Passchendaele: The Bloodiest Battle Of WWI | The Battle Of Passchendaele | Timeline

this is the city of Ypres in western belgium it's peaceful here now but during the four years of a great war it was very different by the summer of 1917 the names of Flanders and Ypres were known to the people of Britain and her Empire as places of unrelenting misery and horror thousands of Allied soldiers perished here in a succession of caustic battles but achieved very little but there was more to come before the year ended there would be yet another battle one whose name is remembered more than any other from that terrible tonight Passchendaele [Music] by the summer of 1917 Ypres had been devastated by three years of total war during that time the city had figured prominently in some of the great Wars most critical events in the first few months of the war during the late autumn of 1914 this medieval stronghold had been subjected to a sustained attack by the advancing Germans it was destined to undergo systematic destruction fight for control of the Ypres area for last for the duration of the war by December 1914 the place had already acquired an evil reputation rising only slightly above this destruction on the slopes of a ridge stood a few villages whose capture seemed to elude the best efforts of a British their names were destined for him or tality in the great Wars list of murderous places Jewish yellow belt and sauna B but the most significant occupying the highest part of the ridge was the village of Passchendaele this place has exerted a fascination upon succeeding generations not just for the desperate battle which ground to a halt here in November 1917 but also because of its unusual and poetic English pronunciation Passchendaele as the many memorials to the sacrifice here suggest nothing could have been further from the reality of battle in 1917 following the opening bloody encounters for Easter Ypres and 1914 the trench lines in no-man's land have become firmly established Britain declared war and August the 4th when the Germans invaded Belgium their strategy known as the von Schlieffen plan was to push on rapidly in a wheeling right-hook to seize Paris they also intended to capture the Channel ports for use as u-boat bases the Germans had almost reached the coast by the time British troops were landed the two sides finally clashing in Flanders at Ypres where they remained locked in combat for the rest of the war in the first month of war the british regulars have already fought several major engagements in northern france before 1914 british army's main role would be to panik's the empire the expeditionary force which was sent to belgium numbered only a hundred thousand men but they were highly trained and motivated but now like their generals they were faced with something quite different the massed force of the German army capable of fielding four million troops ranged against the Germans was a combined force the British a tiny Belgian army and four and a half million French as the Germans probed westwards the first skirmishes and that he per sector began on the 16th of October and in the village of Westeros peak 5 miles northeast of Ypres here British household cavalry units drew their first blood and sustained their first casualties on the 19th of October 1914 the First Battle of Ypres began the following day the nearby village of pol Capel fell to the Germans on the 22nd near the village of Langer mark there was a particularly bloody encounter across these open fields massed ranks of youthful German volunteers most of them students marched singing towards the perplexed British troops who opened fire with devastating effect their slaughter is remembered here in the German war cemetery at Langham arc it bears testimony to the deadly accuracy of the British regulars who in one minute could loose off more than 23 rounds of pained rifle fire the German stranglehold was now closing around Ypres the frontline was established along a string of villages Langer mark zona Beek gheluvelt Holoubek Wishart and machines the shape of the front had a distinct bulge it became known as the salient a term used to describe any deviation from the otherwise straight trench lines on the 31st of October the Germans attacked across a wide front east of Ypres breaking through the British lines at gheluvelt there in the grounds of the chateau they were held by the second Worcester 's who drove them back for the spirited bayonet charge and accurate rifle fire thanks to their prompt action four German advance was temporarily halted in the next few days the Germans captured the villages of Holoubek Wishart and machines to complete their dominance of the higher ground this despite a heroic stance by the London Scottish on Messines Ridge when they lost 321 at 750 men by the middle of November the fighting was losing impetus deteriorating weather conditions and exhaustion among the troops meant they had to dig in establishing trench lines that would remain for the rest of the war those last four hectic months of 1914 had witnessed the near annihilation of Britain's expeditionary force the British regulars had earned the scorn of the Kaiser have called them that Contenta belittle army thereafter the survivors prided themselves in being known as the old contemptible in contrast to this the German general Phan Malka praised them as a perfect thing apart their sacrifice eventually enabling the British to secure Ypres and the routes for channel ports in the meantime the territorials had to take the strain while Kitchener's new army was being trained the end of the year also brought snow and the first Christmas in the trenches for the opposing soldiers it also brought a brief respite from war on