Now my Grandfather William Wolfendale served with the Royal Field Artillery at the Battle of Ypres, and we have given you a little history of these three battles, please don't forget to visit our other great battle related pages, namely - The Boer War & The Somme, and also our R.E.M.E. and Desert Rats pages. There are links to these at the Top and Bottom of this page. We have added quite a few pictures here that are relevant to this topic.

The Battle of Ypres has become linked forever with World War One. Along with the Battle of the Somme, the battles at Ypres have gone down in history The town had been the centre of battles before due to its strategic position, but the sheer devastation of the town and the surrounding countryside seems to perfectly summarise the futility of battles fought in World War One.

The land surrounding Ypres to the north is flat and canals and rivers link it to the coast. The major centre in this part of Flanders was Ypres. Control of the town gave control of the surrounding countryside and all the major roads converged on the town. To the south of the town the land rises to about 500 feet which would give a significant height advantage to whichever side controlled this ridge of high land.

The 1st Battle of Ypres  - October to November 1914

The German Army at the beginning of the war took Ypres. However, by early October 1914, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was able to recapture the town. The first major German attempt to regain Ypres took place on 15th October, the Germans launched an offensive along the Lys River and they almost succeeded in breaking the line, but experienced BEF riflemen held their positions but suffered heavy losses.

The first days of November directly affected the town. Each day Ypres was shelled and civilian casualties were high. This tactic set the scene for what Ypres was to suffer for several more years.
 The Belgians blew up all the dikes in the north to flood over the last 10 miles of the trench line in the far north. The water flooded parts of the trench line as well creating large pools of soft mud. This bogged down the Allies movement of men, artillery and supplies to the extreme north of the line. Both armies had established massive trench works spanning all the way to the English Channel.

With the weather deteriorating, the Germans decided to abandon the Ypres offensive on the 22nd November. It is estimated that about 135,000 Germans were killed or badly wounded during the offensive. That winter saw the beginning of the long period of trench warfare, which lasted until the final battles in 1918. Life consisted of mostly monotony, often intense discomfort from the cold and mud, but with an ever-increasing number of casualties from the shelling, machine guns, sniping, mortaring, mining and raids.

The BEF lost around 75,000 men and was effectively destroyed as a professional army. 

The 2nd Battle of Ypres – April to May 1915

In April 1915, the German launched another major offensive at Ypres. After a brief preliminary bombardment, the Germans used chlorine gas against the French and Algerian troops defending the area north of the town, (this was the first time in the history of warfare that poison gas was used). The troops fled in terror, which opened a four mile long hole in the Allied lines. Wearing primitive gas masks, the Germans advanced cautiously into the gap. The arrival of the British Second Army blocked the German advance but the Allied forces had been disadvantaged by the loss of the high ground north of Ypres.

Also in April, the French exploded mines under the German position held at Hill 60 - in fact, a mound created from the rubbish cleared when a railway cutting was made. Whoever controlled Hill 60 had a perfect view of what was going into Ypres and what was leaving. Hence its strategic value. Though successful, the area was reduced to a muddy bog. The British took Hill 60 but were pushed out by another successful poison gas attack by the Germans. (The Germans were only pushed out of Hill 60 in 1918).

Random fighting took place all over the Ypres front, and on May 24, the Germans launched a massive gas attack on the lines once more. The Allied line held, but the German Fourth Army was able to use its new higher positions to bombard the town with heavy artillery. This inflicted heavy losses and Ypres was virtually demolished by the German shells during this period.

To the south of Ypres lies Mesen. The Germans had controlled the hills around Mesen since 1914, and to give the Allies a morale boost, the Allied High Command ordered an attack on Mesen Ridge. The Allies had spent time digging tunnels underneath the Ridge, which were packed with explosives. On June 7th,1915, nineteen of the mines were detonated. The noise of the explosions was heard in London. The stunned German troops on the Ridge were easily taken by the Australian and New Zealand troops.

The Ypres front had once again stabilized and the fighting had died down for the time being.

The 3rd Battle of Ypres

(Also known as as Passchendaele) July to November 1917

Whereas the first and second battles of Ypres were launched by the Germans in 1914 and 1915 respectively, Third Ypres was intended as Sir Douglas Haig’s Allied forces breakthrough in Flanders in 1917.

