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00:00This is the city of Ypres in western Belgium. It's peaceful here now, but during the four
00:09years of the Great War, it was very different. By the summer of 1917, the names of Flanders
00:16and Ypres were known to the people of Britain and her empire as places of unrelenting misery
00:21and horror. Thousands of Allied soldiers perished here in a succession of costly battles that
00:27achieved very little, but there was more to come. Before the year ended, there would
00:32be yet another battle, one whose name is remembered more than any other from that terrible time.
00:39Passchendaele.
00:57By the summer of 1917, Ypres had been devastated by three years of total war. During that time,
01:14the city had figured prominently in some of the Great War's most critical events. In the
01:19first few months of the war, during the late autumn of 1914, this medieval stronghold had
01:25been subjected to a sustained attack by the advancing Germans. It was destined to undergo
01:31systematic destruction if the fight for control of the Ypres area would last for the duration
01:37of the war. By December 1914, the place had already acquired an evil reputation.
01:48Rising only slightly above this destruction on the slopes of a ridge stood a few villages whose
01:54capture seemed to elude the best efforts of the British. Their names were destined for immortality
02:00in the Great War's list of murderous places, Hooge, Ghelleveld and Sonnebeek. But the most
02:08significant, occupying the highest part of the ridge, was the village of Passchendaele.
02:13This place has exerted a fascination upon succeeding generations, not just for the
02:20desperate battle which ground to a halt here in November 1917, but also because of its unusual
02:25and poetic English pronunciation, Passchendaele. As the many memorials to the sacrifice here suggest,
02:32nothing could have been further from the reality of battle in 1917. Following the opening bloody
02:38encounters to the east of Ypres in 1914, the trench lines and no-man's-land had become firmly
02:44established. Britain declared war on August the 4th when the Germans invaded Belgium. Their
02:52strategy, known as the Von Schlieffen Plan, was to push on rapidly in a wheeling right hook to
02:58seize Paris. They also intended to capture the channel ports for use as U-boat bases. The Germans
03:06had almost reached the coast by the time British troops were landed, the two sides finally clashing
03:11in Flanders at Ypres, where they remained locked in combat for the rest of the war. In the first
03:17month of war, the British regulars had already fought several major engagements in northern
03:21France. Before 1914, the British army's main role had been to police the Empire. The expeditionary
03:28force, which was sent to Belgium, numbered only a hundred thousand men, but they were highly trained
03:33and motivated. But now, like their generals, they were faced with something quite different. The
03:40massed force of the German army, capable of fielding four million troops. Ranged against
03:46the Germans was a combined force, the British, the tiny Belgian army, and four and a half million
03:52French. As the Germans probed westwards, the first skirmishes in the Ypres sector began on the 16th
03:59of October near the village of Westrust Beak, five miles northeast of Ypres. Here, British
04:04household cavalry units drew their first blood and sustained their first casualties. On the
04:1019th of October 1914, the First Battle of Ypres began. The following day, the nearby village of
04:15Pôle Capel fell to the Germans. On the 22nd, near the village of Langermark, there was a particularly
04:21bloody encounter. Across these open fields, massed ranks of youthful German volunteers, most of them
04:27students, marched singing towards the perplexed British troops, who opened fire with devastating
04:32effect. Their slaughters remembered here in the German war cemetery at Langermark. It bears
04:37testimony to the deadly accuracy of the British regulars, who in one minute could loose off more
04:42than 23 rounds of aimed rifle fire. The German stranglehold was now closing around Ypres. The
04:50front line was established along a string of villages, Langermark, Zonnebeek, Gheluvelt,
04:55Hollebeek, Vichart, and Messines. The shape of the front had a distinct bulge. It became known
05:03as the salient, a term used to describe any deviation from the otherwise straight trench
05:08lines. On the 31st of October, the Germans attacked across a wide front east of Ypres,
05:15breaking through the British lines at Gheluvelt. There in the grounds of the chateau, they were
05:20held by the 2nd Worcesters, who drove them back with a spirited bayonet charge and accurate
05:25rifle fire. Thanks to their prompt action, the German advance was temporarily halted.
05:33In the next few days, the Germans captured the villages of Hollebeek, Vichart, and Messines to
05:39complete their dominance of the higher ground. This, despite a heroic stance by the London
05:44Scottish on Messines Ridge, when they lost 321 out of 750 men. By the middle of November,
05:52the fighting was losing impetus. Deteriorating weather conditions and exhaustion among the
05:57troops meant they had to dig in, establishing trench lines that would remain for the rest of
06:02the war. Those last four hectic months of 1914 had witnessed the near annihilation of Britain's
06:08expeditionary force. The British regulars had earned the scorn of the Kaiser, who called them
06:13that contemptible little army. Thereafter, the survivors prided themselves in being known as
06:18the Old Contemptibles. In contrast to this, the German General von Molke praised them as a perfect
06:25thing apart, their sacrifice eventually enabling the British to secure Ypres and the routes to the
06:30Channel ports. In the meantime, the Territorials had to take the strain while Kitchener's new army
06:36was being trained. The end of the year also brought snow and the first Christmas in the
06:41trenches. For the opposing soldiers, it also brought a brief respite from war. On Christmas
06:49Day, a series of spontaneous truces broke out, bringing the two sides face to face. Here, near
06:55the village of Messines and at other places along the line, parties of Germans and British
07:00met in no man's land in what was a remarkable snub to the policy of offensive at all costs.