Christmas Day a series of spontaneous truces broke out bringing the two sides face-to-face here near the village of machines and at other places along the line parties of Germans and British met in no-man's land in what was a remarkable snub to the policy of offensive at all costs British High Command ensured that any such spontaneous acts of friendship should not be allowed to happen again with the new year came a terrible new weapon changing the character of Modern Warfare forever the first German chlorine gas attack was made here in in the village of laga mark on the 22nd of April 1950 the attack heralded the start of the Second Battle of Ypres which raged throughout the rest of April till the 24th of May chlorine gas kills by flooding the lungs with choking fluid many thousands of men would die from its effects in the next few years it blinded and disabled hundreds more had little or no protection against the fumes the impact was devastating the only advice they'd been given was to urinate on their socks and cover their nose and mouth this proved almost totally ineffective on April the 22nd the trenches in front of the deadly cloud were occupied by French colonial troops who broke and ran leaving a five-mile gap in the Allied line British and Canadian troops were rushed in to check for German advance this memorial is a stark reminder of that first gas attack it was a watershed in the history of warfare any pretense at chivalry had now gone within the space of six months two epic defensive battles have been fought by Allied armies beasts of evil soldiers posted here approached the place with the center thread such was its reputation the effects battle were ever-present shelling and the constant rattle of machine guns meant it was never still over a period of a few months this once proud City was reduced to a shattered ruin by the constant German bombardment it was known that they could drop a shell with pinpoint accuracy when and where they pleased few men could withstand the strain of front-line conditions for very long it became vital to rotate units within each division and brigade in and out of the line as quickly as possible to add to the general discomfort mutt was a major problem in the salient when it rained conditions under thought became almost impossible the delicate drainage system on the Flanders plain had taken generations to construct but the constant shelling destroyed it in just a few weeks at Ypres artillery was king of the battlefield the gunners of both sides constantly proving that each other with counterbattery fire the legacy of the gunners was everywhere an endless stream of casualties was pumped back from the front causing cemeteries to grow with a predictable regularity during 1916 there was little respite is the steady attrition which characterized death and the salient drained the army of thousands of its finest troops in July that year the Battle of the Somme began in France there too the killing was relentless Haig had long been convinced of the war could only be won by defeating Germany on the Western Front in April 1917 the French had failed disastrously south of Ypres whom are now in desperate need of support to add to the Allied problems the Menace of u-boats were now a major threat as they spread even further into the Atlantic and the Mediterranean in search of targets the total tonnage sunk was growing alarmingly with every passing month to counter this and help the French Hague planned a major offensive from the Ypres salient which would draw the Germans into a battle to protect their supply routes and their submarine bases of our stand and sea brother they're also growing concerns about the French Army's ability to carry on in the face of ever mounting casualties as on the Somme the British Army's willingness to support her aunt and partner would be tested to the very limit the soldiers endurance the villagers are machines and vish art lie on top of a ridge of the southern end of the Ypres salient during the first few weeks of the war they had fallen to the rapidly advancing Germans and had remained in their hands this area saw much bitter fighting in the first four months of the war as the towns and villages were pulverized the whole landscape was obliterated by the ever increasing volume of artillery fire among the many thousands of German troops defending the ridge was a young soldier who was destined to survive the carnage adult Hitler had been recruited into the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment when war was declared in 1914 he derived on the salient in October and saw action and bezler and gheluvelt before being posted to the machines Bechard sector [Music] kronar woods lies just north of the chaton was part of the line frequented by hitler the interior remains in a remarkable state of preservation it was among these mind workings and block houses that he fought the British in November 1914 his bravery and action had earned in the Iron Cross and reputation for luck soon after leaving one of these dugouts he narrowly avoided death when it was struck by British shell killing or wounding everyone inside as the fighting became more centered on the scenes and Wishart Hitler was promoted to the rank of Corporal and given the job of dispatch runner taking messages back along the trenches from the front line to the regimental commander at quarters at Messines Church in the first year of the war the church exterior was systematically destroyed the Crypt providing shelter as an emergency casualty clearing station its most probable that Hitler took shelter here as the guns reduced the village to a featureless wasteland of rubble in 1916 Hitler was transferred to the Somme front where he was wounded in the thigh