WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.680 I know exactly why you're here. You've got that 00:00:02.680 --> 00:00:06.120 itch. Oh, yeah. That deep burning curiosity to 00:00:06.120 --> 00:00:07.639 understand how the world works. But you know 00:00:07.639 --> 00:00:10.380 you don't want to drown in a sea of textbooks 00:00:10.380 --> 00:00:12.439 and academic jargon to get there. Everybody wants 00:00:12.439 --> 00:00:14.660 that. Right. You want the good stuff, the facts, 00:00:14.839 --> 00:00:18.320 the context, those aha moments. And you want 00:00:18.320 --> 00:00:21.420 it to actually make sense. Well, welcome to today's 00:00:21.420 --> 00:00:23.920 custom tailored deep dive. We've got a truly 00:00:23.920 --> 00:00:26.039 fascinating stack of sources for you today. We 00:00:26.039 --> 00:00:28.660 really do. We're pulling from a comprehensive 00:00:28.660 --> 00:00:30.859 historical account of the Battle of Messines, 00:00:31.100 --> 00:00:33.759 which was fought on the Western Front from June 00:00:33.759 --> 00:00:37.490 7th to the 14th in 1917. Now, when most people 00:00:37.490 --> 00:00:40.070 think of World War I, they picture the same things. 00:00:40.310 --> 00:00:42.750 Muddy trenches. Muddy trenches, blowing whistles, 00:00:42.950 --> 00:00:46.189 and completely senseless frontal assaults. But 00:00:46.189 --> 00:00:48.530 the mission of our deep dive today is to explore 00:00:48.530 --> 00:00:51.570 how this specific battle became a masterclass 00:00:51.570 --> 00:00:54.049 in meticulous planning, scientific innovation, 00:00:54.609 --> 00:00:58.280 and a truly terrifying technological scale. Okay, 00:00:58.299 --> 00:01:01.079 let's unpack this. It is vital. I mean really 00:01:01.079 --> 00:01:05.060 vital that we reframe how we look at this particular 00:01:05.060 --> 00:01:07.579 period of history. Messines was not just another 00:01:07.579 --> 00:01:10.620 tragic muddy stalemate. What we're looking at 00:01:10.620 --> 00:01:13.540 here is a profound shift in modern warfare. It 00:01:13.540 --> 00:01:16.079 really was. The British military took geology, 00:01:16.159 --> 00:01:19.239 aviation, and explosive engineering and they 00:01:19.239 --> 00:01:22.620 integrated them on a scale that had quite literally 00:01:22.620 --> 00:01:25.019 never been seen in human history up to that point. 00:01:25.079 --> 00:01:27.260 In a fur. It's a textbook example of treating 00:01:27.260 --> 00:01:30.099 warfare as an exact calculated science. And to 00:01:30.099 --> 00:01:31.420 understand the science, I think we first have 00:01:31.420 --> 00:01:33.260 to understand the geography. Yeah. Let's set 00:01:33.260 --> 00:01:35.920 the scene for you. It's 1917, and we are in the 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:39.319 Ypres salient in Belgium. The British Second 00:01:39.319 --> 00:01:41.719 Army desperately needs to capture what's called 00:01:41.719 --> 00:01:44.019 the Messines -Witchetty Ridge. Right, the ridge. 00:01:44.239 --> 00:01:46.239 And if you look at the topography of the area, 00:01:46.620 --> 00:01:48.620 the heights are actually pretty subtle. It's 00:01:48.620 --> 00:01:50.519 an area of low ridges and dips, but they act 00:01:50.519 --> 00:01:53.049 almost like the raised lip of a saucer wrapped 00:01:53.049 --> 00:01:56.010 right around the city of Ypres. And that saucer 00:01:56.010 --> 00:01:58.569 lip dictated everything that happened in this 00:01:58.569 --> 00:02:01.409 sector because the German 4th Army held that 00:02:01.409 --> 00:02:05.069 high ground. From that ridge they had complete 00:02:05.069 --> 00:02:07.390 unimpeded observation over the British defenses 00:02:07.390 --> 00:02:10.050 and all the back areas behind the lines. They 00:02:10.050 --> 00:02:12.229 could see everything. Everything. Every supply 00:02:12.229 --> 00:02:15.129 wagon, every troop movement, every single artillery 00:02:15.129 --> 00:02:18.009 piece coming and going. The British needed to 00:02:18.009 --> 00:02:21.030 take this ridge for two massive strategic reasons. 00:02:21.909 --> 00:02:24.569 First down south, the French army was in a state 00:02:24.569 --> 00:02:26.870 of absolute crisis. They were mutinying, right? 00:02:27.169 --> 00:02:30.129 Exactly. Following a disastrous campaign called 00:02:30.129 --> 00:02:32.770 the Navelle Offensive Morale had completely collapsed. 00:02:33.270 --> 00:02:35.569 This led to widespread mutinies among the French 00:02:35.569 --> 00:02:38.229 troops. The Allied line was incredibly vulnerable. 