07:06British high command ensured that any such spontaneous acts of friendship should not be
07:14allowed to happen again. With the new year came a terrible new weapon, changing the character of
07:25modern warfare forever. The first German chlorine gas attack was made here near the village of
07:31Langemarck on the 22nd of April 1915. The attack heralded the start of the Second Battle of Ypres,
07:38which raged throughout the rest of April till the 24th of May. Chlorine gas kills by flooding the
07:45lungs with choking fluid. Many thousands of men would die from its effects in the next few years.
07:51It blinded and disabled hundreds more who had little or no protection against the fumes. The
07:57impact was devastating. The only advice they'd been given was to urinate on their socks and cover
08:02their nose and mouth. This proved almost totally ineffective. On April the 22nd, the trenches in
08:08front of the deadly cloud were occupied by French colonial troops who broke and ran,
08:12leaving a five-mile gap in the Allied line. British and Canadian troops were rushed in
08:18to check the German advance. This memorial is a stark reminder of that first gas attack. It was
08:24a watershed in the history of warfare. Any pretense of chivalry had now gone. Within the space of six
08:33months, two epic defensive battles had been fought by Allied armies east of Ypres. Soldiers posted
08:39here approached the place with a sense of dread. Such was its reputation. The effects of battle
08:45were ever-present. Shelling and the constant rattle of machine guns meant it was never still.
08:51Over a period of a few months, this once-proud city was reduced to a shattered ruin by the
08:57constant German bombardment. It was known that they could drop a shell with pinpoint accuracy
09:02when and where they pleased. Few men could withstand the strain of frontline conditions
09:08for very long, and it became vital to rotate units within each division and brigade in and
09:13out of the line as quickly as possible. To add to the general discomfort, mud was a major problem
09:19in the salient. When it rained, conditions underfoot became almost impossible. The delicate
09:25drainage system on the Flanders plain had taken generations to construct, but the constant
09:31shelling destroyed it in just a few weeks. At Ypres, artillery was king of the battlefield,
09:37the gunners of both sides constantly probing for each other with counter-battery fire.
09:43The legacy of the gunners was everywhere. An endless stream of casualties was pumped back
09:48from the front, causing cemeteries to grow with a predictable regularity. During 1916,
09:55there was little respite as the steady attrition which characterized death in the salient drained
10:00the army of thousands of its finest troops. In July that year, the Battle of the Somme began in
10:05France. There too, the killing was relentless. Haig had long been convinced that the war could
10:11only be won by defeating Germany on the Western Front. In April 1917, the French had failed
10:17disastrously south of Ypres and were now in desperate need of support. To add to the Allies'
10:23problems, the menace of U-boats were now a major threat as they spread even further into the
10:27Atlantic and the Mediterranean in search of targets. The total tonnage sunk was growing
10:33alarmingly with every passing month. To counter this and help the French, Haig planned a major
10:39offensive from the Ypres salient which would draw the Germans into a battle to protect their
10:43supply routes and their submarine bases at Ostend and Zeebrugge. There were also growing concerns
10:51about the French army's ability to carry on in the face of ever-mounting casualties.
10:57As on the Somme, the British army's willingness to support her entente partner
11:01would be tested to the very limit for soldiers' endurance.
11:09The villages of Messines and Vichart lie on top of a ridge at the southern end of the Ypres salient.
11:14During the first few weeks of the war, they had fallen to the rapidly advancing Germans
11:19and had remained in their hands. This area saw much bitter fighting in the first four months
11:25of the war as the towns and villages were pulverized. The whole landscape was obliterated
11:31by the ever-increasing volume of artillery fire.
11:34Among the many thousands of German troops defending the ridge was a young soldier who
11:39was destined to survive the carnage. Adolf Hitler had been recruited into the 16th Bavarian Reserve
11:45Infantry Regiment when war was declared in 1914. He'd arrived on the salient in October
11:51and saw action at Besler and Gheluvelt before being posted to the Messines-Vichart sector.
11:57Cronart Wood lies just north of Vichart and was part of the line frequented by Hitler.
12:03The interior remains in a remarkable state of preservation. It was among these mine workings
12:09and blockhouses that he fought the British in November 1914. His men were trained in the
12:15art of gunfighting and were trained in the art of gunfighting.
12:19The art of gunfighting was the only art of gunfighting in the world.
12:23He fought the British in November 1914. His bravery in action had earned him the Iron Cross
12:29and a reputation for luck. Soon after leaving one of these dugouts, he narrowly avoided death
12:35when it was struck by a British shell, killing or wounding everyone inside.
12:42As the fighting became more centered on Messines and Vichart, Hitler was promoted to the rank of
12:46corporal and given the job of dispatch runner, taking messages back along the trenches from
12:51the front line to the regimental command headquarters at Messines Church.
12:56In the first year of the war, the church exterior was systematically destroyed,
13:01the crypt providing shelter as an emergency casualty clearing station.
13:05It's most probable that Hitler took shelter here as the guns reduced the village to a featureless
13:10wasteland of rubble. In 1916, Hitler was transferred to the Somme front where he was wounded in the thigh.
13:18In 1918, he was again awarded the Iron Cross First Class. His citation read,
13:24for personal cold-blooded bravery and a continuous readiness to sacrifice himself.
13:31It is a tragic irony that of the countless thousands who died in the salient,
13:35Hitler should survive his wounds.
13:39The course of the 20th century might have been very different had any one of them proved fatal.
13:48General Herbert Plumer was given charge of the British attack on Messines.