This third battle of Ypres was launched on the 13th July 1917 with a lengthy preliminary artillery bombardment of over 4 million shells, this was effected for the ten days prior to the launch of the attack by the infantry at 03:50 on 31 July 1917.

British attempts to renew the offensive over the course of the next few days were severely hampered by the onset of heavy rains, the heaviest in 30 years, which churned the Flanders lowland soil into a thick muddy swamp.  Tanks found themselves immobile, stuck fast in the mud.  Similarly the infantry found their mobility severely limited.  Ironically the very force of the preliminary bombardment had itself destroyed drainage systems, which made the problem worse.  In addition, the artillery shells that had rained down in the days prior to the attack’s launch had peppered the very ground that needed to be traversed by the advancing Allied forces.

As a consequence no renewed major offensive could be contemplated until 16 August, when the Battle of Langemarck saw four days of fierce fighting which resulted in small gains for the British, but heavy casualties.

Dissatisfied with progress the British Commander-in-Chief, Haig, replaced Sir Hubert Gough (by moving him and his forces further north) with Herbert Plumer.

Plumer planned a series of small gains rather than an all-out breakthrough. 

The attacks began on the 20^th of September with the Battle of the Menin Road Bridge. This was followed by the Battle of Polygon Wood on the 26^th of September and the Battle of Broodseinde on the 4^th of October. Taken together these established British possession of the ridge east of Ypres.

Encouraged by Plumer’s small gains – while constantly pushing him to do more – Haig decided to continue the offensive towards Passchendaele Ridge some ten kilometers from Ypres, by now certain that the German army was close to collapse.

The Allied attackers were themselves nearing exhaustion as German reserves released from the Eastern Front were moved to the ridge. 

To aid in their defence the Germans made full use of mustard gas (instead of the chlorine gas that was used in The Second Battle of Ypres).

Unwilling to concede the failure of the breakthrough, Haig pressed on with a further three assaults on the ridge in late October. 

The eventual capture of Passchendaele village by British and Canadian forces on the 6^th of November finally gave Haig an excuse to call off the offensive claiming success.

The Third Battle of Ypres was, like its predecessors, a costly exercise.  The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) incurred some 310,000 casualties, with a similar, lower, number of German casualties: 260,000.

The most important memorial site for the battle is Tyne Cot, which is the largest Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in the world, with 12,000 graves and 35,000 names of the missing.

British Expeditionary Army (BEF)

After the Boer War, the British war minister, Richard Haldane, created the British Expeditionary Army (BEF), in case it was necessary to take part in a foreign war. By August 1914, there were about 120,000 soldiers in the BEF.
On the outbreak of the First World War, it was decided to send Sir John French and four infantry divisions to Belgium. By October 1914 the BEF had seven infantry and three cavalry divisions in France and Belgium.
In December the British Expeditionary Army was divided into the First and Second Army. A Third Army was created in July 1915 and a Fourth Army in March 1916.

Sir John French remained in charge of the BEF until December 1915, when he was replaced by Sir Douglas Haig.

British soldiers of 1914 were probably the best in Europe. However, there were very few of them. With just six infantry and one cavalry division, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was tiny when compared to the armies of Germany and France. The BEF fought with distinction at both Mons and Ypres but by the end of 1914 it had been virtually wiped out and a heavy toll taken of the Territorials sent to reinforce it.

On battlefields dominated by the defensive power of artillery, barbed wire and the machine gun casualties were enormous and in January 1916, to maintain the size of the Army, the government introduced conscription with the Military Service Act. Single men between 18 and 41 became liable to compulsory military service and in May the Act was extended to include married men. Even so, casualties outstripped replacements and in 1918 the BEF was obliged to reduce the number of infantry Battalions in many of its Divisions. In April 1918 a second Military Service Act raised the upper age limit for conscription to 50.

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World War One Battlefields

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Paths Of Glory

The intention on this site is to answer some "frequently asked questions" and to give an insight into certain aspects of World War One that are difficult or impossible to find elsewhere.