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Preview; Prelude, MessinesStewart C. Summers © 2009
The Flanders Offensive, June—November 1917
Saturday, 03 October 2009Newcastle Community Hall
Fortunately, if he is allowed to launch it, Haig will have a head-start to his Flanders Offensive...
He intends to detonate the mines in a surprise attack using three fresh corps, each with three divisions in the line and one more in reserve...
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...
General Plumer, GOC 2nd Army, has been in the Salient for two years and ‘Knows Every Puddle’...He’s been planning and preparing a major local attack for over a year, having mined beneath the German lines for the entire length of the Messines Ridge from Hill 60 down to St. Ives on the edge of Ploegsteert Wood...
Messines Ridge is a daunting objective for infantry...
Firepower will be on his men’s side; from the outset, they will advance behind such firepower as the world
has never seen...
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...
It has plenty of Elevation, which infantrymen like...
...and firepower, but in this Plumer has an ace up his sleeve...
...so, as at Vimy, they will advance in waves, followed by mopper-uppers; pausing to consolidate while fresh
troops pass through...
An infantryman, Herbert Plumer was unarguably one of the best generals
of the British Army; one of the first to embrace the new tactics...
To take it, the infantry will need two things; a very good plan...
...except, it’s in the wrong hands.
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...
...while in II ANZAC Godley has: the 25th (Western), 3rd Australian, and the
New Zealand Divisions...
The respective Corps reserves are the 24th (Eastern), 11th (Northern), and 4th
Aus. Divisions...
...and in IX Corps Hamilton-Gordon has; the 19th (Western), 16th (Irish),
and the 36th (Ulster) Divisions...
In X Corps on the left, Morland has; the 23rd (Northern), 47th (2nd London), and the 41st (London Pals) Divisions...
12 divisions are at Plumer’s disposal, all of the New Army (aside from the antipodeans and the ‘Terriers’ of the
47th); all veterans of the Somme...
First, he has infantry; lots of it...
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...
...for the previous two weeks, 2,266 guns and over 300 heavy mortars have been pounding the ridge...
...while deep below, twenty-two mines (one was found) have been
dug stretching under enemy lines...
...and one million pounds (500 tons) of the high explosive, Ammonol, has
been packed into them...
And when it comes to firepower...
Others have worked on them too, particularly press-ganged infantry, but these units were the primary ‘clay-kickers’ of Messines Ridge:
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...Some of the tunnels beneath the
German lines on Messines Ridge had been completed over a year before...
3rd Canadian Tunnelling Coy, CEF...
1st Australian Tunnelling Coy, AIF...
250th Tunnelling Coy, RE...
171st Tunnelling Coy, RE...
1st Canadian Tunnelling Coy, CEF...
General Sir Herbert C. O. PlumerGoC, II British Army
“Gentlemen, we may not make
history tomorrow, but we shall
certainly change the geography.”
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...On the evening of 6th June their
assault troops move up into their positions as the bombardment
reaches its crescendo...
By 01:00 they are ready...
And at 02:50 the guns fall silent...
The Silence must’ve been deafening...
At 03:10, without warning...
1,000,000lbs of Ammonol is primed...
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...The Germans later estimate that 10,000 men died in the blasts...
The forward units already lying out in no-man’s-land, the nine infantry
divisions – five British, two Irish, one New Zealand, and one Australian –
rise up to launch their attacks...
All 2,266 artillery pieces resume fire...
...now joined by 700 machine guns firing over the heads of the infantry
as light artillery just as at Vimy...
Very little resistance is met...
...thousands of dazed, stumbling young men, many bleeding from their eyes and ears, surrender...
The attackers suffer negligible casualties (aside from 3rd Aus.)...
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...
By 09:00 six of the nine divisions are on their Stop Lines...
Only on the far left, where X Corps under Morland had the obstacles of Hill60, the railway cutting, and the
Ypres—Commines Canal to deal with, have there been delays...
...and by 10:00 they too have caught up and begun to consolidate on the
crest of Messines Ridge...
As the attackers consolidate on the crest the activity behind is frantic as
engineers and pioneers cut new roads, reinforcements bring up supplies, and the gunners hurry
forward to establish new positions from which to protect the infantry
from the inevitable counterattack...
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...
In the early afternoon the inevitable counterattack is driven off, largely by
the repositioned artillery...
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...
In the early afternoon the inevitable counterattack is driven off, largely by
the repositioned artillery...