13:52Known as Daddy Plumer, he was a favorite with the men. This was due to his concern for saving
13:57lives and making sure that each assault was meticulously planned. Plumer's plans for the
14:03Messines attack had been started as far back as 1915. Along the Messines-Vichart ridge,
14:09he'd ordered the sinking of 24 deep mineshafts. They stretched for 13 miles under the German lines.
14:17The plan was to burrow underneath the German positions and hollow out a large chamber,
14:27which was then packed with up to 100 tons of high explosive.
14:31They would be detonated just before a major attack was planned to begin.
14:37In 1916, the priority was to maintain the secrecy of the mining operations
14:42while making sure that the explosives would be in place for the as yet to be determined
14:46date of attack. Haig knew that any attempt to break out towards the channel ports would
14:52first mean recapturing the high ground of the Messines-Passchendaele ridge.
14:57But before Passchendaele could be taken, Messines had to fall. This was vital so that troops fighting
15:04their way up the Passchendaele ridge could do so free from enemy observation and artillery fire.
15:11Underground, the miners were still relentlessly inching their way towards the German lines.
15:17To keep pace with this mammoth effort, civilian miners were hurriedly drafted into the army.
15:22They soon found themselves at the front.
15:25We never did any drill. They were in too big a hurry to get us there.
15:30They say there was miners from all parts of the country, and they were drafting them into Chatham
15:34Royal Engineers Depot, and this was really something new. They were Irish tunnelists
15:39from the London underground. There were Scottish miners, Welsh miners, Northumberland, Durham,
15:44Yorkshire, every part of the mining field of this country, and they were all drafted in together.
15:50Within a week of enlisting, I was in the front line, right in the Ypres salient.
15:56Meanwhile, the French were in trouble. Following a series of crushing defeats,
16:00the army's morale was badly shaken. Acts of collective indiscipline or more plainly mutiny
16:05were causing havoc among the disillusioned troops. It soon became clear that any French
16:11cooperation in the attempt to break out from Ypres would be limited. Field Marshal Haig was
16:17convinced that the need for offensive action was vital if pressure was to be kept on the German
16:21army. The decision had finally been taken to launch the attack on the Messines Ridge in the
16:27early hours of June 7th, 1917. Underground, the finishing touches were being applied to the lines
16:33of mines in front of the ridge. It was hazardous work. It was known the enemy miners were also at
16:42work, and occasionally work was suspended while attempts were made to locate them using geophones.
16:48They could occasionally be heard without such instruments. One morning, at dawn, the enemy put
16:53down a barrage over the area where he suspected the shaft to be, and hardly had the men at the
16:58top of the shaft got down to the dugout when a camouflage was fired causing a minor earthquake.
17:04This was not a charge intended to blow to the surface, but to wreck the British gallery,
17:08and hopefully trap their miners, and leave the Germans in a position to resume their own operations.
17:14Of the 24 mines sunk, only 19 were to be fired. The workings of Petit Duvet Farm had been discovered
17:21by the Germans and flooded. Another four at the extreme south of the line would not be fired as
17:26they were now outside the revised front of attack. On the 7th of June, the battle for the capture of
17:33Messines Ridge was finally engaged. It was preceded by the biggest artillery barrage of the war to
17:39date. Three and a half million shells were loosed off at the German trenches, then at 3.10am, 19
17:45mines were blown. The time was exactly ten minutes past three when I gazed ahead, to witness the
17:52tremendous upheaval. A sheet of flame shot aloft to an immense height. A monstrous curtain of crimson,
17:58drawn up suddenly along the whole crest, and crowned with foaming black smoke.
18:04To our dazzled eyes, it seemed to hang thus for several seconds, while our trench rocked with a
18:09reaction. The arrows on this aerial photograph point out British troops skirting a mine crater
18:15as they pursue the stupefied Germans. They pushed ahead as quickly as possible to take advantage of
18:21the German panic. Many of the craters caused by the devastating explosions are still visible today,
18:28evidence of the awesome power unleashed. Most are now filled with water, or ringed by a protective
18:35curtain of trees. When the mines went up, they took an estimated 10,000 Germans with them.
18:41Most were simply vaporized as the huge fountains of earth rose more than 200 feet in the air.
18:49The mine at Spanbrook Molen was one of the biggest to be detonated.
18:53The tunnel began here at this farmhouse, some 1,000 yards from the crater.
18:58It was, however, detonated some 15 seconds late, by which time the Ulstermen of the 36th Division
19:05had already gone over the top. Some were caught and crushed by falling debris.
19:12100,000 troops advanced towards the remains of the Messines Ridge, supported by 72 of the latest
19:18Mark IV tanks. The circles on this aerial photograph show two tanks which became stranded
19:24amongst the morass of shell holes. General Plumer had perfected the tactic of the creeping barrage,
19:31the idea being that the attacking troops stayed as close as possible behind a moving curtain
19:36of high explosive. It proved effective, as the Australian 3rd Division attacked across
19:44the river Duve, which was actually little more than a stream. They advanced up this gentle slope
19:50to be met with only token resistance. On their left, the New Zealanders had the task of taking
19:56Messines Village. Ulaan Trench was the German front line and first objective. The 1st Rifle
20:03Brigade took these blockhouses with little resistance before pushing on to the village.
20:08In the centre of the line, the Ulstermen of the 36th Division, following their tragic start at
20:13Spanbrookmolen, had advanced with little difficulty to reach the Messines-Vishart Road.