in 1918 he was again awarded the Iron Cross first class his citation read the personal cold-blooded bravery and a continuous readiness to sacrifice himself it is a tragic irony that of the countless thousands have died in the salient Hitler should survive his wounds the course of the 20th century might have been very different at any one of them proved fatal general Herbert Blumer was given charge of the British attack on machines known as daddy Plumer he was a favorite with the men this was due to his concern for saving lives and making sure that each assault was meticulously planned plumbers plans for the machines attack had been started as far back as 1915 along the machines Bechard Ridge in ordered the sinking of 24 deep mineshaft they stretched for 30 miles under the German lines [Music] the plan was to burrow underneath for German positions and hollow out and large chamber which was then packed with up to 100 tons of high explosive it would be detonated just before a major attack was planned to begin in 1916 the priority was to maintain the secrecy of the mining operations while making sure that the explosives would be in place but he has yet to be determined date of attack Haig knew that any attempt to break out towards the Channel ports would first mean recapturing the high ground of the Messines Passchendaele Ridge but before Passchendaele could be taken machines had to fall this was vital so the troops fighting their way of the Passchendaele Ridge could do so free from enemy observation and artillery fire underground miners were still relentlessly inching their way towards the German lines to keep pace with this mammoth effort civilian miners were hurriedly drafted into the army they soon found themselves at the front we never did any drill they were in too big a hurry to get us there they say there was miners from all parts of the country and they were drafting them into Chatham Royal Engineers Depot and this was really something new they were Irish Tunnel us from the London Underground there were Scottish miners Welsh miners Northumberland Durham Yorkshire every part of the minefield of this country and they were all drafted in together within a week of enlisting I was in the frontline right in the Ypres salient meanwhile the French were in trouble following a series of crushing defeats the Army's morale was badly shaken acts of collective in discipline or more plainly mutiny causing havoc among the disillusioned truths it soon became clear that any French cooperation and the attempt to break out from Ypres would be limited field marshal Haig was convinced the need for offensive action was vital if pressure was to be kept on the German army the decision had finally been taken to launch the attack on the machines Ridge in the early hours of June 7th 1917 underground the finishing touches were being applied to the lines of mines in front of the ridge it was hazardous work it was known the enemy miners were also at work an occasionally worth was suspended while attempts were made to locate them using geophones they could occasionally be heard without such instruments one morning at dawn the enemy put down a barrage over the area when he suspected the shaft to be and hardly had the men at the top of the shaft got down to the dugout when a camouflage was fired causing a minor earthquake this was not a charge intended to blow to the surface but to wreck the British gallery and hopefully trap their miners and leave the Germans in a position to resume their own operations of the 24 mines sunk early nineteen were to be fired the workings of pity duvet farm had been discovered by the Germans and flooded another Ford the extreme south of the line would not be fired as they were now outside the revised front of attack on the seventh of June the battle for the capture of Messines Ridge was finally engaged it was preceded by the biggest artillery barrage of the war to date three and a half million shells were loosed off at the German trenches then at 3:10 a.m. 19 mines were blown the time was exactly 10 minutes past 3:00 when I gave the head to witness the tremendous upheaval a sheet of flame shot aloft to an immense height a monstrous curtain of crimson drawn up suddenly along the whole pressed and crowned with foaming black smoke to our data thighs it seemed to hand us for several seconds when our trench rocked with the reaction the arrows on this aerial photograph point out British troops skirting a mine crater as they pursue the stupefied Germans they pushed ahead as quickly as possible to take advantage of a German panic many of the craters caused by the devastating explosions are still visible today evidence of the awesome power unleashed most are now filled with water or ringed by a protective curtain of trees when the mines went up they took an estimated 10,000 Germans with them most was simply vaporized as the huge Fountains of earth rose more than 200 feet in the air the mine at span Brooke Mullen was one of the biggest to be detonated the tunnel began here at this farmhouse some 1000 yards from the crater it was however detonated some 15 seconds late at which time the Ulster man of the 36th division had already gone over the top some were caught and crushed my falling deadly 100,000 troops advanced towards the remains of the Messing's Ridge supported by 72 of the latest mark for tanks the circles on this aerial photograph showed two tanks which became stranded amongst the morass of shell holes general Plumer had perfected the tactic of the creeping barrage the idea being that the attacking troops stayed as close as possible behind a moving curtain of high explosive it proved effective as the Australian third division attacked across the river douvet which