Battles At Ypres Essay, Research Paper
YPRES
First Battle of Ypres
During the first battle of Ypres, both sides tried to use the best tactical features possible. Ammunition in this battle was so low that most guns were withdrawn from the line and some of the guns with ammo left were limited to one shot every half of an hour. The City of Ypres was virtually at sea level resulting in a complex drainage system. The Belgians warned the British that their position on the Germans would destroy their complex drainage system of dykes and canals from all of the heavy artillery fire. Some very harsh lessons were being learned in this battle as well. One of these lessons were that it was unsafe to have an important headquarters in a vulnerable position. The British made this mistake once and they were sure not to do it again. The Germans were doing unusually better than they had thought. They did not realize they had roughly 50,000 British casualties and 20,000 French casualties resulting in mass OVERKILL. They also didn’t realize that they were killing some of the best and most experienced regiments of the British army. As winter set in , and that meant snow, rain, sleet, hail, and floods, both sides dug into the trenches as best they could. The Germans had the higher and dryer ground so they could build stone establishments near the front. Looking at the British side, they were all wet, sticky, smelly, had had some of the worst cases of trench foot in the war.
Second Battle of Ypres
The second battle of Ypres was not meant to be a major one. This battle also introduced poison gas to the Western Front. Later on, the whole Ypres area would be saturated with gas of every kind, mainly mustard gas, but phosgene and others would soon appear. Troops were trained on how to smell the different gasses. The CO’s said phosgene smelt of musty hay. Some of the troops reported that it smelt of sweet hay but by the time they smelt it was usually too late. The Germans had been steadily bombing the Ypres area steadily throughout the third week of April. Also, a number of shells had fallen on the town too causing many residents to leave hastily: up until this point, they though they were safe. Shelling continued on the 22nd but was intense rather than steady. Towards sunset a green yellowy mist appeared, not the kind you find rolling over the damp fields at night as the winter draws nearer, but this was chlorine gas, released from 5700 cylinders. Up to this point in the war gas wasn’t a gigantic threat so the Canadians didn’t have gas masks. Canadian scientists told the troops that soaking their handkerchiefs in their own urine would work, it did.
Third Battle of Ypres
The third battle of Ypres was also known as the tragedy at Passendale. This battle was certainly the most gruesome battle of them all, causing 250,000 British casualties and even more German deaths. This was said to be the most important battle of the war. The offensive was launched at the Germans on July 31, 1916. The Ypres countryside was so waterlogged that the trenches were often half full of water. on May 7th, 1917, one million pounds of ammonal a very explosive substance) exploded in nineteen miles of 14 mines. These mines killed 23,000 people also resulting in the capture of over 7000 British troops. Shelling quickly transformed the battlefield into a vast evil smelling swamp of quicksands into which men, horses, guns and conventional road making materials would disappear and leave no trace. The majority of the soldiers died from sinking or drowning rather that shelling or gunfire.