...and at 15:10, exactly twelve hours after the mines were detonated,
fresh troops surge forward to seize and consolidate the final objective...
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...
In the early afternoon the inevitable counterattack is driven off, largely by
the repositioned artillery...
...and at 15:10, exactly twelve hours after the mines were detonated,
fresh troops surge forward to seize and consolidate the final objective...
For the first time since 1914 the British are able to look eastward and see green, untouched fields, peaceful
Belgian farmland and villages...
The battle has been a complete success for Plumer and his 2nd Army...
The cost has been 5,000 men – most in the latter stages – but the cost to the Germans has been at least five
times that number... II AN
ZAC
X Br
. Cor
ps
IX B
r. Co
rps
It did not end the siege at Ypres, nor even push the Germans far enough
back to end the bombardment...
The Battle of Messines Ridge was an important tactical victory...
But in an ideal world – well, an ideal world which included continental
siege warfare – it could have meant much more...
...with the Chemin des Dames, Vimy, and now Messines in Allied
hands they now had a more secure position behind which to endure anything the Germans might do,
and prepare for the great American-led offensive in 1918
which would end the war...
Messines, June 1917; Interlude to Prelude...
Sadly, other agendas had precedence.
FOR VALOUR
L/Cpl Samuel Frickerton, VC, of 3rd Bn, the NZ Rifle Brigade, and was one of five brothers to serve (two
wounded at Gallipoli, one killed on the Somme), and was himself gassed later in the war.
He died in August 1971
Four men won the Victoria Cross in the Battle of Messines Ridge...
Remarkably, all lived to tell the tale... Captain Robert Grieve, VC; 37th (Victoria) Bn, AIF
was the great-nephew of a VC from the Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War.
He passed away in Oct. 1957.
Pte William Ratcliffe, VC, MM, of 2nd Bn, the South Lancs., was a veteran of the Boer War and later dubbed “the Docker’s VC” by the press.
He became a union activist and died in his native Liverpool, March 1963.
Pte John Carroll, VC, of 33rd (NSW) Bn, AIF, was of Irish heritage and failed to attend his presentation
ceremony at Buckingham Palace three times.He was badly wounded at Passchendaele in October
1917, and sent home to assist recruitment.He died, aged 80, in October 1971.
The Treachery of Hidden Allegiances...Although it had obviously been planned
long before, Haig claimed to have authorised the attack on Messines Ridge
purely as a diversion drawing German resources away from Robert Nivelle’s ‘Grand Offensive’ far to the south...
It seems strange that he would squander the surprise, innovation, and strategic
value of such an endeavour to support an operation he did not believe in,
particularly when he was already doing all that’d been asked of him at Arras...
The Treachery of Hidden Allegiances...It seems strange that he would squander
the surprise, innovation, and strategic value of such an endeavour to support an
operation he did not believe in, particularly when he was already doing all that’d been asked of him at Arras...
...and especially seven weeks after Nivelle had run into trouble, and a month after the entire Nivelle Offensive had ended...
The Treachery of Hidden Allegiances......and especially seven weeks after Nivelle
had run into trouble, and a month after the entire Nivelle Offensive had ended...
Moreover, ‘drawing away’ resources does not mean merely the odd trainload on a
given day, but rather compelling the enemy to divert in the long-term...
The Treachery of Hidden Allegiances...Moreover, ‘drawing away’ resources does not mean merely the odd trainload on a
given day, but rather compelling the enemy to divert in the long-term...
...forcing him to supplement the infrastructure and resource allocation to
another area, in this case the Ypres Salient, away from the current battle
zone, in this case Chemin des Dames...
The Treachery of Hidden Allegiances......forcing him to supplement the
infrastructure and resource allocation to another area, in this case the Ypres
Salient, away from the current battle zone, in this case Chemin des Dames...
But if the intention was merely to draw the enemy away from the point of the
main assault, why draw him to the point where one next intends to assault him?
The Treachery of Hidden Allegiances...But if the intention was merely to draw the enemy away from the point of the
main assault, why draw him to the point where one next intends to assault him?
Indeed, Plumer of 2nd Army had not intended Messines to be an isolated
diversion, but the launch-point of Haig’s own Flanders Offensive, of which he was
well-aware...
The Treachery of Hidden Allegiances...Indeed, Plumer of 2nd Army had not intended Messines to be an isolated
diversion, but the launch-point of Haig’s own Flanders Offensive, of which he was
well-aware...
Haig’s actual, rather than stated, intentions become highly controversial
from this point forward...
