© L’illustration
Le Jour J
At 03.50 hours the artillery opened fire all along the front. About 04.30 hours the French 1st and 51st Infantry Divisions crossed the Yser Canal using fifty pontoon bridges. Since 28 July, several bridgeheads had been established on the German bank for the purpose.
The artillery and the infantry were closely coordinated, the men advancing behind a wall of fire and steel. Expecting a massed attack, the Germans had largely abandoned the front line along the canal, which therefore fell relatively quickly. Then 1,000 metres of no man’s land had to be crossed to reach the Albrecht Stellung.
No man’s land was scattered with pillboxes that were fired upon by heavy artillery as accurately as possible. Under thick cover of 75 mm shells and French fighter aircraft skimming low, by noon a 600-metre deep bridgehead from Steenstraat to Smiske Cabaret had been established and the village of Bikschote had been taken.
The French sustained some 1,300 casualties, including more than 200 killed.
© Ministère de la Culture
© Passchendaele Museum
© Bundesarchiv Bild 102-10867All Quiet on the Western Front.
In the afternoon a German counterattack out of Houthulst Forest by the 2nd Guards Reserve Division was spotted by French aircraft. The 15th, 77th and 91st Reserve Infantry Regiments were fired on by French artillery. A prisoner of war of the 15th RIR said that only 50 of the 130 men in his company had reached Bikschote.
One of the casualties of this attack was the young Erich Maria Remarque, of the 15th Reserve Infantry Regiment, who was wounded by shell fragments. A decade later he would pour his wartime experiences into the world-famous novel All Quiet on the Western Front.
Erich Maria Remarque
Erich Maria Remarque
‘Im Westen nichts neues’: ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ is one of the most famous novels about the First World War. Erich Maria Remarque, then still known as Erich Paul Remark, enlisted in the German army at the age of eighteen. He fought with the Reserve-Infanterie-Regiment Nr. 15 around Houthulst and Kortemark. During a counterattack on French positions at Bikschote on 31 July 1917, the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele, he was wounded by shell fragments.
By writing ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, Erich got his war experiences out of his system. He concentrated mainly on the daily lives of the men in the trenches. He described the physical and mental impact on the troops of the horrors of war, but also how it complicated their return to civilian life after the war ended. Rather than writing heroic stories, he described the tough conditions of life at the front, the continual threat of shelling, the search for food and the lack of training for recruits.
© Ministère de la Culture16 August
Immediately after the opening attack, dark clouds gathered above the flat Flemish plain. Rain showers shrouded the horizon and the Germans took advantage of the declining visibility to relieve their troops.
Action by the French artillery increased as 16 August came closer. Once again, scattered logistical targets were shelled, after which the gunfire was increasingly concentrated on positions in Houthulst Forest. The attack followed the same pattern. Three successive waves were intended to overwhelm German positions. At 04.45 hours the French troops advanced. The 2nd Division, along with the British 29th Division, crossed the Steenbeek between Bikschote and Langemark at Wijdendrift. In the centre the 162nd Division moved forward from Bikschote to Sint-Janshoek on the Sint-Jansbeek. To the left the battalion of Fusiliers Marins (naval infantry) of the 51st Division was deployed to clear the Poesele peninsula and the water fort at Drie Grachten.
Once again, combined action by artillery, infantry and aviation reaped rewards. At the cost of some 130 dead, the Martjesvaart – Sint-Jansbeek – Broenbeek waterline was reached. The French artillery repeatedly proved more effective than the German. The French dug in at depth, with only minimal occupation of the forward line.
© Passchendaele Museum
© Ministère de la CulturePause
For the French, things mostly went to plan. The officers in Rexpoëde were especially pleased by the precision and resolve of the artillery. Their British allies in the spearhead of the offensive encountered rather more problems, however. The heavily shelled field of operations, in combination with an overcast summer and flexible German resistance, caused the offensive to stagnate. The Wilhelm Stellung and the strategic heights at Geluveld, which served as a base for German shelling, had not yet been taken. A first pause was introduced.
The French troops enjoyed a well-earned rest back behind the lines. An outing was even organized to the beach at Malo-les-Bains near Dunkirk. In the meantime the front was manned mainly by the 29th Division, which would not be deployed in the offensive. The fact that this pause was not a calm period is demonstrated by their losses. Between 17 August and 8 October, almost 600 French troops were killed here.
The optimism of that summer received its first major blow in September. On 11 September Georges Guynemer, pilot and icon of French propaganda, was shot down over Poelkapelle. For the French his death was a dark portent of what was to come.
© IWM Q 2987October 1917
While the French held their line, Haig’s troops advanced again. On 26 September, Zonnebeke fell. By 4 October the Australians were on the heights at Broodseinde and the New Zealanders at 's Gravenstafel. On the French right flank the British reached the ruins of Poelkapelle. Now that their flank had at last been secured, the French could attack again, after fifty days.