was actually little more than a stream they advanced up this gentle slope two men met with any token resistance on their left that New Zealanders have the task of taking machines village bulan trench was the german frontline and first objective the first Rifle Brigade took these block houses with little resistance before pushing on to the village in the center of the line the Ulsterman of the 36th division following their tragic started span Brooke Mullin had advanced with little difficulty to reach the machines Wishart road they fought their way into the village of the shart where they met up with their fellow Irishmen of the sixteenth southern Irish division there are no sectarian tensions here only the desire to clear the ruins of any remaining Germans [Music] further up the line units of the seventh loyal north Lancashire's and the ninth Cheshire's were committed here where the minds of pity bois and howl ensure farm had wrought havoc among the defenders I can see them now rising from the twisted network of branches and bursting forth from fresh green leaves twenty or thirty faces gray with fear and great staring eyes from which the light of reasons seemed to have been driven and they appeared before us with a forest of up thrown hams some cried out and gesticulated some threw themselves down and grovelled at our feet it was a terrible and unnerving site the biggest mind to be exploded on the day was here under the village of santel watt at the extreme northern end of the line once again the mine and the artillery had done their job German resistance was negligible and objectives quickly achieved all along the line the Allied forces had met with success and a minimum of casualties 12 hours after the start of the attack the advancing troops had taken all of their main objectives a virtually unheard of event given the usually turgid nature of fighting on the Western Front it had been an outstanding success for general plumber and his staff the battle of machines was the first great set-piece victory for the Allies in the great war it had demonstrated the value of thorough preparation and planning it was an object lesson within the checkered history of the war how to fight and win unlimited engagement while achieving defined objectives most of the allied casualties in the Messing's attack were sustained after the achievements of the first day as troops bunched up waiting for the orders to follow up the fighting continued in Dussel tree fashion as the Germans withdrew to their prepared defenses on the wanton line some way behind machines village today all is quiet here the huge explosions which once ripped this landscape apart and long gone except that is for the for mines to the left of the southern end of the line much to the consternation of local farmers one of them went up without warning in 1956 when an electrical storm set off the explosive underneath as for the other three no one is quite sure exactly where they are they remain a sinister presence and a reminder of the awesome power unleashed as part of the first British victory of the great war following their spectacular success the battle of machines in June 1917 the Allies now turn their attention to the main objective of the fighting in Flanders the capture of the Passchendaele Ridge east of the city of Ypres this place with its romantic sounding name was to become a byword unrelenting death and destruction what began as an optimistic and determined campaign in the heat of summer ended three and a half months later bogged down in a sea of mud of all operas terrible conflicts Passchendaele was the one which came to symbolize the true horror of Flanders while the great defensive battles of 1914 and 1915 had given the place the distinction of heroism and seen the first use of gas the 1917 battle took on a terrible momentum of its own in the early years of the war it was volunteer soldiers who came here to heap in their thousands the toughened soldiers of the Regular Army the Saturday night soldiers of the territorials and during 1916 the Kitchener volunteers fortunately for the morale of the British Army the men who had survived the Somme battles were a resilient lot by 1917 the attitude of British soldiers on the Western Front had changed their experiences on the Somme in 1916 and led to the development of more effective infantry tactics commanders on the spot now knew the value of trained troops and the need to preserve them more than 50 divisions were brought here to take part in the Third Battle of Ypres many divisions of Kitchener's armies such as the 18th and 30th had already established a reputation for competence and success on the Somme and a terrace earlier in 1917 artillery had also improved both in the number of guns and in the quality of the gunnery training and tactics that develops as the tremendous bombardment which had opened the Somme offensive the previous year effective use of artillery was now recognized essential to in terms of success those skills the ability to recover from passion Dale's enormous appetite for casualties would be put to the supreme test on the flat land below the ridge following the brilliantly planned and executed machines offensive general Plumer and his staff were denied the opportunity to repeat it at Passchendaele Field Marshal Haig the British commander-in-chief chose instead to appoint Sir Hubert Gough he was to lead the attack north of Ypres Haig had wrongly calculated that the younger man might have more thrust in the attack his miscalculation would cost many lives at this stage Haig was convinced that the process of attrition wearing down an exhausting enemy was still of vital importance historians still debate why he delayed the attack on Passchendaele