20:19They fought their way into the village of Vishart, where they met up with their fellow Irishmen
20:23of the 16th Southern Irish Division. There were no sectarian tensions here,
20:28only the desire to clear the ruins of any remaining Germans.
20:32Further up the line, units of the 7th Loyal North Lancashires and the 9th Cheshires were
20:37committed here, where the mines at Pitty Bois and Hollandshire Farm had wrought havoc among
20:42the defenders. I can see them now, rising from the twisted network of branches, and bursting
20:49forth from fields of bushes and trees. They were the first to attack the village of Vishart,
20:56I can see them now, rising from the twisted network of branches, and bursting forth from
21:01fresh green leaves, twenty or thirty faces grey with fear, and great staring eyes from which the
21:08light of reason seemed to have been driven. And they appeared before us with a forest of
21:12upthrown hands. Some cried out and gesticulated. Some threw themselves down and grovelled at our
21:18feet. It was a terrible and unnerving sight. The biggest mine to be exploded on the day
21:25was here under the village of Saint-Éloi, at the extreme northern end of the line.
21:30Once again the mine and the artillery had done their job. German resistance was negligible,
21:36and the objectives quickly achieved. All along the line, the Allied forces had met with success
21:42and a minimum of casualties. Twelve hours after the start of the attack, the advancing troops
21:47had taken all of their main objectives, a virtually unheard of event given the usually
21:52turgid nature of fighting on the Western Front. It had been an outstanding success for General
22:00Plumer and his staff. The Battle of Messines was the first great set-piece victory for the Allies
22:06in the Great War. It had demonstrated the value of thorough preparation and planning.
22:13It was an object lesson within the chequered history of the war of how to fight and win a
22:17limited engagement while achieving defined objectives. Most of the Allied casualties in
22:24the Messines attack were sustained after the achievements of the first day, as troops bunched
22:29up waiting for the orders to follow up. The fighting continued in a desultory fashion as
22:35the Germans withdrew to their prepared defences on the Warneton line, some way behind Messines village.
22:42Today, all is quiet here. The huge explosions which once ripped this landscape apart are long
22:47gone, except that is for the four mines that were left at the southern end of the line.
22:53Much to the consternation of local farmers, one of them went up without warning in 1956,
22:58when an electrical storm set off the explosive underneath. As for the other three, no one is
23:04quite sure exactly where they are. They remain a sinister presence and a reminder of the awesome
23:10power unleashed as part of the first British victory of the Great War.
23:22Following their spectacular success at the Battle of Messines in June 1917,
23:27the Allies now turned their attention to the main objective of the fighting in Flanders,
23:32the capture of the Passchendaele ridge east of the city of Ypres.
23:35This place, with its romantic sounding name, was to become a byword for unrelenting death
23:40and destruction. What began as an optimistic and determined campaign in the heat of summer,
23:46ended three and a half months later, bogged down in a sea of mud.
23:51Of all Ypres' terrible conflicts, Passchendaele was the one which came to symbolise the true
23:57horror of Flanders. While the great defensive battles of 1914 and 1915 had given the place
24:03the distinction of heroism and seen the first use of gas, the 1917 battle took on a terrible
24:10momentum of its own. The battle was a bloody one, and the battle was a bloody one, and the
24:171917 battle took on a terrible momentum of its own. In the early years of the war,
24:23it was volunteer soldiers who came here to Ypres in their thousands. The toughened soldiers of the
24:28regular army, the Saturday night soldiers of the Territorials, and, during 1916,
24:34the Kitchener volunteers. Fortunately for the morale of the British army,
24:39the men who had survived the Somme battles were a resilient lot. By 1917, the attitude of British
24:46soldiers on the Western Front had changed. Their experiences on the Somme in 1916 had led to the
24:51development of more effective infantry tactics. Commanders on the spot now knew the value of
24:57trained troops and the need to preserve them. More than 50 divisions were brought here to
25:02take part in the Third Battle of Ypres. Many divisions of Kitchener's army, such as the 18th
25:07and 30th, had already established a reputation for competence and success on the Somme and at Arras
25:13earlier in 1917. Artillery had also improved, both in the number of guns and in the quality
25:20of the gunnery. Training and tactics had developed since the tremendous bombardment which had opened
25:26the Somme offensive the previous year. Effective use of artillery was now recognized as central to
25:32any hopes of success. Those skills and the ability to recover from Passchendaele's enormous appetite
25:39for casualties would be put to the supreme test on the flat land below the ridge. Following the
25:46brilliantly planned and executed Messines offensive, General Plumer and his staff were denied
25:51the opportunity to repeat it at Passchendaele. Field Marshal Haig, the British commander-in-chief,
25:57chose instead to appoint Sir Hubert Gough. He was to lead the attack north of Ypres.
26:04Haig had wrongly calculated that the younger man might have more thrust in the attack.
26:09His miscalculation would cost many lives. At this stage Haig was convinced that the process
26:16of attrition, wearing down and exhausting the enemy, was still of vital importance.
26:23Historians still debate why he delayed the attack on Passchendaele after the success at Messines.
26:28Whether waiting for the French or taking more time to train his troops, the loss of time when the
26:33weather and ground conditions were ideal would prove costly. Whatever else he may have been as
26:38a general, Haig was never a lucky one. Flanders now experienced the worst August downpour for 75
26:45years. The battle plan was to force the enemy to fight by threatening the channel ports of
26:50Ostend and Zeebrugge, from where German U-boats were attacking Allied shipping.
