The German Occupation of the Belgian Coast in 1914| OKWAVE

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The Third Battle of Ypres became controversial while it was being fought and has remained so, with disputes about the predictability of the August deluges and for its mixed results, which in much of the writing in English, is blamed on misunderstandings between Gough and Haig and on faulty planning, rather than on the resilience of the German defence.Operations in Flanders, Belgium had been desired by the British Cabinet, Admiralty and War Office since 1914. Douglas Haig succeeded John French as Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force on 19 December 1915. A week after his appointment, Haig met Vice-Admiral Reginald Bacon, who emphasised the importance of obtaining control of the Belgian coast, to end the threat from German naval forces based in Bruges. In January 1916, Haig ordered General Henry Rawlinson to plan an attack in the Ypres Salient. The need to support the French army during the Battle of Verdun 21 February – 18 December 1916 and the demands of the Somme battles 1 July – 18 November 1916, absorbed the British Expeditionary Force's offensive capacity for the rest of the year. On 22 November Haig, Chief of the Imperial General Staff William Robertson, First Sea Lord Admiral Henry Jackson and Dover Patrol commander Vice-Admiral Reginald Bacon, wrote to General Joffre urging that the Flanders operation be undertaken in 1917, which Joffre accepted.In late 1916 and early 1917, military leaders in Britain and France were optimistic that the casualties they had inflicted on the German army at the Battle of Verdun, the Battle of the Somme and on the Eastern Front had brought the German army close to exhaustion, although the effort had been immensely costly. At the conference in Chantilly in November 1916 and a series of subsequent meetings, the Entente agreed on an offensive strategy to overwhelm the Central Powers by means of simultaneous attacks on the Western, Eastern and Italian Fronts. The Prime Minister David Lloyd George, sought to limit British casualties and proposed an offensive on the Italian front. British and French artillery would be transferred to Italy to add weight to the offensive.

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All the landing forces were to rush inland towards Leffinghe and Slype, occupy bridges over the Plasschendaele canal and road junctions nearby. Extra transport would move with the two XV Corps divisions advancing from Nieuport. XV Corps would break out of the Nieuport bridgehead between St. Georges and the coast, with a barrage from 300 guns and naval guns over a 3,500-yard (3,200 m) front. A 1,000-yard (910 m) advance would be followed by a one-hour pause. Four similar advances over six hours would take the land attack to Middelkirke, where it would link with the landing force, keeping three divisions in reserve. The German defence was expected to have two brigades in the first two defence lines as the attack began. The plan was approved by Haig on 18 June and the 1st Division was chosen to make the coastal landing. On 19 June a patrol from the 3rd Marine Division captured eleven soldiers of the British 32nd Division, which with increased artillery and air activity, was taken by Admiral von Schröder the commander of Group North and Marine Korps Flandern, as a sign that the British contemplated a coastal operation. Unternehmen Strandfest (Operation Beach Party) a spoiling attack by the reinforced 3rd Marine Division with the 199th Division in reserve, was planned to capture ground east of the Yser, from Lombartzijde creek to the sea, led by the Guard Corps commander General Ferdinand von Quast, who took over Group North on 30 June. Parts of the 3rd Marine Division was withdrawn during the second half of June, to rehearse an attack by a frontal assault, with covering fire from eleven torpedo boats off the coast; artillery reinforcements with 300,000 rounds of ammunition, were moved to the coast.

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Admiral Keyes thought that the operation was doomed to fail and Admiral Jellicoe expected a great success. Despite the demands of the battles at Ypres, Haig had kept XV Corps on the coast throughout, ready to exploit a German general withdrawal. Haig resisted suggestions to launch the operation independently, wanting it to be synchronised with the advance on Roulers, which loomed in early October but did not occur until a year later. Prior and Wilson wrote that the amphibious part of the plan was extremely risky, given the slow speed of the monitors and un-armoured pontoons. A German mobile force was on hand as a precaution and the area could be flooded. In 2008, J. P. Harris wrote that the German spoiling attack demonstrated that the decline of the German armies in France has been exaggerated and that the War Cabinet had neglected to question Haig more rigorously, after he assured them that the reverse had been due to local factors. In 1997, A. Wiest called the plan an imaginative way to return to a war of movement, foreshadowing the amphibious warfare of World War II and a credit to Haig but his refusal to agree to a landing independent of events at Ypres, showed that he had overestimated the possibility of a German collapse. On 11 July Rawlinson ordered that lost ground be recovered by outflanking the new German line along the canal in the Dunes sector. The XV Corps commander, Lieutenant-General Du Cane noted that instant counter-attacks made by local initiative usually succeeded, while those ordered later by higher authority were too late to exploit disorganisation among the attackers and that adequate preparation and a methodical attack was necessary.