after the success of machines whether waiting for the French or taking more time to train his troops the loss of time when the weather and ground conditions were ideal would prove costly whatever else he may have been as a general aid was never a lucky one Flanders now experienced the worst August downpour for 75 years the battle plan was to force the enemy to fight by threatening the Channel ports of Austin and zebra go from where German u-boats were attacking allied shipping but first they had to take the higher ground of the Passchendaele Ridge on the right flank the attack was towards gheluvelt along the axis of a menon road on the left objective was the german defenses on the pill Cambridge the phrase higher ground could be misleading within the context of Flanders any prominence which rose to 60 metres or more was of great military value in the meantime preparations had to be made for the forthcoming attack men and artillery would have to be moved into place and supplies and ammunition stockpiled many of the troops were put through detailed and exhaustive rehearsals provided with giant plans of the battlefield so they might study the plan of attack during the next six weeks an enormous logistical exercise was undertaken to gather the necessary men and materiel to this once quiet corner of Belgium this delay following the capture of Messines Ridge gave the Germans time to recover and build stronger defenses they constructed hundreds of concrete bunkers to guard the Passchendaele Ridge they could only be overcome with a series of wearing down battles confounding Hague's in the shal idea of a breakthrough Goff and hade had determined that the attack in the north from Hill Cambridge towards Passchendaele would be the last high ground to be taken before the British broke through towards the coastal ports while the battle raged on the ground the air war now began in earnest although the Second World War is often considered as the time when conflict in the air became an essential part of total warfare the fight for air supremacy in the weeks prior to the Battle of Passchendaele was vitally important to British hopes of a successful outcome because of the way in which the Germans had taken advantage of every fold in the ground many of their defenses were not visible to forward artillery observers British guns were therefore often reliant on mark coordinates and targets revealed by air observation and photographic reconnaissance it was here that the fledgling Flyers of all sides earned their wings these men were enlisted into the ranks of the Royal Flying Corps from the Navy and the army they were a Cavalier Bunch with an often devil-may-care attitude perhaps prompted by the fact that life could be all too short casualties grew as the number of flights increased and the quality of enemy fighter aircraft improved the men flew without the benefit of parachutes taking to the air in flimsy machines with little in the way of protection if their aircraft was hit it was most likely to catch fire many a man carried a revolver or cyanide so that they could take their own life rather than be burnt alive or fall to their death the Germans had been quick to realize the need to limit British air activity as clashes between them grew in number and intensity the most notable of these was a dogfight over the Menin Road involving ninety-four fighter planes at heights of up to 17,000 feet a rich balloon came down in flames not far from the campus afternoon the observer but a whale writing his parachute about five minutes later we saw hun balloon come down in flames opposite us only during the last week of July did it become clear that the German air defenses were slowly weakening if the Gunners below could spare them a glance it was only for the briefest of moments these men were engaged in their own deadly game during July the British 5th army assembled a massive strength of more than 2,100 pieces of artillery throughout this period both sides probed for each other's positions the desperate duel to gain artillery supremacy the heavy guns were capable of reducing the enemy positions to piles of featureless rubble and then attempt to counter this the Germans build a series of deep heavily fortified bunkers one of these impressive structures has survived built into the quarry of a brick factory near the village of zona big the Bremen redoubt was built complete with electric light and accommodation for more than a hundred troops places like this proved to be major obstacles for the advancing British their great strengths in short that soldiers would survive any bombardment and emerge ready to fight in two weeks of preparatory bombardment of German positions in the first three days of battle the British Gunners fired a staggering four million 283 thousand five hundred and fifty shells such an incredible weight of firepower was the ultimate expression of the idea of the artillery could conquer while the infantry would follow up and occupy the consequence of these massive bombardments was the complete devastation of the Flanders drainage system water gathered in countless interlinked shell holes unable to drain away the shell fire also destroyed the embankments that were needed to contain the many small streams which were essential to keep the water table below ground level while this might have been a manageable problem in fine summer weather the battle for Passchendaele was destined to be fought in the most appalling conditions in reality the battle for Passchendaele was a series of engagements it started on the 31st of July with an attack on PillCam Ridge in the following three and a half months places like gheluvelt polygon would Zhanna beak brute cinder san julián lang mark and pork