Their objective was to sever the connection between Houthulst Forest and the Blankaart. To safeguard the right flank, in a first phase the French 2nd Division had to cross the Broenbeek on 9 October in collaboration with the British and take a slope on the southern edge of the forest near Vijfwegen and Veldhoek. The men were fresh and well equipped, but nevertheless put to the test. It rained nonstop and as a result of the continual shelling, the roads and terrain were in a dreadful state. Reinforcements and supplies got stuck in the mud. The little stream called the Broenbeek had been transformed into a 100-metre-wide pool and the surroundings had degenerated into a pockmarked landscape covered in craters full of dark-brown stinking slime. Despite the terrible conditions, the modest predetermined goals were reached with the help of well-targeted artillery support.
In the British sector, out towards Poelkapelle and Passchendaele, the attacks proved disastrous.
© Passchendaele Museum
© Ministère de la Cultureswan song
A renewed attempt on 12 October had a similar outcome. The approaching Franco-British attack planned for 15 October was postponed. In contrast to the response of the British high command, in Rexpoëde it gradually sank in that a breakthrough was no longer possible. Questions were asked about what to do with the recently conquered, heavily shelled terrain, which seemed almost impossible to develop and expand.
"The operations ought to be considered terminated for the 1917 campaign. [...] It is obvious that the marshal [Haig] will still not accept the idea of a definitive halt."
But there was also no way Pétain would give up. He had allied himself with Haig and as long as the British commander in chief wanted to throw his troops at the German positions, the French would advance alongside them.
© Ministère de la CultureOnce more unto the breach
After the French 2nd Division had been relieved, on 22 October the 1st Division improved its positions on the southern edge of Houthulst Forest.
© Passchendaele MuseumOn 26 October the offensive resumed. Canadian troops had replaced the exhausted Australians and New Zealanders in the spearhead towards Passchendaele, while the British attacked on their flanks at Poelkapelle and Geluveld. The French also advanced again along the Iepersteenweg towards the Blankaart.
Even before the attack under cover of darkness and artillery fire, the French columns crossed the Sint-Jansbeek and the Corverbeek, which they had bridged. It was almost impossible to find solid ground on the banks of the watercourses. Waddling through the mud, cursing quietly between their teeth, the units reached their positions in time for the attack at first light. The French soldiers looked with horror at the landscape before them. The destruction was total and the land bore no resemblance at all to the charming Flemish countryside of June 1917. It was as if a tidal wave had wiped away every form of life and uprooted trees and bushes, leaving only dead, stagnant pools in a sea of dark-brown mud, out of which the occasional concrete structure seemed to be surfacing.
© Passchendaele Museum
© Ministère de la CultureTo move mountains
These concrete shelters, the last sign of German defence before Houthulst Forest, played havoc with the troops. On the right flank, fierce resistance was put up. There was corresponding hostility elsewhere, but despite the resistance, the advance seemed unstoppable. The infantry was once again well supported by the artillery and aircrews, and able to benefit from good visibility.
At the centre, along the Iepersteenweg, Ferme Aschhoop, which stood between Kippe and Houthulst Forest, caused a delay. The position was not taken until the next day, by the French 133rd Infantry Division. On 27 October, the 102nd Battalion of Alpine Hunters raised the tricolour over the miserable remains of Merkem. The French had brought in mountain infantry to take one of the flattest parts of Flanders.
To the left the marine riflemen of the 51st Division, in collaboration with the 133rd Division, took Ferme des Aviateurs and Ferme du Gyroscope near Kippe. Luigem was captured in the afternoon of 27 October by the 51st Division, which to the north of Luigem was in contact with the Belgian 6th Army Division that had crossed at Drie Grachten to secure the French flank and clear the area between the Ieperlee and the Blankaart. 285 Frenchmen lost their lives on 26 and 27 October 1917.
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![Incendie dune maison par des incendiaires]()
© Ministère de la CultureFrench soldiers in front of a massive German bunker, 1917. -
![Ancien fortin allemand pres de la Ferme Mazeppa]()
© Ministère de la CultureFrench soldiers at a fallen German position, 1917.
© Ministère de la Culture
© Ministère de la CultureConclusion
On 27 October the last pockets of resistance were cleaned out, but the French would not advance any further. The 1st Army stayed for another few weeks in Flanders. Between 25 June 1917 and 5 January 1918, when the last French troops left, more than 3,200 Frenchmen died in Belgium, roughly the same number as New Zealand lost in the same period.
Houthulst Forest, the German bastion and logistical hub between Diksmuide and Passchendaele, remained out of reach. The British and French were able to establish positions only at the outer periphery of the forest. Although Kippe had been taken, the Steenbeek had not been reached and the link between the forest and the Blankaart remained intact. The ultimate objective of the offensive in the north, to capture or cut off Houthulst Forest, was not achieved.