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British Expeditionary Force commander General Douglas Haig and Second Army commander General Herbert Plumer both believed it necessary to expel the Germans from the captured positions. In view of the preparations for the Somme offensive, Haig did not wish to divert more forces than were necessary. Support was limited to a number of additional artillery units and an infantry brigade from the 20th Light Division. It was suggested that the next counterattack be carried out with the infantry available, with a particularly large emphasis placed on artillery. The additional artillery units immediately went to work hampering German consolidation, by shelling their front and support lines and seeking out hostile batteries.

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In September 1914, the Germans had mined the Kamerun or Wouri estuary and scuttled naval vessels there to protect Douala, the colony's largest city and commercial centre. British and French naval vessels bombarded towns on the coast and by late September had cleared mines and conducted amphibious landings in order to isolate Douala. On 27 September, the city surrendered to Brigadier General Charles Macpherson Dobell, commander of the combined Allied force. The occupation of the entire coast soon followed as the French captured more of the territories to the south-east in an amphibious operation at the Battle of Ukoko.

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Preparations for operations in Flanders began in 1915, with the doubling of the Hazebrouck–Ypres rail line and the building of a new line from Bergues–Proven which was doubled in early 1917. Progress on roads, rail lines, railheads and spurs in the Second Army zone was continuous and by mid-1917, gave the area the most efficient supply system of the BEF. Several plans and memoranda for a Flanders offensive were produced between January 1916 and May 1917, in which the writers tried to relate the offensive resources available to the terrain and the likely German defence. In early 1916, the importance of the capture of the Gheluvelt plateau for an advance further north was emphasised by Haig and the army commanders. On 14 February 1917, Colonel C. N. Macmullen of GHQ proposed that the plateau be taken by a mass tank attack, reducing the need for artillery; in April a reconnaissance by Captain G. le Q Martel found that the area was unsuitable for tanks. On 9 February, General Rawlinson, commander of the Fourth Army, suggested that Messines Ridge could be taken in one day and that the capture of the Gheluvelt plateau should be fundamental to the attack further north. He suggested that the southern attack from St. Yves to Mont Sorrel should come first and that Mont Sorrel to Steenstraat should be attacked within 48–72 hours. After discussions with Rawlinson and Plumer and the incorporation of Haig's changes, Macmullen submitted his memorandum on 14 February. With amendments the memorandum became the GHQ 1917 plan. A week after the Battle of Messines Ridge, Haig gave his objectives to his Army commanders: wearing out the enemy, securing the Belgian coast and connecting with the Dutch frontier by the capture of Passchendaele ridge, followed by an advance on Roulers and Operation Hush, an attack along the coast with an amphibious landing. If manpower and artillery were insufficient, only the first part of the plan might be fulfilled. On 30 April, Haig told Gough the Fifth Army commander, that he would lead the "Northern Operation" and the coastal force, although Cabinet approval for the offensive was not granted until 21 June.

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The first formal Allied conference met in Paris on 26 March 1916 (Italy did not participate) but initially made little impact, perhaps because Briand had vetoed the British suggestion of a permanent secretariat, or perhaps because there had been three informal sets of Anglo-French talks in the last quarter of 1915, one of which, the Chantilly meeting, had already seen strategy plans drawn up. Late in March 1916 Joffre and Briand blocked the withdrawal of five British divisions from Salonika. Briand was widely suspected of wanting to make his mistress Princess George Queen of Greece. In the spring of 1916 Briand urged Sarrail to take the offensive in the Balkans to take some of the heat off Verdun, although the British, preoccupied with the upcoming Somme offensive, declined to send further troops and Sarrail’s offensive that summer was not a success. Briand also attended the conference at Saleux on 31 May 1916 about the upcoming Anglo-French offensive on the Somme, with President Poincaré (on whose train it was held), General Foch (commander, Army Group North) and the British Commander-in-Chief General Haig.

