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IIIrd Battle of Ypres/Passchendaele -1917

The Battle of Passchendaele (Third Battle of Ypres, Flandernschlacht and Deuxième Bataille des Flandres) was a major campaign of the First World War, fought by the Allies against the German Empire.[a] The battle took place on the Western Front, from July to November 1917, for control of the ridges south and east of the Belgian city of Ypres in West Flanders, as part of a strategy decided by the Allies at conferences in November 1916 and May 1917. Passchendaele lay on the last ridge east of Ypres, 5 miles (8.0 km) from a railway junction at Roulers, which was vital to the supply system of the German 4th Army. The next stage of the Allied plan was an advance to Thourout–Couckelaere, to close the German-controlled railway running through Roulers and Thourout.

Further operations and a British supporting attack along the Belgian coast from Nieuwpoort, combined with Operation Hush (an amphibious landing), were to have reached Bruges and then the Dutch frontier. The resistance of the 4th Army, unusually wet weather, the onset of winter and the diversion of British and French resources to Italy, following the Austro-German victory at the Battle of Caporetto (24 October – 19 November), enabled the Germans to avoid a general withdrawal, which had seemed inevitable in early October. The campaign ended in November, when the Canadian Corps captured Passchendaele, apart from local attacks in December and the new year. In 1918, the Battle of the Lys and the Fifth Battle of Ypres were fought before the Allies occupied the Belgian coast and reached the Dutch frontier.

A campaign in Flanders was controversial in 1917 and has remained so. The British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, opposed the offensive, as did General Ferdinand Foch the French Chief of the General Staff. Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, commanding the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), did not receive approval for the Flanders operation from the War Cabinet until 25 July. Matters of dispute by the participants, writers and historians since the war, have included the wisdom of pursuing an offensive strategy in the wake of the Nivelle Offensive, rather than waiting for the arrival of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France.

The choice of Flanders over areas further south or the Italian front, the climate and weather in Flanders, the choice of General Hubert Gough and the Fifth Army to conduct the offensive, debates over the nature of the opening attack and between advocates of shallow and deeper objectives, have also been controversial. The passage of time between the Battle of Messines (7–14 June) and the Battle of Pilckem Ridge (31 July, the opening move of the Third Battle of Ypres), the extent to which the internal troubles of the French armies motivated British persistence with the offensive, the effect of the weather, the decision to continue the offensive in October and the human cost of the campaign on the soldiers of the German and British armies, have also been argued over ever since.
Belgian independence had been recognised in the Treaty of London (1839) which created a sovereign and neutral state.[3] The German invasion of Belgium on 4 August 1914, in violation of Article VII of the treaty, was the reason given by the British government for declaring war on Germany.[4] British military operations in Belgium began with the arrival of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at Mons on 22 August. On 16 October, the Belgians and some French reinforcements began the defence of the French Channel ports and what remained of unoccupied Belgium at the Battle of the Yser. Operations further south in Flanders commenced after reciprocal attempts by the French and German armies to turn their opponents' northern flank through Picardy, Artois and Flanders, known as the Race to the Sea, reached Ypres. On 10 October, Lieutenant-General Erich von Falkenhayn, the Chief of the German General Staff since mid-September, ordered an attack towards Dunkirk and Calais, followed by a turn south to gain a decisive victory.[5] When the offensive failed, Falkenhayn ordered the capture of Ypres to gain a local advantage. By 12 November, the attempt in the First Battle of Ypres had also failed, at a cost of 160,000 German casualties and was stopped on 18 November.[6]

In December 1914, the British Admiralty began discussions with the War Office, for a combined operation to occupy the Belgian coast to the Dutch frontier, with an attack along the coast combined with a landing at Ostend. Eventually the British were obliged to participate in the French offensives further south.[7] Large British offensive operations in Flanders were not possible in 1915, due to the consequent lack of resources.[8] The Germans conducted their own Flanders offensive at the Second Battle of Ypres (22 April – 15 May 1915), making the Ypres salient more costly to defend.[9] Sir Douglas Haig succeeded Sir John French as Commander-in-Chief of the BEF on 19 December 1915.[10] A week after his appointment, Haig met Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Bacon, who emphasised the importance of obtaining control of the Belgian coast, to end the threat posed by German U-boats. Haig was sceptical of a coastal operation, believing that a landing from the sea would be far more difficult than anticipated and that an advance along the coast would require so much preparation, that the Germans would have ample warning. Haig preferred an advance from Ypres, to bypass the flooded area around the Yser and the coast, before a coastal attack (Operation Hush) was attempted, to clear the coast to the Dutch border.[7]
In January 1916, Haig ordered General Herbert Plumer to plan offensives against Messines Ridge, Lille and Houthoulst Forest.[11] General Henry Rawlinson was also ordered to plan an attack from the Ypres Salient on 4 February. Planning by Plumer continued but the demands of the Battles of Verdun and the Somme absorbed the offensive capacity of the BEF.[12] On 15 and 29 November 1916, Haig met the French commander-in-chief Joseph Joffre and the other Allies at Chantilly. An offensive strategy to overwhelm the Central Powers was agreed, with attacks planned on the Western, Eastern and Italian fronts, by the first fortnight in February 1917.[13] A meeting in London of the British Admiralty and General Staff urged that the Flanders operation be undertaken in 1917 and Joffre replied on 8 December, agreeing to the proposal for a Flanders campaign after the spring offensive.[14] The plan for a year of steady attrition on the Western Front, with the main effort in the summer being made by the BEF, was scrapped by the new French Commander-in-Chief Robert Nivelle and the French government in preference for a decisive battle, to be conducted in February by the French army, with the British contribution becoming a preliminary operation, the Battles of Arras.[15]... (etc.)
-Wikipedia