26:54But first they had to take the higher ground of the Passchendaele ridge.
26:58On the right flank the attack was towards Gellerbelt along the axis of the Menin road.
27:03On the left the objective was the German defences on the Pilkem ridge.
27:07The phrase higher ground could be misleading, but in the context of Flanders,
27:11any prominence which rose to 60 meters or more was of great military value.
27:23In the meantime preparations had to be made for the forthcoming attack.
27:27Men and artillery would have to be moved into place and supplies and ammunition stockpiled.
27:33Many of the troops were put through detailed and exhaustive rehearsals and provided with
27:37giant plans of the battlefield so they might study the plan of attack.
27:43During the next six weeks an enormous logistical exercise was undertaken
27:47to gather the necessary men and material to this once quiet corner of Belgium.
27:52This delay following the capture of Messines ridge gave the Germans time to recover
27:58and build stronger defences.
28:00They constructed hundreds of concrete bunkers to guard the Passchendaele ridge.
28:05They could only be overcome with a series of wearing down battles,
28:08confounding Haig's initial idea of a breakthrough.
28:12Goff and Haig had determined that the attack in the north from Pilkem ridge towards Passchendaele
28:17would be the last high ground to be taken before the British broke through towards the coastal ports.
28:23While the battle raged on the ground, the air war now began in earnest.
28:27Although the Second World War is often considered as the time when conflict in the air became an
28:32essential part of total warfare, the fight for air supremacy in the weeks prior to the
28:36Battle of Passchendaele was vitally important to British hopes of a successful outcome.
28:43Because of the way in which the Germans had taken advantage of every fold in the ground,
28:47many of their defences were not visible to forward artillery.
28:50British guns were therefore often reliant on map coordinates
28:54and targets revealed by air observation and photographic reconnaissance.
29:03It was here that the fledgling flyers of all sides earnt their wings.
29:07These men were enlisted into the ranks of the Royal Flying Corps from the Navy and the Army.
29:13They were a cavalier bunch with an often devil-may-care attitude.
29:17Perhaps prompted by the fact that life could be all too short.
29:22Casualties grew as the number of flights increased
29:24and the quality of enemy fighter aircraft improved.
29:28The men flew without the benefit of parachutes,
29:30taking to the air in flimsy machines with little in the way of protection.
29:34If their aircraft was hit, it was most likely to catch fire.
29:38Many airmen carried a revolver or cyanide so that they could take their own life
29:42rather than be burnt alive.
29:43The Germans had been quick to realise the need to limit British air activity
29:47as clashes between them grew in number and intensity.
29:51The most notable of these was a dogfight over the Menin Road
29:54involving 94 fighter planes at heights of up to 17,000 feet.
30:03A British balloon came down in flames not far from the camp this afternoon.
30:07The observer, a man who had been killed in action,
30:10Not far from the camp this afternoon.
30:12The observer got away all right in his parachute.
30:15About five minutes later, we saw a hand balloon come down in flames opposite us.
30:21Only during the last week of July did it become clear
30:24that the German air defences were slowly weakening.
30:27If the gunners below could spare them a glance,
30:30it was only for the briefest of moments.
30:32These men were engaged in their own deadly game.
30:35During July, the British Fifth Army assembled a massive strength
30:39of more than 2,100 pieces of artillery.
30:43Throughout this period, both sides probed for each other's positions
30:47in a desperate duel to gain the artillery supremacy.
30:51The heavy guns were capable of reducing the enemy positions
30:54to piles of featureless rubble.
30:56In an attempt to counter this,
30:58the Germans built a series of deep, heavily fortified bunkers.
31:01One of these impressive structures has survived,
31:04built into the quarry of a brick factory near the village of Zonnebeek.
31:08The Bremen Redoubt was built complete with electric light
31:11and accommodation for more than a hundred troops.
31:16Places like this proved to be major obstacles for the advancing British.
31:20Their great strength ensured that soldiers would survive any bombardment
31:24and emerge ready to fight.
31:27In two weeks of preparatory bombardment,
31:29and the first three days of battle,
31:32the British gunners fired a staggering 4,283,550 shells.
31:40Such an incredible weight of firepower was the ultimate expression of the idea
31:44that the artillery could conquer while the infantry would follow up and occupy.
31:50The consequence of these massive bombardments
31:52was the complete devastation of the Flanders drainage system.
31:55Water gathered in countless interlinked shell holes,
31:59unable to drain away.
32:02The shell fire also destroyed the embankments
32:04that were needed to contain the many small streams
32:07which were essential to keep the water table below ground level.
32:11While this might have been a manageable problem in fine summer weather,
32:15the battle for Passchendaele was destined to be fought
32:18in the most appalling conditions.
32:21In reality, the battle for Passchendaele was the most difficult battle
32:24In reality, the battle for Passchendaele was a series of engagements.
32:28It started on the 31st of July with an attack on Pilkem Ridge.
32:32In the following three and a half months,
32:34places like Gheluvelt, Polygon Wood, Zonnebeek,
32:38Brutzinder, Saint-Julien, Langmarck and Paul-Capel
32:42would become notorious killing grounds.
32:45Gough had failed to recognise the importance of the German defences
32:49here on the Pilkem Ridge and on the Gheluvelt Plateau.
32:52As the British troops advanced,
32:54they encountered a series of heavily fortified German pillboxes
32:58seen on this aerial photograph.
33:00These strong points had been sited to take best advantage of the terrain
33:04and caused many problems and casualties.
