The Third Battle of Ypres: The History of the Largest Battle in Flanders during World War I

With the exception of a few hours on Christmas Day 1914, the shelling, sniping, raids, and bloodshed at Ypres in Belgium never ceased from the moment of first contact between the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the Imperial German army. The Ypres salient had formed the previous year during the “race to the sea,” when the opposing armies tried and failed to outflank each other in a series of maneuvers and counter-maneuvers.

The Ypres salient bulged a few miles forward into Belgium, representing the only part of that nation the Germans had not occupied. Held by a mix of British, French, Canadian, Belgian, and colonial troops, this thorn in the Germans’ side had held off massive but clumsily handled attacks by barely-trained German volunteers and conscripts in late 1914 at the First Battle of Ypres. Each side had attempted to launch a major offensive through Ypres at the same time, leading to a blood-soaked encounter battle that, after weeks of futile butchery amid the small farms, hedgerows, canals, and tracts of woodland, devolved into a grim stalemate. Lines of trenches faced each other and sniping, artillery bombardment, and small actions led to an ongoing stream of casualties to the rear and corpses into the new soldiers’ graveyards established conveniently close to the front lines.

The heaviest fighting in the vicinity took place in 1917 during the Third Battle of Ypres, a linked series of battles on the Western Front that took place from July-November of that year. It is still remembered as one of the most notorious battles in British history. British troops, who called this series of battles Passchendaele after the small Belgian village that formed the final objective, continued to use the same tactics that had been employed since early 1915 as they were ordered into frontal attacks on prepared German trenches protected by artillery, barbed wire, bunkers, and machine gun positions.

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