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Belated awareness of the significance of the building work along the base of the Noyon Salient, has also been given as a reason for a cautious pursuit deliberately chosen, rather than an inept and failed attempt to intercept the German retirement. In Cavalry Studies: Strategical and Tactical (1907), Haig had described the hasty retreat of a beaten enemy and an organised withdrawal by a formidable force, capable of rapidly returning to the attack, to defeat a disorganised pursuit. In the case of an organised withdrawal, Haig described a cautious follow up by advanced guards, in front of a main force moving periodically from defensive position to defensive position, always providing a firm base on which the advanced guards could retire. The conduct of the Anglo-French pursuit conformed to this model. General Franchet d'Espérey proposed a hasty offensive to Nivelle, which was rejected in favour of strengthening the main French front on the Aisne.

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In February 1916, the Western Frontier Force (Major-General William Peyton), was reinforced and a British column under Lukin advanced west along the coast, to re-capture Sollum in February and en route, a Senussi encampment at Agagiya was spotted by aircraft. On 26 February, the column attacked the Senussi at Agagiya and captured Jaafar Pasha, commander of the Senussi forces on the coast. As the Senussi retreated, they were cut off by a Dorset Yeomanry cavalry charge; the Yeomen lost half their horses and about a third of the riders but dispersed the column, caused about 500 casualties and took 39 prisoners, then captured the Senussi baggage train and pursued the survivors into the desert. Sollum was re-occupied by the British on 14 March 1916, which ended the coastal campaign.

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This suggestion was opposed by the French and Italian delegations and the British General Staff, at least covertly and was discarded. The new French Commander-in-Chief, Robert Nivelle, believed that a concentrated attack by French forces on the Western Front during the spring of 1917, could break the German front and lead to a decisive victory. The Nivelle plan was welcomed by the British, despite many in the Cabinet and War Office being sceptical, because a French attack would mean a lesser burden falling on the British. Haig was ordered to co-operate with Nivelle but secured French agreement that in the event the offensive failed, the British would attack in Flanders with French support. On 9 April, British and Empire forces undertook a preliminary attack at the Battle of Arras and the Nivelle Offensive began on 16 April. The French attack gained ground at great cost but no breakthrough leading to open warfare and the decisive defeat of the German army occurred, leading to Nivelle being replaced by Philippe Petain, a collapse in morale and mutinies in the French armies. While the French recuperated, offensive action on the Western Front could only come from the BEF. It was not until June 1917 that the principle of a Flanders campaign was approved by the British Cabinet and more grudgingly by the Prime Minister, against his preference for an Italian campaign. Haig ordered General Herbert Plumer, the commander of the Second Army which occupied the Ypres Salient, to produce a plan in late 1916. Haig was dissatisfied with the limited scope of Plumer's plan for the capture of Messines Ridge and Pilkem Ridge – the name used in military circles for the higher ground around the small hamlet of Pilckem (Pilkem), within the dorp (village) of Boesinghe (Flemish: Boezinge). By early 1917, Haig felt that Nivelle's ambitious attempt at a decisive battle would either force the Germans to abandon the Belgian coast or that the German 4th Army in Flanders, would have divisions taken away to replace losses further south.

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The attack was costly but inflicted great losses on five German divisions and pinned down troops reserved for reliefs of tired divisions on the Flanders front. The British strategy of forcing the German army to defend the Ypres salient, to protect the Belgian coast and submarine bases at Bruges, had succeeded. The French and Russian armies could make local attacks at Verdun and during the Kerensky Offensive but still needed time to recuperate and were vulnerable to large German attacks. The British offensive at Ypres drew German divisions away from the French and Russian armies and forced the Germans into a costly defence of Flanders. In Belgium, the Fifth Army (General Hubert Gough) had managed to advance little further towards Passchendaele since 31 July, due to the tenacity of the German defence and the unusually wet weather. Gough wanted to avoid delay in resuming the offensive, to prevent the Germans from recovering and to create the conditions for Operation Hush on the coast, which needed the high tides due at the end of August. Tactical developments In July 1917, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig began the Third Battle of Ypres, in an attempt to inflict unsustainable losses on the German army and to advance out of the Ypres Salient to capture the Belgian coast. At the Battle of Messines Ridge, the ridge had been captured down to the Oosttaverne line and a substantial success had been gained in the subsequent Battle of Pilckem Ridge from 31 July – 2 August. Ground conditions during the Battles of Ypres campaign were poor, as the surface had been bombarded, fought over and partially flooded, at times severely so. Shelling had destroyed drainage canals in the area and unseasonable heavy rain in August, turned some parts into morasses of mud and waterlogged shell-craters. Supply troops walked to the front on duck boards laid across the mud, often carrying loads of up to 99 lb (45 kg). It was possible for soldiers to slip off the path into the craters and drown. Trees were reduced to blasted trunks, the branches and leaves torn away. Bodies of men buried earlier were uncovered by the rain and shelling.