33:07Initially, the British made good progress
33:09towards and through the German outposts on the Pilkem Ridge,
33:13pushing north-east of Ypres towards Langmarck and into Saint-Julien,
33:17where fighting for control of the ruins continued for three days.
33:22German counter-attacking troops halted
33:25and in some cases pushed the British back.
33:28As the casualties rose sharply,
33:30one of the most unfortunate among them was Captain Noel Chavasse,
33:34a medical officer with the Liverpool Scottish.
33:37He was hit by a shell splinter on the opening day of the battle
33:40near Mousetrap Farm and died three days later.
33:45He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross
33:47for his efforts in treating and bringing in wounded from the battlefield.
33:52Royal Army Medical Corps doctors and medical staff
33:54were often near the front, taking the same risks as the men.
33:59Chavasse was the only man in the Great War
34:01to be awarded the Victoria Cross twice.
34:04He was buried in Brandhoek Cemetery,
34:06where this unique headstone is a reminder of the cost of the battle.
34:11Due east of Ypres, along the Menin Road towards the Gheluvel Plateau,
34:15the German artillery now dominated the approaches.
34:19Here, carefully orchestrated shell fire fell in the areas of devastated woodland and valleys
34:23in which the advancing British troops were concentrated
34:26and relatively limited progress was made.
34:30Behind the British lines, places like Hellfire and the Gheluvel Plateau
34:33were being used as a military base.
34:35As the German gunners had the range of every inch of the Menin Road,
34:40Hessian screens were erected in an attempt to hide the endless stream of men and vehicles.
34:45But the Germans pulverised the road with shell fire
34:48until it resembled the surface of the moon.
34:51Nothing could move here.
34:54Casualties were relatively light compared with the opening days of the Somme.
34:58The German artillery was also heavily armed.
35:02Casualties were relatively light compared with the opening days of the Somme.
35:06But it soon became clear that due to the German tactic of defence in depth,
35:10most of the casualties were suffered not during the initial assault,
35:14but while trying to secure new forward positions.
35:17The Menin Road and Hellfire Corner became known to the troops as lethal places,
35:22even on this deadly battlefield.
35:31This is the much improved view the British now had
35:34since the capture of the Messines Ridge.
35:36It was now much safer for soldiers to move around Ypres in daylight hours.
35:42The two sides were now at a stalemate in the hollow
35:44between the villages of Pilkem and Pôle Capel.
35:48The British army had achieved only a fraction of its first day's objectives,
35:52losing between 30 to 60% of its fighting strength.
35:56Half of the tanks had already been knocked out,
35:59many finding it impossible to move among the wilderness of shell holes and ditches.
36:06Then it began to rain.
36:09It was the worst rain to fall on Flanders for 75 years.
36:14Soon the downpour transformed the battlefield into a swamp.
36:20These aerial photographs show troops in forward trenches on the Gheluvelt approaches.
36:25They reported that they were flooded knee-deep with water.
36:28Near the river Steenbeek, west of Langmarck village,
36:30the position was even worse,
36:31with the men forced to stand waist-high in cold water and mud.
36:36On the 16th of August, near Langmarck,
36:38the 29th Regular Division was sent in to attack.
36:42They faced a series of German blockhouses.
36:44The 1st King's Own Scottish Borderers were given the job of taking them.
36:49Company Sergeant Major Jock Skinner and Quartermaster Sergeant William Grimbalderston
36:53were both to win the Victoria Cross by capturing four of these strongpoints.
36:58This was an astounding achievement,
37:00given that the conditions had been described as the worst anywhere on the battlefield.
37:05Skinner was already renowned as a frontline soldier,
37:08having won the Distinguished Service Medal and the Military Medal.
37:12He captured three blockhouses and more than 70 prisoners single-handed.
37:16When he was killed in March 1918,
37:19he was carried to his grave by six other Victoria Cross winners,
37:22all from the 29th Division.
37:25As the attackers pushed relentlessly forward on the left flank,
37:28Langmarck had been taken,
37:29and the line had been pushed forward more than a mile
37:32along the Saint-Julien-Poel-Carpel road.
37:35On the right flank, they attempted to take the rest of the ridge
37:37from Gheluvelt through to Broodcinder and ultimately Passchendaele.
37:43But the weather and German resistance stopped them in their tracks.
37:46As a result, Gough was replaced by General Plumer.
37:50He changed tactics,
37:52now conducting a series of bite-and-hold battles
37:55in an attempt to take the high ground.
37:57By the 15th of September,
37:59the British were able to launch the second phase of the battle
38:01with a series of closely staged attacks.
38:05Within five days, that phase broadened into the massive assaults
38:08known collectively as the Battle of the Menin Road.
38:11In reality, it was an enormous effort across a wide front east of Ypres.
38:18This phase of the attack was undertaken by both the Second Division
38:22and the Second and Fifth Armies.
38:24Plumer had understood and perfected the tactics
38:27of taking strictly limited objectives.
38:30This strategy was put to good use
38:32in the Battle of the Menin Road Ridge on the 20th of September.
38:36The battle went according to plan,
38:39the British advance taking many of its objectives.
38:42As the Germans counterattacked,
38:44they were met by defensive fire from carefully dug-in troops
38:47protected by accurate machine gun and artillery fire.
38:52The battle continued.
39:04Typical of the intensity of the fighting
39:06was that which took place here on this gentle rise known as Hill 60.
