Passchendaele - The Anatomy of a Tragedy

[Herekawe]

Passchendaele –The Anatomy of a Tragedy is Andrew Macdonald’s new book and covers the activities of the II Anzac Corps from the Battle of Broodseinde, through Poelcappelle to First Passchendaele. While Broodseinde was a stunning success Poelcappelle and First Passchendaele were twin disasters which remind me of a marketing saying I heard “same preparation, same product, same promotion, same results”, I am sure that could be adapted to describe the situation on 9th and 12th of October.

While the Broodseinde success has largely been forgotten in New Zealand, the First Battle of Passchendaele has negatively skewed the way New Zealanders view the history of the Western Front.

There is good reason for this negative view. The 12th October 1917 is a national tragedy which overshadows discussion of the Great War in New Zealand. First Passchendaele (and Poelcappelle) have everything people love to hate about a Great War battle. Poor logistics, indifferent senior officers rushing the preparations which prove to be totally inadequate, lack of knowledge of front line conditions, troops attacking across the same swampy ground where an attack had failed miserably before, against uncut barbed wire and well-armed Germans in bunkers. Poor artillery preparation and support and friendly artillery fire falling on their own troops. Orders to renew the attack from a Corps commander who doesn’t even visit the front line until after his Corps has fought there three times. Evacuation of the wounded is hampered by the same poor logistics that doomed the attack in the first place. To add salt to the wound mendacious reporting by the Corps commander after the battle attempts to minimise his role in the whole shambles.

First Passchendaele and Poelcappelle could make one question the whole learning curve theory; had the British Army really learnt anything in three years of war?

Macdonald flips that question on its head, his question is rather; why didn’t the management of Poelcappelle and Passchendaele adhere to the proven formulae; why were these battles failures after a run of comparatively successful battles like Menin Road, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde?

One of the recurring themes of this book is that the British Army had learned a vast amount, at all levels, about how to win battles. Lessons from previous battles had been distilled into practical training programmes and disseminated widely. Tactical training was being standardised and most of the divisions fighting at this time had reached a similar standard and used the same tactics as other units. Senior officers and Staffs had benefitted from training and being shown the successful methods for winning battles, as well as their own experiences.

A commonly held view is that weather after Broodseinde hampered preparation and was in a large part responsible for the ensuing problems. Macdonald points out bad weather in autumn is hardly an unknown factor and if it delayed preparations then best practice (for want of a better term) required a slowing of the operational tempo, not an increase as actually occurred. Macdonald also suggests that Broodseinde, while a major success, stretched the logistical systems and operational tempo to the limit, in reasonably good weather. Any further battles would require a period of consolidation to work on the support networks of roads and supplies. The coincidental deterioration of the weather on the evening of 4th October was a further indicator that operational tempo should slow as the poorer weather would logically result in delays in preparations for any further attacks.

Broodseinde brought the British front line up against the major barrier of the Flandern 1 line. If penetrating Flandern 1 was a difficult task during the well organised and comparatively good going of 4th October it would be many times more difficult to cross on the 9th October, with much poorer conditions under foot. Operational tempo needed to slow to allow the artillery to adequately deal with this barrier before 9th October.

After the failure of Poelcappelle and First Passchendaele, the Canadian Corps went into the line. Macdonald outlines how the Canadian Corps adapted best practice for the final assaults. Taking time to properly prepare, resisting calls to rush their attacks, securing their logistics and communications, allowing their artillery time to be properly sited and coordinated they slogged their way to success across the same ground, despite the weather and the terrible state of the battlefield. So the British standard tactics of the time would work – if properly applied.

The reasons for the failure of II Anzac Corps form the majority of the book. The title is well chosen as Macdonald dissects the Corps and its preparations for the October battles and separates these into their component parts. To do this he explores themes such as how were battles organised, how did strategy become reality, where responsibility lay for achieving each task, who set the overall plan, who decided the tactics and set the tempo, who sorted out logistics, labour, repaired the roads, sited the guns, created the ammunition dumps and first aid posts and so on. Each is examined in relation to best practice and assessed for their effect on II Anzacs preparation and performance during October 1917. As well he considers key staff, in particular the capability, experience and attitudes of the Corps commander, General Godley and how this impacted on the performance of II Anzac Corps. The result is an extremely readable book which is much deeper than a chronological description of the activities of the Passchendaele battles.

This is Andrew Macdonald’s second book. His first was "On My Way to the Somme" about the New Zealand Division on the Somme during September and October 1916. Passchendaele is quite different to and in my opinion a step up from "On My Way to the Somme". However several things I liked about the first book are still evident in this book.

Firstly, Macdonald keeps the activities of II Anzac firmly in context with events before and after their time spent in the front line, and in context with the actions of surrounding Divisions and Corps. This helps fill out the picture. The Divisions of II Anzac were well trained and with varying levels of experience, but so were the Divisions and Corps on either side and they had significant rolls to play. Standardising the approach to tactics and organisation should have yielded better dividends to the British Army than eventuated on 9th and 12th October.

Secondly, Macdonald comes across as objective and impartial. There is no attempt to shift blame or responsibility, no “we failed because the guns weren’t bought up” type stuff, he objectively assesses the activities of II Anzac and the surrounding Divisions and Corps, the supporting units, and the Germans, outlining for all parties the immense struggle that these battles represent.

