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The Battle of Passchendaele

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The Battle of Passchendaele

The Battle of Passchendaele, fought July 1917, is sometimes called the Third Battle of Ypres. For the soldiers who fought at Passchendaele, it was known as the 'Battle of Mud'. Few battles encapsulate World War One better than the Battle of Passchendaele.



The attack at Passchendaele was Sir Douglas Haig's attempt to break through Flanders. Haig had thought about a similar attack in 1916, but the Battle of the Somme occupied his time in that year. However, one year later, Haig felt able to launch such an attack. His main aim was a breakthrough to the coast of Belgium so that German submarine pens could be destroyed. Admiral Jellicoe had already advised both Haig and the British government that the loss of shipping (primarily merchant) could not be sustained and that Britain would face severe problems in 1918, if such losses continued. Haig's plan, to sweep through Flanders to the coast, did not receive support from Britain's Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, but as the Allies had no other credible plan, he gave his agreement for Haig to carry out his plan.



Haig also had another reason for going ahead with his plan. He believed, incorrectly as it turned out, that the morale of the German army was very low - especially after the success of the Allies at the Battle of Messines. He believed that the Allies could tap into this lack of morale and roll through Flanders without too much trouble.



On July 18th 1917, a heavy artillery barrage was launched at the German lines. This lasted for ten days. Three thousand artillery guns fired over four million shells. Therefore, the German army in the area fully expected a major Allied attack - so any vague hope of surprise was lost, as was true in any attack that started with a major artillery bombardment.



The infantry attack started on July 31st. The main assault was led by Sir Hubert Gough's Fifth Army. To their left were units from the French First Army led by Anthoine and to Gough's right was the Second Army led by the victor of Messines, Sir Herbert Plumer.



The Germans, as happened at the Somme, were fully prepared and the Allied attack, launched across a eleven mile front, made only small gains. Then in the early days of August, the area was saturated with the heaviest rain the region had seen in thirty years. The area in Flanders became effectively a swamp. Tanks, sent forward to help the infantry, simply got stuck. Infantry soldiers found movement very difficult. The impact of the artillery bombardment had destroyed the drainage systems of the region which greatly added to the problem. The shell craters made by the Allied shelling filled with water and did not allow advancing men the opportunity to hide in them. The fields through which men should have gone became impassable.



Haig blamed the lack of progress not on the abnormal weather and the conditions it caused, but on Gough. Haig moved Gough and his men to a front further north and put Plumer in charge of the battle. Plumer used different tactics to Gough. He wanted small gains that could be permanently held as opposed to Gough's apparent desire for one major sweeping movement that would bring success. As a result, Plumer fought a series of small battles within Flanders - the Battle of Menin Road Bridge, the Battle of Polygon Wood and the Battle of Broodseinde. These were fought between September and October 1917. These gave British forces the advantage in the territory to the east of Ypres. Haig became convinced that German morale was on the verge of collapsing and ordered that the offensive be continued to Passchendaele Ridge.



Between October 9th and October 12th, two battles were fought - Poelcappelle and the First Battle of Passchendaele. By now, those German soldiers who had been fighting on the Eastern Front had been moved to the Western Front - and they had been specifically moved to Passchendaele Ridge to bolster the German forces there. The Germans used mustard gas to assist them and the attempted Allied breakthrough to Passchendaele Ridge failed to materialise. However, Haig would not concede that the attack had not succeeded. In late October three further Allied attacks were made on Passchendaele Ridge. On November 6th, 1917, Passchendaele village was taken and Haig used this success as the reason for calling off the attack.



However, the Third Battle of Ypres or Passchendaele had been a very costly battle. For the sake of a few kilometres, the British had lost 310,000 men and the Germans 260,000. Haig was heavily criticised for the attack and for failing to modify his plans as the attack clearly was not going to be a success. There were some who rallied to Haig's defence. They argued that:



Haig could not have known that the weather would have played such a major part in the battle.



The input of the newly arrived German troops from the Eastern Front was not part of Haig's planning and nor could it have been.



The dangers of German submarine activity had to be eliminated whatever the risk.



A British success would have gone someway to improving the morale of the French army that had mutinied in that year - an ally supporting an ally.



Haig argued that any German loss of men was of greater importance than British loss as the Allies could sustain more losses as America had joined the war by the end of Passchendaele

First world war lancers

On the outbreak of the First World War Captain Grenfell and the 9th Lancers were sent to France. So also was his twin brother, Rivy Grenfell, who had joined the Bucks Hussars. On 16th August, Grenfell and the men under his command were sent out to carry out reconnaissance in the Harmignies area of Belgium. After returning to base Grenfell took part in the Battle of Mons. During the battle the 9th Lancers were ordered to charge the German gun positions. Hit by a hail of machine-gun fire, shelling and rifle fire, casualties were heavy. When they reassembled on the outskirts of Elouges they discovered that than had suffered over 80 casualties.

wounded

I bade farewell to my right leg, and to my career as a soldier, outside a trench at Gheluvelt, near Ypres, on October 29th, 1914. In the First Battle of Ypres the British were out-numbered by seven to one. On the previous evening we took over trenches - not deep or elaborate ones - from an English regiment.