39:11It was originally formed by spoil dug out
39:13when the Ypres to Armenteer railway line was built
39:16and was the scene of some of the bitterest fighting
39:18anywhere on the battlefield.
39:20It changed hands on a regular basis,
39:23both sides suffering enormous casualties in the process.
39:27Here the explosion of many mines and constant shelling
39:31made it one of the most dreaded places on the front.
39:34Hill 60 took its name from the fact
39:36that it rose a mere 60 metres above sea level,
39:39but that was enough to guarantee its value as an observation post.
39:43Whoever held it had a clear view to Ypres.
39:50Zonnebeek
39:57Nearby, the Australians had captured the western portion
40:00of the notorious Polygon Wood
40:02between the villages of Gheluvelt on the Menin Road
40:05and Zonnebeek below Passchendaele.
40:08Six days later, on the 26th of September,
40:11the battle for Zonnebeek and Polygon Wood began.
40:14Again, objectives were achieved and counterattacks smashed.
40:18Haig could now take heart from the fact that his plan of attrition,
40:22that of destroying the German divisions
40:24faster than they could be replaced,
40:26was at last beginning to succeed.
40:29The fighting in the splintered remains of the wood
40:31was of the most fierce and brutal nature.
40:34The Germans were stunned by the ferocity of the Australians' attack.
40:38Many prisoners were taken,
40:39including this divisional commander and his entire staff.
40:48The Australians were to suffer some of their worst experiences of the war here,
40:53ranking along with those of Gallipoli and the Somme.
40:58This mound was a feature of the wood before the war,
41:01used as a rifle range by the Belgian army.
41:04In October 1917, it was transformed into a charnel house,
41:09covered with the bodies of British, German and Australian men.
41:14The Kaiser, seen here in the centre with General Ludendorff
41:17on the right, were thrown into confusion.
41:20Their defence in-depth tactics had been outmanoeuvred by Plumer.
41:25Hundreds of Germans were taken prisoner in September
41:28and the beginning of October after their counterattacks failed.
41:32Many were relieved to be out of it.
41:35As the relentless rainfall continued,
41:37the British now had to face up to the effect
41:39of their constant shellfire on the drainage system.
41:42There was simply nowhere for the water to go.
41:45On the 4th of October, both sides planned attacks to the east of Ypres.
41:49As the rain began again, the artillery found it hard
41:52to place their guns on stable ground and register effective strikes.
41:57The misery of the troops sunk to new depths.
42:01This was the Battle of Pôle Capelle.
42:03Victory here was only partial due to the weather and the German defences.
42:08It is this period of the conflict that has become remembered for the mud.
42:11The continual downfall created a huge quagmire.
42:15It became the hallmark of this terrible battle.
42:19At this stage, the British were still 9,000 yards from Passchendaele village.
42:24Since the start of the battle six weeks earlier,
42:27they had advanced a mere 6,000 yards.
42:30Casualties were enormous, but worse was yet to come.
42:35On the 12th of October, the first battle for Passchendaele was fought.
42:39This unenviable task was given to the Australians, New Zealanders and Canadians.
42:44Keeping a rifle in working order in the filth generated by a major artillery bombardment
42:49and subsequent infantry assault was almost impossible.
42:52Danger was ever-present as the few tracks across the wasteland
42:55below Passchendaele Ridge offered easy targets for the German artillery.
43:00Away from those tracks, which the pioneers and engineers tried to maintain,
43:04the waterlogged shell huddled in the middle of the river.
43:07The waterlogged shell holes interlocked,
43:09creating conditions in which men who slipped from the paths into the slime below often drowned.
43:15Two weeks later, the second battle for Passchendaele began,
43:19this time with the Canadians at the forefront.
43:21The troops edged forward faced with the most inhuman conditions and stubborn German defense.
43:27Passchendaele was by now nothing more than a stain on the landscape.
43:31Every building had been literally blown off the summit
43:34as artillery mercilessly pulverized the positions.
43:37By the 30th of October, the Canadians were fighting in the outskirts of the village.
43:42A week later, it was all but over.
43:46As the sun rose on the morning of the 6th of November,
43:48unseen behind a curtain of British shellfire and leaden skies,
43:53the final assault upon the village of Passchendaele was launched.
43:56The Canadians found nothing there.
43:59There was nothing.
44:00There wasn't even a German counter-attack.
44:03The campaign to capture Passchendaele resulted in almost a million casualties on all sides,
44:08similar to the Battle of the Somme the previous year.
44:11The Germans suffered almost 400,000 dead, wounded or missing.
44:1635,000 British soldiers died and 30,000 went missing.
44:22Many among that terrible statistic had been swept away by shellfire
44:26or had sunk in the sea of mud.
44:28Most of the soldiers were in their early twenties,
44:31some of them much younger.
44:38The scale of the German casualties was so high that they never fully recovered.
44:43Their commander-in-chief, General Ludendorff,
44:45concluded that the losses at Passchendaele would eventually cost them the war.
45:01Of the many thousands of British and Empire troops who marched towards Ypres,
45:06more than a million of them would remain there,
45:08killed over four years of desperate fighting.
45:14The Menin Gate was built after the war in Ypres to commemorate the missing.
45:19Every night at eight o'clock, members of the local fire brigade sound the last post.
45:25Lest we forget the terrible sacrifice.
45:27The Menin Gate was built after the war in Ypres to commemorate the missing.
45:32Every night at eight o'clock, members of the local fire brigade sound the last post.
45:38Lest we forget the terrible sacrifice.
