The action of 22 October 1917 was an attack during the Third Battle of Ypres in the First World War by the British Fifth Army and the French First Army against the German 4th Army. British attacks had been repulsed at Passchendaele by the 4th Army at the Battle of Poelcappelle (9 October) and the First Battle of Passchendaele (12 October). While the British waited for another dry spell and the completion of plank roads up to the new front line, the Canadian Corps and fresh British divisions were transferred to Flanders by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF).
The Fifth Army planned an attack to capture the rest of Polecappelle and to close up to Houthulst Forest, while the French on the left attacked simultaneously. The plan was for the Fifth Army to provide a defensive flank for the Second Army and to keep pressure on the defenders. It was important to prevent the Germans from transferring troops from Flanders against the French during the Battle of La Malmaison on the Aisne (23–27 October) and to stop local redeployments before the Canadian attack towards Passchendaele, due on 26 October.
On 22 October, the 18th (Eastern) Division attacked the east end of Polecappelle, the 34th Division attacked further north, between the Watervlietbeek and Broenbeek streams and the 35th Division attacked northwards into Houthulst Forest, supported by an attack by the right-hand regiment of the French 1st Division. Poelcappelle was captured but the attack at the junction between the 34th and 35th divisions was repulsed and German counter-attacks pushed back the 35th Division in the centre. The French regiment captured its objectives and later sent parties to scout the southern edge of Houthoulst Forest and take crossings over the Corverbeek on the left flank.
Attacking on ground cut up by bombardments and soaked by rain, the British struggled to advance in places and lost the ability to move quickly to outflank pillboxes. Troops of the 35th Division reached the fringes of Houthulst Forest but were repulsed elsewhere. German counter-attacks after 22 October, at an equal disadvantage, resulted in equally costly failures. The 4th Army was prevented from transferring troops away from the Fifth Army and from concentrating its artillery-fire on the Canadians, as they prepared to begin the Second Battle of Passchendaele (26 October – 10 November 1917).
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Background.
Strategic developments.
At a meeting on 13 October, Haig and the army commanders agreed that no more attacks could be made until the rain stopped and roads had been built to move forward the artillery and make bombardments more effective. Haig wanted to continue the offensive until Passchendaele Ridge as far as Westroosebeek had been captured and to support the forthcoming French attack at La Malmaison, by keeping the Germans pinned down in Flanders. Haig also mentioned an attack by the Third Army (General Sir Julian Byng) at Cambrai, to take place before winter; Byng wanted operations to continue in Flanders to increase the chance of success in Artois. Despite the dreadful state of the ground in the Ypres Salient, the offensive was to continue.
Liaison, artillery and engineer staff officers and members of the BEF Operations Section flew over the battlefield to report on the state of the ground. The Fifth Army was to receive the 1st Division and the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division in time to attack on 22 October. XVIII Corps was to capture the rest of Poelcappelle; on the left of XVIII Corps, XIV Corps was to attack northwards into Houthulst Forest, to move the left flank of the Fifth Army onto higher ground in the southern fringe of the forest and to advance the line eastwards along the Vijfwegen Spur. The French First Army would guard the left flank of XIV Corps by attacking towards Houthulst Forest with two divisions. On the right flank of the Second Army, the I Anzac Corps and X Corps were to protect the right of the Canadian Corps with attacks down the Bassevillebeek and Gheluvelt spurs and towards Polderhoek Château, to force the Germans to spread their artillery-fire over a wider area.
British tactics, late 1917.
After the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge on 20 September, British attack planning had reached a stage of development where orders were reduced to a formula. On 7 November, the written Second Army operation order for attacks needed less than a page of text. Corps staffs devised details and more discretion was granted to divisional commanders than in 1915 and 1916. The tactical sophistication of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) had increased during the battle but the chronic difficulty of communication between front and rear during an attack could not be resolved. Due to the German system of pillbox defence and the impossibility of maintaining linear formations on ground full of flooded shell-craters, waves of infantry had been replaced by a thin line of skirmishers leading small columns. The rifle was re-established as the primary infantry weapon and Stokes mortar fire was added to creeping barrages. "Draw net" barrages were introduced, where before an attack, field guns began a barrage behind the German front line, moved the barrage towards the German front line and back again several times.
German defensive tactics.
Erich Ludendorff, the Quartermaster general () of the German armies, over-ruled Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, the commander of Army Group Rupprecht of Bavaria () and General Friedrich Sixt von Armin, the 4th Army commander, over the defensive tactics to be used after the disaster of the Battle of Broodseinde on 4 October. Ludendorff insisted on the establishment of an outpost line () in front of a (outpost area) deep, to be occupied by a few sentries and machine-guns. When the British attacked, the sentries were swiftly to retire from the to the main line of resistance () behind it and the artillery was quickly to bombard the . The tactic was expected to give rear battalions of the (ground holding divisions) and (specialist counter-attack divisions), time to get to the . If an immediate counter-attack () was not possible, a (methodical counter-attack) was to be conducted after a delay of 24–48 hours to make time to prepare the artillery, infantry and supporting aircraft.