I cannot say which regiment we relieved. Our sergeant on entering the trench heard the last man, as he was doing a hurried exit, say, "So long, Jock - not 'arf a nice place, Jack Johnson all bleeding day."

ghelevelt

On that night there was no sleep, as we had to dig and dig to improve the trench, and were being fired at all night. At 5 a.m. a group of us were standing in the open - everything had turned peaceful - admiring our now almost perfect trench when hell seemed let loose. All the guns in Flanders seemed to have suddenly concentrated on our particular sector of the British front.



When the artillery fire subsided, Germans sprang from everywhere and attacked us. My platoon held fast; we lost some good comrades. Then we were ordered to evacuate the trench, and assist to hold a trench on the flank where the fighting was fiercest. I was a sergeant, and was told to take and hold a certain part of the trench where the occupants had just been driven out.



On rushing the trench, and leaping into it, I found that the dead were lying three deep in it. After taking bearings, I told the men to keep under cover and detailed one man, Ginger Bain, as "look out".



After what seemed ages Ginger excitedly asked, "How strong is the German army?" I replied, "Seven million." "Well," said Ginger, "here is the whole bloody lot of them making for us".



We were driven from the trench, and those of us who were unscathed joined Lieutenant Brook, who had come up with cooks, transport men, and men who had been wounded but could still use a rifle.



Lieutenant Brook was (outwardly) quite unperturbed, walking about the firing line issuing orders as if on the barrack square. I had served under him for nine years, and seeing him such a target for the enemy riflemen, I asked him to lie down as I felt if he was hit his loss at that particular time would be disastrous. He told me we must retake the trench I had been driven from, and to pick twenty men to do so.



All the men were alike to me - men I had known for years - so I told ten men on my right and ten on my left to get ready to rush the trench. We succeeded in this. No artist or poet can depict a trench after fighting in its stark hellishness.



If we could not be driven out of the trench, it seemed certain that we would be blown out of it. Shells kept landing near enough in front of or behind the trench to shake us almost out of it. Many got killed by rifle-fire, Ginger Bain being the first, then Big Bruce whom I boxed in a competition before going to France.



I passed a message to Lieutenant Brook, informing him our numbers were so reduced that if attacked we could not hold the trench, and received back word that he had just been killed. (The V .C. was posthumously awarded him.)



A message was then sent to me to retire and join a platoon entrenched near us. I gave instructions to the few men (eight I think) to retire along the communication trench, and I would join them at the head of it, and lead them to our new position.



I slipped over the rear of the trench, to cut across and meet the lads as they emerged from the communication trench, but had only gone about six yards when I received what in the regiment was called the "dull thud". I thought I had been violently knocked on the head, but, feeling I was not running properly, I looked down and discovered that my right foot was missing.



Somehow, I stood watching men running along the communication trench. My power of speech had left me, so I could speak to none of them, then I swooned into the trench. No one had seen me being wounded, but one of the men, "Pipe" Adams, on missing me, returned to look for me.



On seeing me lying quite helpless, he prepared to lift and carry me out of the trench. I told him I was too heavy: that it was too dangerous, and that in time our regiment would retake all the ground lost, when I would be safe.



When I think of the War comradeship, of unaffected and unknown bravery, I think of "Pipe" Adams (killed later) telling me, "Christ, Jerry [my nickname], I could not leave you here".



However, confident that our people would return, I persuaded him to go. I then put a field dressing and a shirt from my pack over my stump and lay down to wait further developments. In this trench there would be about sixty badly wounded British soldiers (mostly Gordons) of all ranks.



The soldier nearest me was a sergeant of the Grenadiers who was severely wounded in both arms and both legs. I noticed a watch quite close to me; on looking at it I found the time was 9 a.m.



I must have dropped into a kind of stupor, and I woke suddenly with the noise of great shouting. I thought it was our fellows returned to their old position, imagined I heard voices I knew, also that of my company officer, Captain Burnett, shouting, "Where are you, Sergeant Bell?"



I tried to rise, failed, but kept shouting, "Here I am, in this trench, sir." Judge my surprise when two German infantrymen jumped into the trench.



One of them got quite excited, raised his rifle, levelled at and within a yard of me, but the other knocked his mate's rifle up and asked me when and where I was wounded. I asked them to try and do something for the wounded Grenadier, but they seemed in great haste as they jumped out of the trench. It was then twelve noon. So ended one morning in Flanders.