Appel would become notorious killing grounds golf had failed to recognize importance of the German defenses here on the Phil Cambridge and on the gala Ville title as the British troops advanced they encountered a series of heavily fortified German pillboxes seen on this aerial photograph these strong points have been cited to take best advantage of the terrain and caused many problems and casualties initially the British made good progress towards and through the German outposts on the pill Cambridge pushing northeast of Ypres towards langemark and inter sized real en we're fighting for control of the ruins continued for three days German counter attacking troops halted and in some cases pushed the British back as the casualties rose sharply one of the most unfortunate among them was captain nerves Chavez a medical officer with a Liverpool Scottish he was hit by a shell splinter on the opening day of the battle near mousetrap farm and died three days later he was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his efforts in treating and bringing in wounded from the battlefield Royal Army Medical Corps doctors and medical staff were often near the front taking the same risks as the men chivas was the only man in the great war to be awarded the Victoria Cross twice he was buried in brand hug cemetery where this unique headstone is a reminder of the cost of the battle due east of Ypres along the Menin Road towards the gheluvelt plateau the German artillery now dominated the approaches here carefully orchestrated shell fire fell in the areas of devastated woodland and valleys which the advancing British troops were concentrated and relatively limited progress was made behind the British lines places like Hellfire corner achieved a grim notoriety as the German Gunners had the range of every inch of the Menin Road hessian screens were erected in an attempt to hide the endless stream of men and vehicles but the Germans pulverized the road was shall fire until it resembled the surface of the Moon nothing could move here casualty is a relatively light compared with the opening days of the song but it soon became clear that due to the German tactic of defensive death most of the casualties were suffered not during the initial assault but while trying to secure new forward positions the Menin Road and Hellfire corner became known to the Troops as lethal places even on this deadly battlefield this is the much improved view the British now had since the capture of the machines rich it was now much safer for soldiers to move around Ypres in daylight hours the two sides were now to stalemate in the hollow between the villages of PillCam and poor Campell the British Army had achieved only a fraction of its first day's objectives losing between 30 to 60 percent of its fighting strength half of the tanks have already been knocked out many finding it impossible to move among the wilderness of shell holes and ditches then it began to wreck it was the worst rain to fall on Flanders for 75 years soon the downpour transformed the battlefield into a swamp these aerial photographs show troops and forward trenches on the gheluvelt approaches they reported that they were flooded knee-deep with water near the river Steen bequest of langemark village the position was even worse with the men forced to stand waist high in cold water and mud on the 16th of August near lag mark the 29th regular division was sent in to attack they faced a series of German block houses the first King's Own Scottish border errs were given the job of taking them company sergeant major jock Skinner and quartermaster sergeant william Grimbold aston were both to win the Victoria Cross by capturing four of these strong points this was an astounding achievement given that the conditions have been described as the worst anywhere on the battlefield Skinner was already renowned as a frontline soldier having won the Distinguished Service Medal and the Military Medal he captured three blockhouses and more than 70 prisoners single-handed when he was killed in March 1918 he was carried to his grave by six other Victoria Cross winners all from the 29th division as the attackers pushed relentlessly forward on the left flank langemark had been taken and the line had been pushed forward more than a mile long the San Julian poll Capel Road on the right flank they attempted to take the rest of the bridge from gheluvelt through to brewed cinder and ultimately Passchendaele but the weather and German resistance stopped them in their tracks as a result goth was replaced by general plumber he changed tactics now conducting a series of bite and hold battles in an attempt to take the high ground by the 15th of September the British were able to launch the second phase of the battle with a series of closely staged attacks within 5 days that phase broadened into the massive assaults known collectively as the Battle of the Menin Road in reality it was an enormous effort across a wide front east of Ypres this phase of the attack was undertaken by both the 2nd and 5th armies Plumer had understood and perfected the tactics of taking strictly limited objectives this strategy was put to good use in the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge on the 20th of September the battle went according to plan the British advance taking many of its objectives as the Germans counter attacked they were met by defensive fire from carefully dug in troops protected by accurate machine-gun and artillery fire [Music] typical of the intensity of the fighting was that which took place here on this gentle rise known as Hill 60 it was originally formed by spoiled dugout when the heap - armintie a railway line was built and was the scene of some of the