Canada in World War I - Part 7: Passchendaele

After Vimy Ridge, the Canadians revelled in the joy of having made a name for themselves. Pound for pound, they were some of the best there were, and whatever was placed in front of them seemed to quickly fall by the wayside. That's a positive and a negative; winning is nice, but being an effective fighting force in a war means that you're certain to be fighting again soon. Once again, in August, the Canadians found themselves shooting it out in yet another bloody, noxious, muddy battleground fraught with human misery. The difference is this time it was called Hill 70, and later, Passchendaele.

Initially, attacking Hill 70 was a means to protect the British troops that were attacking Passchendaele, a short distance away. The Canadians' goal was to draw the Germans there to avoid them overwhelming the British elsewhere. It was important for both sides, as the British army wouldn't be able to hold off the additional reinforcements against them and the Germans desperately needed more men at the front. A successful Canadian assault would cripple them.

Passchendaele is sitting at a 36% rating
on Rotten Tomatoes, 12% higher
than the soldiers gave the battle itself.

After a heavy creeping barrage, they took Hill 70 near the small city of Lens, but wouldn't take the city itself as fighting in an urban setting was an entirely different ballpark and one the Canadians were inexperienced with. Their plan was to dig in, hold the hill, and bide their time away from the city. The Germans weren't too happy with that. With the plan in mind to simply overwhelm the Canadians, the Germans retaliated on August 15th. Contrary to the more intelligent fighting towards the middle and end of the war, the Germans attempted to defeat the well situated Canadians fighting in open ground with machine guns with wave after wave of hastily planned attacks. It worked for Zapp Brannigan in Futurama, but not for them. By the 18th, when they finally halted the assault, the Germans had 20,000 casualties to the Canadian 5,600.

That isn't to say it was a total success, however; the Germans employed a new and terrifying weapon, one that always becomes a talking point when mentioning World War I. Moving beyond the old ways of gassing the enemy, the German force began the use of mustard gas. It was a brutal, terrible weapon. The gas would stay in shell craters for much longer than the previous concoctions, and would kill a man at a much slower pace. It would begin with a slight smell of mustard, leading to a tendency to sneeze. Similar to how it is in movies, a cough would be a sure sign that death was on its way. Many of the bravest Canadians, artillery men knowing they had ingested mustard gas and well aware that their time was sure to be up soon, removed their respirators to more effectively fire the heavy weapons supporting the infantry, removing any chance at recovery for the sake of their fellow troops. True, unsung heroes.

"Walk the plank! Haha! Yarr! Get it?"
"Bill, stop..."

Anyways, I digress. Even after having lost to many, the Germans still held the city of Lens. The problem the Canadians had was that fighting in a city with even numbers is exceedingly difficult as it's basically asking to get ambushed at the end of every street or entrance to a building. They also held a strong, underground city, which the Canadians also didn't know how to fight in effectively, and taking it would cost the lives of far too many. However, in traditional WW1 fashion, they would give it a go anyway with the first attempt on it ending in a grim bayonet melee between both sides. While the Canadians took ground, they retreated knowing they likely wouldn't be able to hold it. It was said that the bodies were so many that it was difficult to tell who won. Honestly, if that's how the battlefield looks afterwards, I believe it's safe to answer "neither."

At this point, with 20/20 retrospective vision, it would have been wise to retreat and head out. They held the high ground, the Germans weren't relinquishing the city, and they could have just bombarded it. However, rather foolishly, the Canadians continued the assault on the city and found themselves in an awful situation. Surrounded by machine gun fire, finding artillery coordination difficult, and fighting against a well protected, dug in, and especially after the past few battles, fury-filled German army, they were getting chopped down left right and centre. A few days later, they would back out licking their wounds and deciding against trying to take it once more. While everything had gone well up until that point, they overplayed their hand and lost much of what they had gained. Nevertheless, they brought two reserve divisions away from Passchendaele which was ultimately what they set out to do. If this was a victory, and I believe it was, it was only a partial one. It was the second largest campaign thus far, second only to Vimy.

After finishing up at Hill 70, the Canadians moved to help the British and Australian forces that were in severe trouble over at Passchendaele, the place they had been protecting from reinforcements. In only 10 kilometres the allies had suffered 200,000 casualties in what was some of the worst fighting conditions imaginable (more on that in a moment).

If ever there was a picture that embodies how awful
the fighting conditions were in WW1, it's this. I wonder
if the soldiers sent this home as a postcard. "Europe
is nice, but I was hoping for more sun."

Currie was told he was to take his troops to Flanders. (If you're thinking this is where In Flanders Fields was written, you're right, but your timing is off. Passchendaele is once again a return to the Ypres Salient, the third time there has been a major battle there since the beginning of the war. In Flanders Fields was written just after the second bout.) Upon hearing this news, Currie was irate. He told them they could "rot in it" and that it "isn't worth a drop of blood", but Douglas Haig, the British commander, outranked him and demanded he go. It was especially important to Haig who believed he may lose his job if this mission was unsuccessful. Frustrated and angry at having to sacrifice more of his men in a place that hardly seemed worth fighting over, Currie predicted it would cost 16,000 men, which would prove to be darn near close to accurate.

So, the conditions. Half the artillery was wrecked through either the effects of extreme overuse or becoming so locked in the mud it was immobile. The mud and water in the shell craters was so extreme they had to lay out roads and boards just to cross the swamp to bring in supplies and more soldiers, a task that cost the lives of 1,500 as they were bombed while constructing it. It was so muddy that soldiers would fall into shell holes to avoid... well, shells that were in the process of making craters, and they would simply drown as they couldn't fight their way out of the muck. Many times men would disappear as no one would know where they would go as they would have to build these in darkness to avoid being easy targets.

"World War I isn't pulling in the level of torment we were
hoping it would," sighs the German command. "Perhaps
we can add something to make it more brutal." He snaps
his fingers. "I've got it! Flamethrowers!"

While they had six weeks to plan for Hill 70, they had only fourteen days for Passchendaele. On October 26th, they followed their plan of the creeping barrage, except this time only fifty metres at a time due to the conditions, which still outpaced the hamstrung and beleaguered frontline soldiers. It was a  moderate success, one that took out many key positions, but a brutal one that cost 3,000 casualties. Many that were shot drowned in the mud and water.

On October 30th they would return, part of a larger offensive in which the Canadians would spearhead. Once more they would push forward, with the 72nd Battalion performing a ridiculously aggressive push on a defensive fortification that was caught unawares as they believed the swamp would protect them. Haig, traditionally not overly friendly to Canadian forces, called it "a feat of arms which would go down in the annals of British history as one of the greatest achievements of a single unit." A lovely quote, but I wish he said "memory" instead of "annals". Annals is just an awful word.

They would have one final push on November 6th that would last until the 10th. The element of surprise was lost due to a Canadian soldier accidentally wandering into a German camp (apparently this was easier than one might expect) and was coerced into giving up the attack plans. Nevertheless, at great cost they would take the ridge around Passchendaele and call off the assault. The legacy was another Canadian victory, but at the cost of countless soldiers, with those surviving suffering mentally due to the tremendous strain of fighting on such a terrible battlefield. Many of the soldiers blamed Currie for the seemingly pointless destruction of their forces, but to be fair, Currie always argued for more guns, artillery, soldiers and time. The problem was he wasn't the head of the operation, and he wouldn't always get his way.

Passchendaele would be another drop in the increasingly bloody bucket. In many ways, it embodied everything that was awful about World War I. Bloody, muddy conditions, seemingly endless fighting, an incredibly high death toll, the absolute savage destruction of a landscape, and all of it ultimately over a rather insignificant piece of land.