advantage of the morning's first rays of sunshine, ominous clouds instead covered the sky. As British troops struggled to their objectives, the rain began. A hail of machine gun fire added to the misery, and German artillery unexpectedly opened up in a brutal bombardment. Cloudy skies had led the British to miscount their enemies' guns. With rain coming down in droves, British tanks became stuck in the mud, leading the infantry to fend for themselves against the well-prepared German defenses. Things were not off to a good start. At the end of the offensive's first day, 27,000 British soldiers had become casualties for a gain of just 18 square miles. Though the operation had been more successful than the first day of the Somme, and the Germans had suffered heavy casualties as well, German defenses had largely held firm, and the imagined thrust to the Belgian coast appeared to be a distant dream. As the sun rose on the morning of August 1st, the patter of rain still mingled with the distant boom of artillery and the cries of the wounded. Despite the inclement weather, Haig and Goff continued to plan additional offensive operations. However, as they plotted further advances from their command positions behind the front line, both men were tragically unaware of the full situation unfolding near Ypres. In their preliminary bombardment, British artillery had done significant damage to German defenses, but had also laid waste to the intricate system of canals that kept the region dry. With the onset of heavy rains, this shell-pocked landscape began to turn into a sea of mud. In the entire month of August, only three days went by without rain, and the region was drenched in almost twice its average monthly rainfall. Movement became nearly impossible, and the British struggled to reposition their artillery. The lightest guns the British possessed took over six hours to be dragged a mere 250 yards. Heavy artillery began to sink into the sludge and could barely be moved at all. With weak artillery cover and mud sometimes up to their waists, any potential to advance by the infantry was destined to be a literal slog. The subsequent British assault on August 10th was predictably disastrous. Although British troops made some limited gains at first, they were quickly dislodged by fierce German counterattacks and artillery fire. For over 2,000 casualties, the British ended up gaining hardly any ground. Undeterred, Haig and Gough prepared to try again. Following hasty preparations and a comparatively weak bombardment, British and supporting French soldiers went over the top once more on August 16th. Due to days of torrential downpour, the ground had become a deadly quagmire. In the center of the British advance, German bunkers unleashed a torrent of machine gunfire onto the waterlogged attackers, mowing them down with savage efficiency. In one unit, only five men out of 330 survived the onslaught. Wounded men often proved impossible to recover. As they laid waiting, screaming for help, many would drown to death in the mud. By nightfall, it was clear that Gough's attack had failed. British forces had been driven back with horrendous casualties, and many frontline fighting units had been decimated. Though French and British troops on the northern flank had secured their objectives, that was of little assurance to the thousands of bodies slowly being consumed by the liquefying earth. As repeated follow-up attacks failed to break the stalemate, Haig began to grow dissatisfied with the performance of Gough. In response, he turned once more to Sir Herbert Plumer, who had led the successful assault at Messines. Giving Plumer command over the southern portion of the battlefield, Haig decided that this section of the front would be the focus of all further attacks. With Gough's influence significantly reduced, Plumer quickly got to work. In contrast to their previous overly ambitious attacks, British forces were now prepared to carry out a series of limited advances that would methodically drive the Germans from the remaining high ground around Ypres. Throughout early September, British troops were repositioned for the coming attack, and British artillery prepared to blast their German enemies into oblivion. As Plumer's first attack drew near, British artillery delivered a devastating barrage onto German positions. With a much narrower front to focus on, British artillery fire was three times as dense as it had been on the opening day of the offensive. High explosive and armor-piercing shells were hurled at the greatly feared German bunker network, and German artillery positions were blanketed in poison gas. In total, 1.65 million rounds of artillery were fired over the course of about 20 days, almost one shell for every second. On September 20th, the British finally attacked. Covered by a creeping barrage, advancing troops seized many of their objectives, but the fighting was brutal. Despite the British bombardment, many German artillery pieces had survived, and they began to mercilessly pound the newly captured British positions. In some areas, German machine gun emplacements had been missed, and droves of men were mowed down as they attempted to advance. Although Plumer's attack did achieve its limited objectives, the cost had been horrifying. About 21,000 British soldiers had been killed, wounded, or captured, for a gain of 5.5 square miles. Undeterred, Plumer launched further attacks on September 26th and October 4th, using similar tactics. Again, British troops achieved most of their objectives, but at staggering costs. Plumer's limited advances were working, but the casualty rates per mile were higher than even the first day of the offensive. As the weather once again began to worsen, perhaps the only consolation was that the Germans were taking equally alarming losses. By early October, the campaign at Ypres had lost all momentum. However, in the vain hope that German defenses were on the brink of collapse, British troops were given one final objective, the town of Passchendaele. As the approach to Passchendaele became an ocean of mud in the heavy rains, supporting artillery fires slackened, and British, Australian, and New Zealander troops were slaughtered as they attempted to seize fortified German positions around the town. During their first attack on October 12th, 13,000 men became casualties for hardly any gain whatsoever. Subsequent attacks starting on October 26th decimated several Canadian units as they clawed their way through the mud. By the time Canadian forces finally captured Passchendaele on November 6th, the town had lost all strategic significance. Haig finally called off the campaign four days later. Over three months of fighting, British troops had suffered 275,000 casualties for strategically insignificant gains. The battle had also cost the Germans dearly, who suffered at least 200,000 casualties and were forced to take pressure off of the French at a critical time in the war. Nevertheless, Haig's offensive had been a disappointment. Though it was hoped that the campaign at Ypres would jumpstart a war-ending advance, it had instead culminated in a muddy scramble to the ruins of a desolate Belgian village. So it's perhaps with a bitter sense of irony that this bloody chapter of human history is simply remembered as the Battle of Passchendaele. This has been a presentation of U.S. Family History Research.