THR THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES 1917 - PART THREE
THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES 1917 – PART THREE
There were a number of reasons why even Nivelle’s French subordinates doubted the wisdom of the plan, the chief one being that for most of the front the Aisne is overlooked by a three hundred foot escarpment, known as the Chemin des Dames, after the road that had been built along it to allow the daughters of pre-revolutionary French kings to ride from Soissons to Berry au Bac. Nivelle had rightly planned on surprise, but there was very little of it. The movement of thousands of troops, the stockpiling of ammunition, the building of roads, the laying of light railways and the construction of jump-off trenches could not be concealed, and to make that worse a copy of the complete French plan was captured from a careless staff officer in a trench raid by the by the Germans in early April. Even without that, the artillery bombardment was an unmistakeable signal that something was up. The French tanks were of little help, unlike the British version they were lightly armoured and had difficulty in crossing trenches. Many were knocked out by German artillery or broke down, but even when they did make some progress the infantry were too exhausted to keep up with them.
Withal, some progress was made and by 20 April the French had cut the Soissons-Rheims railway, taken the second German line south of Juvincourt, were on some of the fortified hills of Champagne and had captured 20,000 prisoners and 127 guns. But there was no sign of the promised breakthrough and casualties had been far higher than expected. The medical system was unable to cope and the sight of long lines of wounded lying on the sides of roads waiting for ambulances that never came did nothing for the morale of troops moving up to the front. By 25 April the advance had stalled, with 16,000 French dead and another 20,000 missing, many of whom were later found to have been killed. Altogether, including those of the two Russian brigades under French command, total casualties were around 100,000. The French government set up a commission of inquiry to find out what had gone wrong, for compared to Nivelle’s exaggerated promises of a swift breakthrough and a mobile pursuit into Germany, the operation had been a disaster. Nivelle blamed his subordinates, which did nothing for the unity of command, and the implication of the generals arguing amongst themselves was not lost on the common soldier. By 15 May, when Nivelle was finally persuaded to resign and was rusticated to French North Africa, casualties had reached 271,000. A new post was created in the French hierarchy, that of chief of the general staff, modelled on the British chief of the imperial general staff, the professional head of the army, and General Phillippe Petain, the hero of Verdun, was appointed.
The French soldiers had been promised great things which had manifestly failed to appear, so what happened next was as much a result of the dashing of great expectations as it was the culmination of simmering resentment over pay, leave and conditions. From the second day of the offensive, when it was obvious even then that not all was going to plan, desertion from the front increased, but the first major act of mutiny – although the French never called it that, preferring ‘acts of collective indiscipline’ – occurred behind the lines on 29th April when a battalion of the 20th Regiment of the Line refused to parade. The downing of tools spread, and men from some regiments warned for the line slashed the tyres of lorries sent to move them up. There was some violence: a few officers were shot by their men, others were jeered at, in one case a general was seized, his badges of rank torn off and he forced into a front line trench, but in most cases officers were simply told that they would not be obeyed and that they should go. In some cases the mutiny was overtly political, with men singing the Internationale and waving red flags, marching on the nearest town and firing their rifles in the air. Usually the more openly mutinous incidents happened behind the lines, associated with the most common catalyst of military crime: drink. French soldiers were paid in arrears, and on pay day there were always plenty of purveyors of alcohol ready to exchange cheap wine for wads of francs. A day spent imbibing Pinot Noir tended to embolden men already resentful of authority and fed up with the war. In the line, while some units absented themselves with the men disappearing to their homes or camping out well away from the battle area, many stayed put, having assured their officers, (before dismissing them and electing their own), that they would defend the soil of France but they would not take part in any raids, attacks or offensives.
By the beginning of June the mutinies had spread to sixty-five French divisions, or two thirds of the army on the Western Front, and of those so far untroubled only two – those defending Paris – were considered entirely trustworthy. This was, for the Allies, the most serious point in the war. On the Eastern Front the war had effectively ended, and although the formal treaty to end it – that of Brest Litovsk – would not be signed until March 1918, the Germans could begin to move divisions west. The USA had entered the war on 6 April but there were as yet no American troops in Europe, nor could they be effective until an army was raised, trained and equipped. If the Germans could capitalise on the state of the French army then they could end the war with one major offensive, defeating France and forcing the British to withdraw back to their island. Something had to be done to distract the Germans while the French army was restored to its duty, and as a start Petain sent half of his men on leave while he negotiated with politicians to improve pay and conditions of service, and attempted to weed out the ringleaders. Now only the British could mount an operation large enough to divert German attention away from the French.
The British army on the Western Front, tiny in 1914, had increased twenty fold since then, with New Army, Territorial and Empire divisions adding to the original regular expeditionary force. It had learned from its early battles, refined its tactics and developed its artillery, its aircraft and its tanks. Now it consisted of forty-six British, four Canadian, four Australian, one New Zealand and two Portuguese infantry divisions, with two British and two Indian cavalry divisions plus the Machine Gun Corps, the Tank Corps and numerous ancillary support units. Field Marshal Haig, commander of the BEF, had always considered that Flanders was where the major British interest lay, and that it was there that her main effort should be. Belgium was almost a British client state and her independence had been guaranteed by Britain to ensure that an unfriendly state could not occupy the Scheldt delta and block Britain’s entry to and exit from Europe. That guarantee had been one of the reasons for Britain entering the war. The British had occupied the Ypres Salient since 1914, specifically as part of General Sir Herbert Plumer’s Second Army area. There was no military value to Ypres, it was held because as one of the few Belgian towns of any import not occupied by the Germans it was politically necessary to hold it come what may. General Smith-Dorrien had been sacked for advocating its abandonment and defence along the Mont des Cats further back, militarily the right solution but one that was unacceptable to the Belgian, and hence the British, government. Once the centre of the medieval cloth trade, by 1917 the beautiful old town had been largely reduced to piles of rubble by German shelling. The British defence lines, which ran round the town and between four and six miles from it before continuing on to the south were mostly in a low lying, swampy plain with a high water table only about eighteen inches below the surface. This made trenches prone to filling up with water and was a major cause of trench foot in the early days, before mechanical pumps and protective footwear were introduced. Much of the area was overlooked from German held territory so life was a continual struggle to hold the line in the face of constant shelling and sniping. If the British could break out of the Salient it would not only be in accord with Britain’s strategic objectives but would get the army out of the mud and into higher and much more easily defended ground to the east.