46:27The Menin Gate was built after the war in Ypres to commemorate the missing.
46:57The Menin Gate was built after the war in Ypres to commemorate the missing.
47:07Of all the 20th century's grim wars,
47:10the First World War stands out as a particularly tragic event.
47:14Hundreds of thousands of men marched off to their deaths in a series of desperate battles
47:20that would ultimately become known as the Great War.
47:23More than a million British soldiers were killed,
47:26most of them on battlefields whose names became part of everyday conversation.
47:34But there were three that emerged as the most dreaded.
47:37Gallipoli, the Somme, and Passchendaele.
47:41All had particularly tragic twists that added both to their evil reputations
47:47and to the numbers who died,
47:49giving them a special place in the public memory.
48:00In recent times, interest in the Great War has risen steadily,
48:05growing beyond that of the military enthusiast
48:08or of the groups and institutions dedicated to preserving its memory.
48:13As awareness of many of the more tragic aspects of the war have grown,
48:17so have the numbers of people visiting the battlefields for the first time.
48:22To help further that awareness,
48:24I have spent much of the past 10 years producing the series Great Battles of the Great War.
48:30Music
48:46Prior to filming the often complex and disjointed chain of events
48:50that make up a battle,
48:52it was essential to visit each location to see for myself
48:55the places where key actions took place.
48:59On each of my reconnaissance trips,
49:00I have taken a stills camera to help record particular locations,
49:05this so that I might return to the same place with the film crew.
49:11In making this series,
49:12the photographs shown here provided the framework for the films.
49:17All of these images were taken using a Nikon 35mm camera,
49:23the object often being to cover as much ground as possible
49:26so the less kit, the better.
49:29It also offered the opportunity to react to the shot as it presented itself,
49:34given that much research has gone into specific locations and the time of day.
49:41As much as possible,
49:42the viewer has been put on the spot
49:44where they can experience the point of view of the soldier at the time.
49:49I am not, of course, the first photographer to visit the battlefields.
49:53The First World War was remarkable for the quality of the images taken,
49:57often at great personal risk.
50:02It is a feature of the Great Battle series
50:04that I have tried to discover as much detail as possible
50:07in photographs taken at the time,
50:10often in the heat of battle.
50:16This remarkable image was taken on board the steamer River Clyde
50:20soon after she was run aground at Vee Beach
50:22on the morning of the Gallipoli landings.
50:25It shows soldiers in the very thrall of battle.
50:29Some lie dead and wounded on board the cutters,
50:32while many others take shelter from the intense Turkish machine gun fire.
50:40Four others have crept out into no-man's land
50:42in an attempt to reach the barbed-wire defences.
50:46This is a truly astonishing photograph.
50:48And one that perfectly captures the chaos and tragedy of the landing.
51:00As a photographer, I felt that the Great Battle series
51:03should make the most of photographs like this,
51:06and that wherever possible,
51:08we would film from virtually the same spot
51:10as that used by the photographer at the time.
51:13It was summer when I first visited Gallipoli.
51:16It was hot, with blue skies and a relentless sun
51:19that baked the rugged landscape.
51:22It is a feature of the peninsula
51:24that each of the three main battlefields
51:26at Cape Hellas, Anzac and Suvla Bay,
51:30cover a comparatively small area of ground,
51:33testimony to just how tenuous a grip the Allies had here.
51:38The Somme is a special place to visit,
51:40with its seemingly endless rows of headstones
51:43and the carefully maintained cemeteries.
51:48The landscape here still bears the scars of the conflict,
51:51while remaining virtually unchanged
51:53since the battle's result.
51:57The Somme is a place of peace and tranquillity,
51:59a place of peace and tranquillity
52:01that has been preserved for thousands of years.
52:04While remaining virtually unchanged
52:06since the battles raged across these fields and woods
52:09nearly 90 years ago.
52:17Ypres proved to be the most difficult
52:19of the three battlefields to film.
52:21Unlike the open and largely unchanged landscape
52:24of Gallipoli and the Somme,
52:26Ypres is a city surrounded by a network
52:28of small towns and villages.
52:31The land here has been constantly farmed,
52:34with a network of new roads and developments,
52:36but it would be impossible to come
52:38to the 20th century's greatest killing ground
52:41and not find ample evidence of the ultimate horror
52:44that was the salient.
52:47Four years of relentless struggle
52:49saw this place emerge as the most sinister of the lot.
52:53While Gallipoli had the romance of a foreign crusade
52:56and the Somme the sad legacy of doomed youth,
52:59the name Ypres was destined to be remembered
53:01for the mud and squalor
53:03and the degradation of human life.
53:17Ypres is a challenging battlefield to understand.
53:21So much happened here after four years of war
53:24that it takes much research and good guides
53:27to get near to understanding the series of actions
53:30that would ultimately lead to Passchendaele.
53:37Many of the photographs that have been featured here
53:39are part of the original framework
53:42that was used to construct the great battles films
53:45and the book which accompanied the series.
53:50Following many requests I have had
53:52for copies of these photographs,
53:54they are now for sale in a range of sizes
53:57using state-of-the-art digital printing.
54:00These prints are ideal as gifts
54:02for anyone with an interest in the Great War
54:05or who has visited the battlefields.
54:07They are also available in larger formats
54:10for regimental or association use.
54:14Whatever the case,
54:16I hope that in viewing these programs and photographs
54:19that they will help to better your understanding
54:21of one of the worst epic battles
54:23and one of the worst episodes
54:25in the history of the 20th century.