00:02:38.379 --> 00:02:41.159 Wow. So a British offensive up in Flanders would 00:02:41.159 --> 00:02:43.199 force the Germans to move their reserves away 00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:45.319 from the French, giving them time to recover. 00:02:45.400 --> 00:02:47.180 So they essentially had to create a distraction 00:02:47.180 --> 00:02:49.479 up north to save the whole alliance down south. 00:02:49.939 --> 00:02:53.240 Precisely that. And the second reason was that 00:02:53.240 --> 00:02:55.379 the British were planning a much larger northern 00:02:55.379 --> 00:02:58.659 operation, which history remembers as the infamous 00:02:58.659 --> 00:03:01.900 Battle of Passchendaele. They simply could not 00:03:01.900 --> 00:03:04.500 launch that massive offensive while the Germans 00:03:04.500 --> 00:03:06.340 were still looking down their throats from the 00:03:06.340 --> 00:03:09.599 scenes read. I tried to picture it like you're 00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:11.740 trying to plan a massive surprise party in a 00:03:11.740 --> 00:03:14.090 glass house. A glass house, yeah. And your neighbor 00:03:14.090 --> 00:03:16.930 who absolutely hates you is watching your every 00:03:16.930 --> 00:03:19.270 move from a hill with a pair of high powered 00:03:19.270 --> 00:03:22.150 binoculars. You cannot do anything. You can't 00:03:22.150 --> 00:03:23.770 bring in the cake. You can't hide the guests 00:03:23.770 --> 00:03:25.789 until you go up there and take that hill. You 00:03:25.789 --> 00:03:28.289 just have to blind them first. That is a perfect 00:03:28.289 --> 00:03:30.990 analogy for the problem facing General Sir Herbert 00:03:30.990 --> 00:03:33.689 Plimmer. He commanded the British Second Army. 00:03:34.270 --> 00:03:36.909 And what's fascinating here is the sheer sophistication 00:03:36.909 --> 00:03:39.229 of his approach to solving it. Plumer didn't 00:03:39.229 --> 00:03:41.330 just order his infantry to charge up the hill 00:03:41.330 --> 00:03:43.469 and hope for the best. No, he definitely did 00:03:43.469 --> 00:03:46.310 not. He centralized his artillery and essentially 00:03:46.310 --> 00:03:48.930 turned the entire battlefield into a massive 00:03:48.930 --> 00:03:51.590 deadly laboratory. I was reading about the artillery 00:03:51.590 --> 00:03:53.969 innovations, and it's mind -blowing how they 00:03:53.969 --> 00:03:56.750 figured out where to shoot. I mean, if the Germans 00:03:56.750 --> 00:03:58.689 are hiding their guns on the reverse slope of 00:03:58.689 --> 00:04:01.650 this ridge, how did the British even know what 00:04:01.650 --> 00:04:03.590 they were aiming at? That is where the science 00:04:03.590 --> 00:04:06.689 comes into play. They deployed cutting edge techniques 00:04:06.689 --> 00:04:10.270 that seem incredibly modern for 1917. First, 00:04:10.349 --> 00:04:13.229 they mapped the entire area on brand new, highly 00:04:13.229 --> 00:04:16.750 accurate 1 to 10 ,000 scale maps. But to find 00:04:16.750 --> 00:04:19.529 the hidden guns, they used something called sound 00:04:19.529 --> 00:04:21.889 ranging. Wait, you mean they literally listened 00:04:21.889 --> 00:04:24.589 for the artillery? Literally listened, yes. How 00:04:24.589 --> 00:04:26.949 does that even work without modern computers? 00:04:27.029 --> 00:04:29.709 I mean, it's 1917. It was pure mathematics and 00:04:29.709 --> 00:04:32.209 physics. They strung up a series of specialized 00:04:32.209 --> 00:04:35.019 microphones along the front line. When a hidden 00:04:35.019 --> 00:04:37.800 German gun fired, the sound wave of the boom 00:04:37.800 --> 00:04:40.600 would reach each microphone at a slightly different 00:04:40.600 --> 00:04:44.019 millisecond. By measuring those microscopic time 00:04:44.019 --> 00:04:46.160 differences, mathematicians working right there 00:04:46.160 --> 00:04:48.779 behind the lines could triangulate the exact 00:04:48.779 --> 00:04:51.100 position of the gun that fired. That's insane. 00:04:51.360 --> 00:04:53.699 And they combined this with flash spotting, which 00:04:53.699 --> 00:04:56.300 meant using surveying instruments called theodolites 00:04:56.300 --> 00:04:58.980 to physically measure the angles of the muzzle 00:04:58.980 --> 00:05:01.790 flashes on the horizon at night. That is incredible. 00:05:02.009 --> 00:05:04.910 So by doing all that math, how much of the German 00:05:04.910 --> 00:05:06.949 artillery were they actually able to locate? 