Thirdly, Macdonald has spread his net widely and brings a lot of sources to his work. These are properly cited and arranged, useful end notes, index and bibliography. Photos are of a high quality and maps are very good.

In conclusion I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Personally I have always considered these battles, involving as they did II Anzac Corp with the New Zealand, 3rd Australian, British 49th and 66th Divisions and neighbouring units, as being intrinsically hopeless, a waste of time and resources for little result. However after reading Andrew’s book it’s obvious that things didn’t have to unfold this way. The men of the four divisions of II Anzac and the neighbouring units, a cross section of the British Army, were trained and tactically quite capable of achieving the tasks allocated to them provided they were put into the battle with proper preparation and support. Had this been done they could have gone a lot further towards the top of the ridge than they actually did. Haste makes waste as they say.

[Fattyowls]

Herekawe

Excellent review; thanks. I am researching a group of Aucklanders of whom three were killed on 3rd, 4th and 12th October in the area. I know a reasonable amount about when and where but relatively little about why. Sounds like this one will have to go on the ever lengthening must read list; I've got another Aucklander killed on the Somme 12 months earlier so the Somme book might have to be added too. With luck I may have read the Passchendaele book before I look out over the Bellvue Spur towards S'Gravenstafel and think of them.

Appreciated,

Pete.

[paulgranger]

It's available at Amazon UK as a Kindle edition

And so is his Somme book.

[WhiteStarLine]

Herekawe, what an erudite review! It must be quite a book. Passchendaele in Australia, for those of us interested in WW1, evokes everything about a WW1 battle and it would be nice to read a balanced account.

[AndyMacdonald]

Thanks for your kind words Herekawe. Much appreciated!

If I may, it's also currently available in hard copy with free worldwide postage: http://www.fishpond.co.uk/Books/Passchendaele-Andrew-Macdonald/9781775540304

And now work proper is underway on my next book!

Andy

[hazelclark]

Thanks for that review. It is most apropos for me as I have been trying to study 3rd ypres. Having reread "The Chief",(Sheffield) "In Flanders Fields" (Wolfe) "The Road to Passchendaele" (Terraine) and now starting to reread "Passchendaele, The Untold Story" (Prior and Wilson) it will be good to have a more recent book as well.

It is interesting that in the appendix, Terraine takes issue with some of Wolfe's statistics with the caveat that in fairness he did not have some of the more recent information. Right from the introduction, Prior and Wilson take issue with some of Terraine's documentary evidence. Anyway,I have come to the conclusion that even documentary evidence is open to interpretation and having read what Prior and Wilson are objecting to, I am not sure that i agree with their conclusions so far. I have only read the first few pages though.

Thanks for giving me another book to read about arguably the most controversial part of the battle.

Hazel

[phil andrade]

The historiography of the battle is fascinating.

By the sound of it, Andy's book will have a significant impact here.

I've read through Glyn Harper's account, and would be interested to see how this compares.

It catches my eye that Andy has addressed the matter of how the Germans reacted to the pressures of October 1917.

Presumably, having taken a helluva whack at Broodseinde - not to mention the earlier blows at Menin Road and Polygon Wood - they had adapted their tactics and made a good account of themselves at Poelcappelle and Passchendaele 1.

Or was it more a matter of an attack flawed by imprudent haste ? I often wonder if insufficient acknowledgement is given to German achievements in determining the outcome of these notorious battles.

Phil (PJA)

[AndyMacdonald]

The historiography of the battle is fascinating.

By the sound of it, Andy's book will have a significant impact here.

I've read through Glyn Harper's account, and would be interested to see how this compares.

It catches my eye that Andy has addressed the matter of how the Germans reacted to the pressures of October 1917.

Presumably, having taken a helluva whack at Broodseinde - not to mention the earlier blows at Menin Road and Polygon Wood - they had adapted their tactics and made a good account of themselves at Poelcappelle and Passchendaele 1.

Or was it more a matter of an attack flawed by imprudent haste ? I often wonder if insufficient acknowledgement is given to German achievements in determining the outcome of these notorious battles.

Phil (PJA)

In fact, the German defenders on Passchendaele Ridge (Bellevue) thinned there ground-holding units after Broodseinde, and then again between Poelcappelle and First Passchendaele, all the while adhering to their vanilla defensive doctrine of that period.

Bests

A

[Mark Hone]

I'll be particularly interested to see how you deal with the role of 66th (East Lancashire) Division, as I have retraced the route of their 9th October attack towards Passchendaele on several occasions..

[AndyMacdonald]

I'll be particularly interested to see how you deal with the role of 66th (East Lancashire) Division, as I have retraced the route of their 9th October attack towards Passchendaele on several occasions..

The book is about II Anzac, so, yes, the 66th is in there, as are the 49th, NZ and 3rd Australian Divs, and others too. I talk about military effectiveness (how and why battles unfold as they do from a military viewpoint), at corps-divisional level in the October battles, which is something that hasn't really been done before, and certainly not to this extent. Herekawe cuts to the chase and identifies this focus in his review, above. As for the 66th, I think they acquitted themselves well given the confluence of factors that were outside their control, and ultimately told against them. I too have walked that fateful battle line many times ... and it makes for sobering thinking.

Bests

A