I pass over the afternoon with its incessant artillery fire, and the long night. There were periods of heavy gun fire, periods of silence, periods when all the wounded - those still alive - were shouting for stretcher bearers, praying for death, moaning noisily and quietly with pain. Strange the thoughts that pass through one under such circumstances. I thought of a great-grandfather of mine who fought in the Peninsular War, and was badly wounded at the Battle of Waterloo.



Then I would think of a picture I once saw of a trench during the Balkan War. I had considered the picture was overdrawn, and now I knew that it was not horrible enough for the real thing.



The Germans had taken a lot of ground, were busily consolidating their new position, and all morning (the 30th) groups of them and individuals kept looking into the trench. Two German officers slowly and quietly walked along the trench, and when they saw me still alive they appeared greatly surprised.



Each of them spoke to me in English, enquiring how long I had been lying there. They informed me that there were fifty-seven of my comrades dead in the trench, and that I was one of three still alive. One of them promised to send someone to pick me up, but I had doubts about him doing so. However, about an hour later, four German private soldiers arrived, bringing a waterproof sheet to carry me off.



They gave me a drink of cold coffee, and when I pointed out the Grenadier, one of them went back into the trench and gave the Grenadier a drink and made him comfortable before rejoining us. One of the Germans could speak English, and in his deep-spoken voice said, "Ah! Scotlander, you lucky man. Get out of this damned war. It last long time. What we fight for? Ah! German Army and English Navy, both damned nuisance."



They carried me with great care to a barn about half a mile away that was being used as a dressing station.



All the way from the trench to the barn I saw British dead, mostly Highlanders - Black Watch, Camerons, and Gordons - and as they lay there in their uniforms, I thought how young and lonely they looked.



My arrival at the barn caused a mild sensation, all the soldiers on duty near and in the barn coming to the door to see me being carried in. "Scotlander!" "Sarjant!" "Nae Helmet!" (I was bareheaded) being remarks made to me.



The officer in charge of the barn excitedly asked me, "Knives and revolvers you got?" Replying, with a smile, in the negative, he gave me a cigarette and told some men to lift me and lay me on top of some straw. I asked for a drink and was given more cold coffee. I looked at a wristlet watch the man who gave me the drink was wearing, it was then 1 p.m., so another morning in Flanders had gone.



Sergeant J. F. Bell, 2nd Gordon Highlanders. Proceeded with 7th Division to Zeebrugge, took part in the fighting round Ypres in October 19I4. Wounded and taken prisoner of war, October 29th, 1914. Leg amputated (below knee). Exchanged with disabled prisoner of war, February 1915. Discharged April 1St, 19I5. Re-enlisted and commissioned as T. Officer in Labour Corps, 1917, and served till the Armistice.



First published in Everyman at War (1930), edited by C. B. Purdom.

HORSE AND CART

Initially the effect of railways on towns that had previously been important staging posts was disastrous. In 1839 Doncaster found employment for seven four-horse coaches, 20 two-horse coaches, nine stage wagons and 100 post horses; the total horse population was 258. In 1845, after the town had had railway links for five years, only one four-horse coach, three stage wagons and 12 post horses were still in service and the number of horses had fallen to 60. Trade had suffered badly and the value of property had fallen between 25 and 30 per cent. Where coaches acted as 'feeders' there were still opportunities for them to stay on the road and, in some cases, increase their business. The completion of the early skeleton network by about 1840 provided many opportunities for opening up new combined coach and railway routes for passenger traffic. In April 1839 the well known coach magnate George Sherman expressed the opinion that after the railway had driven most of the coaches off the long distance routes 'there would be as much employ more horses as there ever was through the extra ordinary quantity of omnibuses and cabs that were appearing on the streets.'

HILL ACW

REBEL CAVALRY

Made for the USA and a rare item.flags are wrong though.

This slouch hat was worn by John Mosby when he was wounded by federal cavalry in December 1864. According to Virgil Carrington Jones, author of Grey Ghosts and Rebel Raiders, this hat was left behind in a house in Rector’s Cross Roads, Virginia. Forty years later, Sarah Halstead, the daughter of a 13th New York Cavalry officer returned the hat to Mosby. A few days after it arrived, Mosby went to the White House and presented the hat to the President.

Confederate cavalry leader John Mosby is among the most romantic characters in the Civil War, and with good reason. From 1863 to the end of the conflict, Mosby's raiders were a constant headache for the North. The raiders usually acted in small detachments of several dozen, though more than 1000 men served under Mosby. They sacked supply depots, attacked railroads, and harassed federal troops. They seemed to move behind enemy lines almost at will. Their most celebrated exploit occurred when Mosby himself rode into Fairfax Station, Virginia, in the dead of the night and kidnapped a Union general.

pirates

For more than four centuries pirates were hanged at Execution Dock on the north bank of the Thames. The exact spot is shown on old maps of London and lies a mile downstream from the Tower of London on a bend of the river at Wapping.