bitterest fighting anywhere on the battlefield it changed hands on a regular basis both sides suffering enormous casualties in the process here the explosion of many mines and constant shelling may be one of the most dreaded places on the front l60 took its name from the fact that rows and mere 60 metres above sea level but that was enough to guarantee its value as an observation post whoever held it had a clear view to eat nearby the Australians had captured the western portion of the notorious polygon wood between the villages of gheluvelt on the Menin Road and Zama be below Passchendaele six days later on the 26th of September the battle for zona beak and polygon wood began again objectives were achieved in counter-attacks smashed Haig could now take heart from the fact that its plan of attrition that of destroying the German divisions faster than they could be replaced was at last beginning to succeed the fighting in the splintered remains of the wood was of the most fierce and brutal nature the Germans were stunned by the ferocity of the Australians attack many prisoners were taken including this divisional commander and his entire staff the Australians would have suffer some of their worst experiences of the war here ranking along with those of Gallipoli and the Somme this mound was a feature of the wood before the war used as a rifle range by the Belgian Army in October 1917 it was transformed into a charnel-house covered with the bodies of British German and Australian men the Kaiser seen here in the centre with general Ludendorff on the right were thrown into confusion their defense-in-depth tactics have been outmaneuvered by clemmer hundreds of Germans were taken prisoner in September and the beginning of October after their counter-attacks failed many were relieved to be out of it as the relentless rainfall continued the British now had to face up to the effect of their constitution far on the drainage system it was simply nowhere for the water to go on the 4th of October both sides planned attacks to the east of Ypres as the rain began again the artillery found it hard to place their guns on stable ground and register effective strikes the misery of the troops sunk to new depths this was the Battle of polka pail victory here was only partial due to the weather and the German defenses it is this period of the conflict that has become remembered for the mud the continual downfall created a huge quad mire it became the hallmark of this terrible battle at this stage the British was still 9,000 yards from Passchendaele village since the start of the battle six weeks earlier they had advanced a mere 6,000 yards casualties were enormous but worse was yet to come on the 12th of October the first battle for Passchendaele was fought this unenviable task was given to the Australians New Zealanders and Canadians keeping a rifle and working order enough filth generated by a major artillery bombardment and subsequent infantry assault was almost impossible danger was ever-present as the few tracks across the wasteland below Passchendaele Ridge offered easy targets for the German artillery away from those tracks which the pioneers and engineers tried to maintain the waterlogged shell holds interlocked creating conditions in which men who slipped from the path into the slime below often ground two weeks later the Second Battle of Passchendaele began this time with the Canadians at the forefront the troops edged forward faced with the most inhuman conditions and stubborn German defense Passchendaele was by now nothing more than a stain on the landscape every building had been literally blown off the summit as artillery mercilessly pulverized the positions by the 30th of October the Canadians were fighting in the outskirts of the village a week later it was all but over as the Sun rose on the morning of the 6th of November unseen behind a curtain of British shale fire and leaden skies the final assault upon the village of Passchendaele was launched the Canadians found nothing there there was nothing there wasn't even a German counter-attack the campaign to capture passioned air resulted in almost a million casualties all sides similar to the Battle of the Somme the previous year the Germans suffered almost 400,000 dead wounded or missing 35,000 British soldiers died and 30,000 went missing many among that terrible statistic had been swept away by shellfire or had sunk in the sea of mud most of the soldiers were in their early 20s some of them much younger [Music] the scale of the German casualties was so high that they never fully recovered their commander-in-chief general Ludendorff concluded that the losses at Passchendaele would eventually cost them the war [Music] [Music] of the many thousands of British and Empire troops who marched towards Ypres more than a million of them would remain there killed over four years of desperate fighting the men in gates was built after the war in Ypres to commemorate the missing every night at eight o'clock members of the local fire brigade sound the last post lest we forget the terrible sacrifice made here [Music] Oh [Music] you

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Keywords: battle of passchendaele, war documentaries, ww1 documentary, passchendaele documentary, war documentary, the battle of passchendaele, 2017 documentary, full length documentaries, ww1 passchendaele, timeline documentary, ww1 battles, world war i (military conflict), world war one, the somme, battle documentary, the great war, passchendaele movie, bbc documentary, documentary movies - topic, documentary history, history documentary, ypres ww1

Id: dBULkD_FEnw

Length: 46min 28sec (2788 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 29 2017