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Third Battle of Ypres

This was a campaign fought between July and November 1917 and is often referred to as the Battle of Passchendaele, a village to the north-east of Ypres which was finally captured in November. It was an attempt by the British to break out of the Ypres salient and capture the higher ground to the south and the east from which the enemy had been able to dominate the salient. It began well but two important factors weighed against them. First was the weather. The summer of 1917 turned out to be one of the the wettest on record and soon the battlefield was reduced to a morass of mud which made progress very difficult, if not impossible in places. The second was the defensive arrangements of concrete blockhouses and machine gun posts providing inter-locking fire that the Germans had constructed and which were extremely difficult and costly to counter. For 4 months this epic struggle continued by the end of which the salient had been greatly expanded in size but the vital break out had not been achieved.

The Battle of Broodseinde - 4th October, 1917

After the disappointing opening battles of the last day of July and the middle of August, when very little had been gained but at great cost in casualties, a new approach was adopted for the next offensives against the Gheluvelt plateau which began on 20th September with the Battle of the Menin Road, was continued on 26th September, when the Battle of Polygon Wood commenced, and was concluded on 4th October with the Battle of Broodseinde. The task was handed over to General Plumer, commander of the Second Army, a more cautious leader who, rather than try to drive as deep as possible into the German line, was an advocate of 'bite and hold' tactics with limited advances of no more than 1,500 yards, based on overwhelming firepower and exhaustive preparation. These new tactics, which were significantly aided by a period of warm, dry weather, worked well and September and early October saw a decisive phase of Third Ypres in which the British gained the upper hand. At the same time that Plumer’s Second Army were hammering away at the German defences on the Gheluvelt plateau, Fifth Army also attacked in the northern part of the Ypres salient and they too made gains. Both sides were planning an attack on 4th October and  when the British bombardment began, it caught a number of German units out in the open preparing for their own attack. Zero hour was either 5.25am or 6am and at that time, Australian, New Zealand and British divisions moved into action behind a creeping artillery barrage.  As at Menin Road Ridge and Polygon Wood, the British attack achieved its main objectives and then halted to dig in. The Germans lost heavily on 4th October and the battle was recorded as a “black day” in the official German history of war.

On 4th October, 1917, 5th Division attacked north of the Menin road with 95 Brigade on the left of the divisional front and 13 Brigade on the right. 95 Brigade had 1st Cornwall Light Infantry and 1st Devonshire in front with 1st East Surrey in support. 1st Cornwall Light Infantry immediately came under fire from a small wood called Cameron Covert and from scattered pill boxes, all of which checked their advance. The appearance of three tanks and some fierce hand to hand fighting eventually drove the enemy out of Cameron Copse and the advance continued to Juniper Hill on the Polderhoek Spur, their final objective. Concentrated machine-gun fire and a number of German counter attacks made their hold on this position untenable so they side-stepped to the left and made contact with 21st Division to the north of the Reutel road. The success of this operation had to be offset against the casualty list, which was long and included Arthur Stuart of 1st Cornwall Light Infantry.