Today the riverside pub called 'The Captain Kidd' overlooks the original site of the gallows. In the early years of the 18th century the waterfront at Wapping was a jumble of wharves, wooden cranes and small shipyards. Beyond the wharves were narrow streets lined with the houses of seamen, dockers, shipwrights and their families.

This picture shows the execution of the pirate James Lowry who was hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping. The prison chaplain stands next to the condemned man on the scaffold. The church of St Mary, Rotherhithe, can be seen in the background. The official on horseback at the left holds the Admiralty oar.



A public eventThe gallows were built on the shore near the low tide mark. When an execution was due to take place, large crowds gathered on the shore and in boats moored out in the river.

The condemned man had to travel in a procession from the Marshalsea Prison on the south bank, across London Bridge and past the Tower of London to Execution Dock.



The procession was led by the Admiralty Marshal or his deputy who carried the silver oar that represented the authority of the Admiralty. The pirate travelled in a cart and was accompanied by the prison chaplain.

After the pirate had been hanged it was usual to let three tides pass over the body before it was taken away to be buried in an unmarked grave or sent to Surgeon's Hall for dissection. The dissection of executed criminals had been authorised in Henry VIII's reign and was common practice by the 18th century.

hill big figures

My Dad writes "Skelly's only sold Britains.It was a newsagants but he also sold soldiers. Ashbrooke Road was the name of the street and it was near The archway in North London.When I started buying soldiers he sold soldiers of the 2nd world war but they also had 1st world war. Skelly was on an attack he recounted one day in France and he got a hand wound. An old sweat rubbed the blood all over his face and said "Get back down the line son". Skelly said he might have saved his life. The place that sold Hill's was called Hill (by chance) and it was a provisions store but sold John Hill soldiers. My mum wouldn't let me shop in there unless it was for soldiers. She said it was dirty.I only bought first world war hills. when the big soldiers came out I never bought them cos they were the wrong scale to my other soldiers"

unknown.Can you help?

12th lancers Prince of Wales

hill la12th (Prince of Wales's Royal) Lancers

Having been practising with lances in the Peninsula and at home, in 1816 the regiment was converted into lancers and the name changed in 1817 to "The 12th, Prince of Wales, Royal Lancers". The regiment served with distinction in most theatres of war of the British empire including: South Africa 1852, The Crimea, The Indian Mutiny 1858 - 1860, The Boer War 1899 - 1902 and The Great War 1914 - 1918. In 1930 the horse had to make way for the automobile, as tanks and armoured cars took over. As an armoured regiment the 12th Lancers fought in several theatres of the Second World War.

British 12th Lancer Other Ranks Helmet

This pattern of Lancer helmet was introduced in 1856 as the other ranks pattern lance cap. It was made of a black leather body, the top having cloth sides while the top was black patent leather. The triangular sunray plate features the Royal arms and regimental honours stamped out in brass, while the plume was red horsehair.



This example is that of an NCO's lancer cap of the 12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales's) Regiment, which was amalgamated with the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers to form the 9th/12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales's)

fancy a bet?

HILL GREENERY AND STUFF

MUSSOLINI INVADES AFRICA

In 1934, Italian soldiers attacked a party of British and Abyssinians at the oasis at Wal-Wal, in Abyssinia. The Italian army got ready to invade. Haile Selassie, the emperor of Abyssinia, asked the League of nations   to help. In July, the League banned arms sales to either side (this hurt Abyssinia much more than the Italians, who were ready to attack).

In September, the League tried to arbitrate. It suggested that Italy should get some land in Abyssinia. Instead, in October 1935, Italy’s 100,000 strong army invaded. It used tanks and flame-throwers. The Abyssinians had camels, war drums and 12 planes. They were massacred.

hill

The League did agree to some sanctions (on rubber and metals), but it did not stop oil sales. But, in December 1935, news leaked out of the Hoare-Laval Pact, a secret plan made by Britain and France to give two-thirds of Abyssinia to Italy, without telling the League.



Italian troops used poison gas and attacked Red Cross hospitals, but even then the League could not agree on what to do. By May 1936, Italy had conquered Abyssinia

hill anzac?

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ZULU

THE THIRTIES

Under the brown fog of a winter noon

Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant

Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants

C.i.f. London: documents at sight, 210

Asked me in demotic French

To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel

Followed by a weekend at the Metropole

hill?

FALSE HILLIn my opinion they are not

To me these are not HILL as stated by the seller on E.Bay

hill garden