A held a front to a depth of , half the area held in June, because of the difficulties caused by the weather, devastating British artillery-fire and German infantry casualties. For camouflage (the empty battlefield, ) shell-holes were occupied rather than trenches; battalions were relieved after two days and divisions every six days. Sixt von Armin wrote an order for the new tactics on 11 October. The Battle of Poelcappelle (9 October) showed that where British attacks were limited, a could repulse the attack unaided or regain positions, when reinforced by its division. Where attacks had succeeded, even a fresh and its division were incapable of re-capturing all of the lost ground. Sixt von Armin wrote that must not be left short of men and that divisions must be used sparingly. After an attack, the foremost troops were reduced to a remnant with no command system or depth of defence, which could only be remedied by relieving them with fresh units. Between battles, casualties from the incessant British artillery-fire and the high rate of sickness caused almost as much wastage; formations had to be relieved quicker.
The held sectors that were too wide for swift replacement, because of the tempo of British attacks; divisions had to be ready to swap places to enable frequent reliefs. A quicker rotation of divisions would limit the exhaustion of the infantry and make sure that the troops defending an area were familiar with the ground. The relief system could apply only to infantry and engineers because the artillery had been divided; two-thirds remained in emplacements and one third was kept mobile to support counter-attacks. Sixt von Armin ordered that the new tactics were to apply to in the north, in the centre and the right flank division of to the south. Divisional reliefs should be accomplished in one night; divisions were to keep a third of their troops close to the front and the rest in reserve, only to advance to the battlefront after a British attack had started. If the troops were needed, then at the minimum, the battalions engaged were to be relieved by fresh troops. The new defence system was to be explained in detail to the troops before they went into action. Sixt von Armin concluded with a warning that more troops were straggling to the rear and that a cordon should be used to prevent soldiers from moving beyond without written authority. Punishments were to be inflicted for abandoning posts and announced to the troops.
First Battle of Passschendaele.
On 12 October, the defensive effort of the 4th Army had been more effective than expected by the British, although the new tactic did not prevent the Germans from losing ground. The main attack on Passchendaele village had been another costly failure for the British and the ground from Broodseinde, northwards to Houthulst Forest, was strewn with their dead and wounded. The German divisions that fought on 9 October had not needed relief before the attack on 12 October and Fifth Army casualties from 9 to 14 October had been almost 10,000 men. Opposite Poelcappelle, the German 18th Division had managed to hold most of its ground, after committing all of its reserves.
The 4th Army HQ considered that the Allied advance in the north to be less dangerous than that towards , the defensive position between Passchendaele and Drogenbroodhoek but a fresh division was moved to the area from Westrozebeke. Ludendorff changed his mind about holding Passchendaele Ridge, believing that the British had only fourteen days before the autumn weather ended the battle and ordered Rupprecht to stand fast. At a conference on 18 October, Sixt von Armin and his chief of staff, Colonel Fritz von Loßberg preferred to hold the remaining defences of and , rather than retire to .
Prelude.
German defensive preparations.
On the nights of 14/15, 16/17, 18/19 and 19/20 October, the Germans conducted gas bombardments on the Hanebeek, Zonnebeke and Steenbeek valleys. Blue Cross gas (sneezing gas, diphenyl chloroarsine) shells were fired to make men take off their gas masks, making them vulnerable to the following Yellow Cross shells (mustard gas, dichloroethyl sulphide) which caused blisters, throat and eye injuries. There were few Allied fatalities but thousands of infantry, gunners and men in working parties were contaminated by the mustard gas and needed medical treatment. Opposite XIV Corps, was (Group Staden, a corps headquarters) which administered the defence of the area and commanded the divisions holding it, which were moved into the area for a time and were then relieved by fresh divisions. In mid-October, the divisions in comprised the 58th Division, recently arrived from the Eastern Front, parts of the 3rd Division from (Admiral Ludwig von Schröder) and the 26th Reserve Division. Units of the 58th Division had begun to move up through Houthulst Forest to bolster the 119th Division on 13 October, under frequent British and French artillery and gas bombardment. On 20 October, the Allied preparatory bombardment shifted to the German support lines and two soldiers, trapped in an overturned pillbox since 15 October, were rescued. Next day, German artillery bombarded the front of to disrupt the massing of French and British troops for another attack.
British offensive preparations.
The weather improved in mid-October, rainfall diminishing to an average of 1.4 mm per day, which prevented the dreadful condition of the ground from deteriorating further. German artillery bombardments increased on plank roads and other attack preparations, which were easily visible from Passchendaele Ridge. From 14 October, the Germans bombarded the Steenbeek Valley almost nightly with gas shell and during the night German aircraft bombed targets behind Allied lines. Further back, British artillery positions and infantry bivouacs were covered in mustard oil and had to be quarantined. Despite the nightly gas bombardments and frequent day bombardments, new roads and artillery emplacements were built on time and from 21 October, British artillery began wire-cutting and destructive bombardments on German pillboxes and blockhouses. Daily preparatory barrages were fired deeper into the German defences.
XVIII Corps.
After the First Battle of Passchendaele (12 October) no man's land ran through the middle of Poelcappelle, where a few stones were still standing. From the west, the Langemarck road had almost disappeared and intelligence