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General Sir Archibald Murray, the commander of the EEF, was keen to complete the advance across the north of the Sinai, to put pressure on the southern Ottoman Army. Believing an attack would compel Ottoman forces to abandon their desert bases and outposts on the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, he ordered an advance from El Arish to Rafa, a distance of 27 miles (43 km), to begin as soon as possible. On 28 December, Major General Harry Chauvel, commander of the ANZAC Mounted Division, ordered the 1st Light Horse Brigade to reconnoitre Bir el Burj, 12 miles (19 km) along the road from El Arish towards Rafa. The road was found to be suitable for cars and artillery, and a further reconnaissance by the same brigade two days later to Sheikh Zowaiid, 20 miles (32 km) from El Arish, reported rolling stretches of pasture, crops and poppies.

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In Britain, an Offensive sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence was appointed on 5 August and established a principle that command of the seas was to be ensured and that objectives were considered only if they could be attained with local forces and if the objective assisted the priority of maintaining British sea communications, as British army garrisons abroad were returned to Europe in an "Imperial Concentration". Attacks on German coaling stations and wireless stations were considered to be important to clear the seas of German commerce raiders. Objectives at Tsingtau in the Far East and Luderitz Bay, Windhoek, Duala and Dar-es-Salaam in Africa and a German wireless station in Togoland, next to the British colony of Gold Coast in the Gulf of Guinea, were considered vulnerable to attack by local or allied forces.

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French commander-in-chief Joseph Joffre ordered an attack through the Ardennes forest in support of the French invasion of Lorraine. According to the pre-war French war strategy document, Plan XVII, German forces in the area were only expected to be light, with French light, rapid-firing artillery proving advantageous in a wooded terrain such as that found in the Ardennes. By 20 August, however, it was becoming clear - first to General Charles Lanrezac's French Fifth Army, and then to Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre - that a massive German presence was gathering in the area. That same day the Germans launched a counter-attack against the French advance into Lorraine. Even so, Joffre ordered an invasion of the Ardennes on 20 August for the following day.

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General Haig was disparaging of the division's failure, telling Lieutenant General William Birdwood, the I Anzac Corps commander, "You're not fighting Bashi-Bazouks now." General Legge and the I Anzac staff resolved to do the job properly. To avoid the confusion of a night advance, the plan was to attack at 9:15 p.m. just before dark at which time the crest of the ridge and the mound of the Pozières windmill would still be discernible. However, to attack at dusk meant assembling by day which was only possible to do in the protection of trenches. Therefore, a system of approach and assembly trenches had to be dug at night.

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A new attack was planned against Thiepval for 2 July by the 32nd and 49th divisions of X Corps and the 48th Division of VIII Corps was cancelled and replaced by an attack by the 32nd Division, on the east end of the Leipzig Redoubt and the Wonderwork (Wundtwerk) on a front of 800 yards (730 m), by the 14th Brigade and the 75th Brigade attached from the 25th Division. Information about the changed plan reached X Corps late and only reached the 32nd Division commander at 10:45 p.m. along with an increase in the attack frontage to 1,400 yards (1,300 m) north to Thiepval Chateau. With most telephone lines cut the artillery were not told of the postponement, until half of the bombardment for the original 3:15 a.m. zero hour had been fired.

