No victory has been more complete than the one gained on the morning of June 7th, 1917. It was a victory for which the British army had been preparing for three years.
"The fighting in 1916 gave the British command of the high ground in the Somme area; the Vimy Ridge operation in April 1917 had secured the heights from Arras to Lens." The object of the attack on Messines was to "pinch out" the well fortified German salient that was bulging out into the British lines and straighten out the southern portion of the salient as a preliminary to a great advance to the Flanders coast. "No breakout from the Ypres salient was possible unless the ridge was captured."
The frontage for the British attack stretched ten miles - from St. Yves to Mont Sorrel. The plan was to penetrate about a mile or so into the German positions and take five objective lines: Red, Blue, Green, Black, and Black Dotted, later to be designated, the Mauve Line. There were amongst these, three halting places at which successive waves of infantry leap-frogged through to gain the final objective: The eastern slopes of Messines Ridge.
Although nowhere higher than 200 feet, the Messines - Wytschaete Ridge gave the Germans a clear view of the British trenches. They had held the high ground since the first Battle of Ypres (November 1914) and meant to hold it if they could. It was a valuable position that had cost them dear in the taking. They had used their time there to great effect.
The ridge was protected by four general lines of well-wired trenches studded with ferro-concrete fortifications, pill boxes, machine-gun emplacements and shelters, able to withstand all but a direct hit by an eight-inch shell.
The taking of the ridge was entrusted to the Second Army, under the command of General Sir Herbert Plumer. The operation called for an assault by three Corps: IX Corps in the centre; X Corps on the left; and II Anzac Corps on the right. XIX Corps, which included elements of the Irish Guards, formed the 2nd Army Reserve. IX Corps was allocated a field of operations that stretched from the Wulverghem-Wytschaete Road to Diependaal Beek - a distance of six thousand yards along the front of the enemy salient. IX Corps attacked with three divisions in line: The 36th (Ulster) Division, the 16th (Irish) Division, and the 19th (Western) Division. The 11th Division acted as Corps Reserve.
The 16th and 36th Divisions were gifted with the best trophy of the ridge - the fortress-village of Wytschaete. The boundary line between the two divisions ran along the main street of Wytschaete, half of the village being in the objective of the other. The victory of the Irishmen was far more significant than may first appear. It was not the first time they had fought and won battles, but there was a particular appropriateness in the manner of taking Wytschaete and the ground around it, with Dublin men going with the barrage, touching shoulders with their comrades of an Orange Lodge in North Ulster. Nine months they spent together sharing in each other hardships and making and cementing friendships which became enduring. A Belfast officer of the Ulster Division who took part in the fighting, in the course of a letter home, wrote - "It’s no lie to say the best possible relationships exists between the Irish Division and our fellows. I know for a fact that the Ulster Division would prefer to fight alongside them than any other in the British army, and there is no doubt the same feeling exists in the 16th Division."
The characteristics of the various parts of the front were similar with the conditions of the soil the same throughout. Water was everywhere just below the surface. When it rained all the low-lying ground flooded. The Germans did not think the spongy nature of the soil would be suitable for mining or underground excavation.
Tunnelling patiently, and in the greatest secrecy, men of the Royal Engineers began mining under the Ridge as early as Spring 1916. Plans for large-scale mining were approved by G.H.Q. in January 1916 and from then the Divisions attached to Gen. Plumer’s 2nd Army furnished large parties for work under the various Tunnelling Companies. Twenty-four tunnels were commenced with: "Four coming outside the eventual sphere of operations; one was discovered by the enemy and destroyed; nineteen were completed."
Painstaking attention to detail aimed at minimising casualties typified 2nd Army planning. "Meticulous care was taken by Army Headquarters to ensure that the preparation was as complete as human forethought could make it." Zero hour was only arrived at following long consultation between HQ. staff and infantry commanders on the ground - it was fixed on the notion that it was the time at which men could see across 100 yards. Attacks were practised over ground marked out to represent the German trench system - officers from flanking battalions of divisions attended each others field days to ensure "Harmony" along the line. British supremacy in the air was absolute. The level of co-operation between the different arms involved in the operation was unprecedented. Nowhere was this more evident than in the liaison between the infantry and gunners of the heavy artillery - something that was hardly thought of before this particular offensive. The infantry and gunners working together in great sympathy and mutual understanding caused the enemy extremely heavy casualties.
General Plumer had assembled a great mass of artillery, 2,266 guns - 756 heavy guns and 1,510 field guns and howitzers. He also had at his disposal, 428 heavy trench mortars firing projectiles weighing 180lbs, a great many medium mortars, firing their 60lb "plum puddings", and scores of light Stokes mortars capable of discharging upwards of twenty rounds a minute. (The Second Army fired off almost three million shells).
The infantry were accompanied by seventy-two Mark IV tanks. The flat waterlogged terrain did not offer up the most suitable conditions for tank operations and although tanks went some way to reducing British casualties theirs was not a major factor in the overall success of the operation.
The British front was a hive of activity in the weeks before the assault. "The offensive spirit reigned supreme." Practice barrages were carried out to see if any guns were shooting short.
A considerable bombardment of the ridge began on 21 May 1917. This was intensified from May 31st to include bursts of lethal and lachrymatory gas shells and special half-hour hurricane bombardments of Messines and Wytschaete, during which every gun available, from largest to smallest, was brought into action.
