THE GERMAN TROOPS ASLEEP IN A TRENCH, WINTER " THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES"

 German troops asleep in a trench, winter 1916.

The following is excerpts of Danish-German soldier Christian Hach's memoir, reporting on his experiences in the Third Battle of Ypres in October 1917. Translated by myself:⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

"Following some time in quiet sectors, we were designated a so-called flying division, and were deployed in different sectors, where there was danger of a collapse. We were at St. Quentin, by the Aisne, in Champagne and by Reims, before we were transported to the mud and slush of Flanders on October 12, 1917, where hard and bloody battles were being fought.

We relieved a Jäger Regiment which had sustained high losses, and many dead lay about, but there was no possibility of removing them from the open terrain at that time. There were no trenches here, so we had to dig down into shell craters or seek shelter in the "rabbit holes", but first and foremost keep our composure, so the planes wouldn't spot us.

Here we sat all day and froze miserably, although we were handed rum to help the blood circulation. We thought we would contract a lung infection, but by now we were so wretched that we didn't even catch a cold.

We were spared from attacking at first and spent some days resting in the backline, but eventually we had to go up again to halt the English attack. On the way to the front I slipped in the mud and fell with the whole load on the back, down into a deep shell-hole.

I was so unlucky in the fall - or should we say lucky - that I aqquired a significant sprain of my left ankle, so I had to immediately be transported to the hospital, where I spent 5 days in bed.

In that time period, our Company was involved in tough battles and suffered heavy losses, but I wasn't among them, I was out of danger and cozy in the hospital."

Related Article 

WW1 - A Canadian Tommy soldier covered in mud returning from the front lines, [ca. 1918]


(Unknown photographer. Canadian Expeditionary Force albums. Black and white print Reference Code: C 224-0-0-9-23. Archives of Ontario, I0004782)

By the time the Canadian Corps was deployed to Passchendaele in October 1917, the battle had been raging for months. The wet weather had broken by the time the Canadians arrived, but the battlefield was still a mess of water-filled shell holes, mud, and decaying bodies. The Canadians relieved ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps)) troops and were ordered to take Passchendaele Ridge.

The Canadian Corps, joined by ANZAC troops in the south and British troops in the north, attacked on October 26, 1917. Following a creeping barrage, and using the lessons learned in the last six months of fighting, Allied troops made good progress to their objectives. Over the next two weeks, Canadian troops and their Commonwealth allies “leapfrogged” past objective after objective, eventually taking Passchendaele Ridge.

The cost was enormous. In the two weeks the Canadians spent taking the ridge they had lost nearly 16,000 men dead, wounded, or sick.  Many of these men were lost in the mud and never seen again. After the fighting wrapped up, the Canadians returned to the lines around Lens for the winter.The mud at Passchendaele slowed all movement to a crawl, and left advancing troops exposed to enemy fire for longer periods of time during attacks.

The word “Passchendaele” is remembered as the battle that embodies all of the horror, despair, and misery of trench warfare in the First World War.

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