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Wallace suffered from an old wound and was relieved by Major-General William Peyton and the WFF was reinforced with the 1st South African Brigade (Brigadier-General H. T. Lukin) and a detachment of Egyptian engineers on 4 February. The WFF eventually received 2,000 camels, which made the force capable of advancing a greater distance and the ability to maintain itself in the desert. On 6 November 1915, U-35 sank HMS Tara, the coastguard gun-boat Abbas and badly damaged Nur el Bahr in the Bay of Sollum. On 14 November, the Senussi attacked Sollum and an Egyptian post was attacked 30 miles (48 km) east of Sollum on 20 November.

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The British line was held by posts about 30 yards (27 m) apart during the day and on 29 November a German raid on an outpost failed. At the end of December, a sudden increase in the number of German prisoners being taken was noticed, partly because a new German division had arrived, partly due to men getting lost in the fog and stumbling into British positions and partly because of an unusual willingness to surrender. Twenty Germans were captured on 1 January, 29 prisoners taken on 2 January and another 50 prisoners were taken during the week, many of whom willingly gave themselves up.

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Within days, Brigadier General William Bridges and his staff officer, Major Cyril Brudenell White, had completed plans for the creation of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). White proposed an expeditionary force of 18,000 men, including 12,000 Australians and 6,000 New Zealanders. Cook subsequently approved the proposal, although he increased the offer to 20,000 men to serve in any destination desired by the British government. On 6 August 1914, London cabled its acceptance of the force and asked that it be sent as soon as possible. Recruiting offices opened on 10 August and by the end of 1914, 52,561 volunteers had been accepted, despite strict physical fitness guidelines. Meanwhile, after an additional British request for assistance on 6 August 1914, the Australian government hurriedly prepared another expeditionary force to destroy the German wireless stations at Yap in the Caroline Islands, Nauru, and Rabaul in New Britain. As with the New Zealand military operation against German Samoa, which was completed in late August, the targets were strategically important wireless stations used by the German East Asiatic Squadron, under the command of Count Maximilian von Spee. The existence of the powerful German fleet—including the modern cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and SMS Gneisenau—in the Pacific at the outbreak of the war worried the British Admiralty and the Australian government, and the elimination of its radio network was a key priority. Although the location of the German fleet was unknown, it was suspected they may have been hiding in the excellent natural harbour at Rabaul. While the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force (AN&MEF) was being raised for this task, as a prelude to an amphibious landing on the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain, ships of the Australian Squadron conducted a reconnaissance of the area, subsequently entering Blanche Bay on 12 August, while several destroyers also entered Simpson Harbour. Landing parties went ashore to demolish the telephones in the post offices in Rabaul and at the German gubernatorial capital of Herbertshöhe (present-day Kokopo), located 20 miles (32 km) to the south-east. Enquiries were also made about the location of the radio station, although no information was forthcoming. After threatening to bombard the nearby settlements if the radio station continued to transmit, the Australian warships withdrew. The AN&MEF comprised one battalion of infantry of 1,000 men hurriedly enlisted in Sydney, plus 500 naval reservists and ex-sailors who would serve as infantry. The 1st Battalion, AN&MEF was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Russell Watson, while the naval reservists were formed into six companies under Commander Joseph Beresford.

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Late on 20 August General Karl von Bülow, the 2nd Army commander, who had tactical control over the 1st Army while north of the Sambre, held the view that an encounter with the British was unlikely and wished to concentrate on the French units reported between Charleroi and Namur, on the south bank of the Sambre; reconnaissance in the afternoon failed to reveal the strength or intentions of the French. The 2nd Army was ordered to reach a line from Binch, Fontaine-l'Eveque and the Sambre next day to assist the 3rd Army across the Meuse by advancing south of the Sambre on 23 August. The 1st Army was instructed to be ready to cover Brussels and Antwerp to the north and Maubeuge to the south-west. Kluck and the 1st Army staff expected to meet British troops, probably through Lille, which made a wheel to the south premature. Kluck wanted to advance to the south-west to maintain freedom of manuoeuvre and on 21 August, attempted to persuade Bülow to allow the 1st Army to continue its manoeuvre. Bülow refused and ordered the 1st Army to isolate Maubeuge and support the right flank of the 2nd Army, by advancing to a line from Lessines to Soignies, while the III and IV Reserve corps remained in the north, to protect the rear of the army from Belgian operations southwards from Antwerp.