British artillery fire slackened off from 2.00 am on 7th June and by 2.45 am there was only an occasional report. The night seemed unusually quiet. At about three o’clock a dead silence fell. "The whole countryside seemed wrapped in sleep." Men waited, they hardly knew for what.
When the crash came even the bravest trembled. The ground seemed to open at their feet.
Not less than 500 tons of high explosives had been secreted beneath the strongest portions of the German front line and at 03.10, designated Zero hour, they were fired together. The effect was beyond the imagination of any man.
Nineteen mines were detonated at "Zero." Three were on the Ulster Division’s front: one at Kruisstraat Cabaret, one at Spanbroekmolen, and one at Peckham. The second had been doubtful up to the last minute. It looked as though all the toil of the past year had been wasted but the tunnellers worked unceasingly to cut a new gallery. On the eve of the battle it was announced that it was ‘almost certain’ the mine would detonate. The troops were warned that should the mine fail to explode, they were to wait fifteen seconds before leaving the trenches.
The mine at Spanbroekmolen failed to detonate at ‘Zero’, the troops in this sector did as they had been instructed and waited fifteen seconds. As they left the trenches and charged forward the mine exploded. Many were blown off their feet, some were slightly wounded but all recovered quickly and continued their advance. Robert Doggart, who served with the Ulster Division’s 110th Field Ambulance, was about 200 yards from the explosion. "It was a lovely bright morning. When the mines exploded it was as though day had turned into night. You could not see your hand in front of your face with the dust and smoke."
The Ridge and the German trenches on top of it were blown into the air. "One could see trees, mud, earth and all manner of articles going sky-high." Men and guns and concrete were all buried together. Some of the craters left by these detonations were more than seventy feet deep and 100 yards across. It has been claimed that the sound of the mass explosion was heard in England.
No sooner were the mines set off than every one of the massed batteries of the 2nd Army opened fire. The artillery, one gun to every twenty-yards, provided a two-tier support barrage. Firstly, directly in front of the infantry was a creeping barrage of 18-pounder shrapnel. The pace of the barrage was a hundred yards in three minutes. Secondly, a standing barrage of 18-pounders, 4.5 inch, and medium and heavy howitzers fired a distant barrage searching hidden ground and bombarding known strongpoints and machine-gun emplacements.
The barrage was highly complicated. The shape of the salient and the varied rate of advance meaning that it lifted off none of the objectives at the same moment.
The first wave left the British trenches - the second followed at an interval of twenty-five yards. Passing hot on the heels of the barrage the men of the 16th (Irish), and 36th (Ulster) Divisions went up the cracked and furrowed slopes of the historic ridge. Beyond them was a devastation so overwhelming that the eye almost feared to look upon it.
The enemy front was a lunar-landscape of shell-holes and craters - men slithered down into a shell-hole only to climb out of it and slide down into another. The German front line was more shell-hole than trench, their wire was smashed to pieces, and everywhere there was the wreckage of solidly built blockhouses and machine-gun emplacements. "There were a number of dead Germans in the valley, with their faces turned towards the hill. They had run back before the dreadful moving wall of the British barrage, and had been caught by it in the marshy ground."
The attacking troops met almost no opposition at first. The damaging effect of the gigantic mines and the tremendous weight of the artillery barrage left the German troops in the trenches in no fit state to fight. Demoralised ‘Huns’ held their hands up crying for mercy. The assaulting troops rushed on leaving "moppers up" following behind the task of taking prisoners.
Here and there, to be sure, the fighting was stiff enough. Machine-gun emplacements at Wytschaete and more than one cunningly concealed dug-out that had been missed during the bombardment was stoutly defended.
One of the most heavily defended of these machine-gun emplacements was one of the objectives of the Ulster Division, a concrete pill-box known as Pick House. It was attacked by men of 107 and 109 Brigades with rifles grenades, and a captured German machine-gun. The garrison of Pick House included a battalion commander. After some heavy fighting the garrison surrendered to the Ulstermen.
"The forward slopes of the Messines Ridge, ere dusk for a while put a decent veil upon it, presented a ghastly spectacle to bear witness to the destructive power of modern artillery…the ground had been literally ploughed up." The fortress-villages of Messines and Wytschaete were now no more than two piles of rubble.
Oosttaverne Wood, which had remained a considerable copse of tough oak through years of shell-fire, was now but an indeterminate collection of stumps. The ground between the tree stumps was all brown and ploughed up, so that you could scoop it up anywhere and sift it through your fingers, and mixed up with it everywhere were splinters of wood and bits of shell and shrapnel and all other remnants of battle.
British casualties were very light, their dead so curiously few. The 36th (Ulster) Division had 1,119, all ranks killed and wounded. The 16th (Irish) Division 748. The German dead were much more numerous. "One prisoner reported that practically all his company had been lost to one of the mines."
Two, among the comparatively few British officers killed, were Captain H. Gallaugher, D.S.O. of the 11th Inniskillings, and Major William Redmond, M.P., of the 6th Royal Irish Regiment
Major-General Sir William Hickie, K.C.B., who commanded the 16th (Irish) Division had known and admired Major-General Nugent (GOC 36th (Ulster) Division) for many years. Their knowledge of each other led to a co-operation of the two commands which was reflected throughout the ranks and formed the keynote of successful endeavour. This close co-operation was observed not alone by their own Army chiefs but the German High Command. After the battle of Wytschaete an enemy map was found on which a line had been drawn through the section held by the two Divisions and near that line the one word "Irish" was written. Sources Denman, T. Ireland’s Unknown Soldiers |