00:05:07.189 --> 00:05:09.990 The combination of those techniques allowed the 00:05:09.990 --> 00:05:13.470 British to plot a staggering 90 % of the hidden 00:05:13.470 --> 00:05:16.930 German artillery positions. 90%. 90%. It was 00:05:16.930 --> 00:05:19.709 an absolute revolution in counter battery fire. 00:05:19.959 --> 00:05:21.860 But they didn't just rely on the guys on the 00:05:21.860 --> 00:05:24.300 ground doing math. The coordination in the air 00:05:24.300 --> 00:05:28.459 blew me away. For 1917, having 300 aircraft dominating 00:05:28.459 --> 00:05:31.240 the skies just seems so futuristic. Oh, the air 00:05:31.240 --> 00:05:33.540 war was deeply integrated into the artillery 00:05:33.540 --> 00:05:36.920 plan. British planes used wireless interception 00:05:36.920 --> 00:05:39.639 to track the German artillery spotters. They 00:05:39.639 --> 00:05:42.019 implemented strict wireless protocols so that 00:05:42.019 --> 00:05:43.819 hundreds of British planes wouldn't interfere 00:05:43.819 --> 00:05:45.579 with each other's radio signals while calling 00:05:45.579 --> 00:05:48.899 in artillery coordinates. And my absolute favorite 00:05:48.899 --> 00:05:51.420 detail from the sources, when the battle actually 00:05:51.420 --> 00:05:54.279 started, these planes flew so low over the battlefield 00:05:54.279 --> 00:05:56.699 to track the advancing British troops that they 00:05:56.699 --> 00:05:59.699 could identify them by specific flares the soldiers 00:05:59.699 --> 00:06:02.279 lit on the ground. They had be right on top of 00:06:02.279 --> 00:06:04.319 them. Right. Some of them flew so low they were 00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:06.620 tragically shot down by their own side's artillery 00:06:06.620 --> 00:06:09.639 barrage, which brings us to the firepower itself. 00:06:10.500 --> 00:06:12.500 Before the infantry even stepped foot out of 00:06:12.500 --> 00:06:16.040 their trenches, the British unleashed hell. Just 00:06:16.040 --> 00:06:18.360 how big was this preliminary bombardment? The 00:06:18.360 --> 00:06:21.540 British assembled 2 ,230 guns and howitzers. 00:06:21.980 --> 00:06:23.819 In the week leading up to the attack, they fired 00:06:23.819 --> 00:06:27.300 over 3 .5 million shells onto the ridge. Wow. 00:06:28.060 --> 00:06:29.980 Let that number sink in for a moment. Three and 00:06:29.980 --> 00:06:32.000 a half million. It's hard to even picture that. 00:06:32.199 --> 00:06:34.939 The goal? was to systematically vaporize the 00:06:34.939 --> 00:06:37.899 German barbed wire, shatter their concrete strong 00:06:37.899 --> 00:06:41.600 points, and absolutely destroy those 630 German 00:06:41.600 --> 00:06:43.959 artillery pieces they had so carefully mapped 00:06:43.959 --> 00:06:46.100 out with the sound ranging. OK, here's where 00:06:46.100 --> 00:06:48.139 it gets really interesting, though, because as 00:06:48.139 --> 00:06:51.860 terrifying as 3 .5 million shells raining down 00:06:51.860 --> 00:06:54.519 from the sky is the real nightmare was brewing 00:06:54.519 --> 00:06:56.819 right beneath the Germans feet. The Underground 00:06:56.819 --> 00:06:59.199 War. This is what the Battle of Messines is most 00:06:59.199 --> 00:07:02.040 famous for. This was not just some soldiers with 00:07:02.040 --> 00:07:04.319 shovels digging a trench in the mud. To pull 00:07:04.319 --> 00:07:07.300 this off, they had to bring in top -tier military 00:07:07.300 --> 00:07:09.660 geologists, right? They absolutely did. You can't 00:07:09.660 --> 00:07:12.139 just dig anywhere in Flanders. The water table 00:07:12.139 --> 00:07:14.980 is so high it's practically a swamp. Right. The 00:07:14.980 --> 00:07:17.810 British brought in experts. including a renowned 00:07:17.810 --> 00:07:20.870 geologist named Edgeworth David, to map out the 00:07:20.870 --> 00:07:23.790 subterranean layers. They identified a specific 00:07:23.790 --> 00:07:26.810 geological stratum, a layer of waterproof blue 00:07:26.810 --> 00:07:30.589 clay that sat roughly 80 to 120 feet underground. 00:07:31.050 --> 00:07:32.930 Getting down there and digging horizontal tunnels 00:07:32.930 --> 00:07:35.610 through clay while an artillery bombardment shakes 00:07:35.610 --> 00:07:38.329 the earth above you sounds intensely claustrophobic. 00:07:38.449 --> 00:07:41.310 It was an unbelievable feat of subterranean engineering, 00:07:41.310 --> 00:07:44.209 and it sparked a tense, terrifying cat and mouse 00:07:44.209 --> 00:07:46.939 game in the pitch black. You had specialized 00:07:46.939 --> 00:07:49.079 mining units from Britain, Canada, Australia, 00:07:49.180 --> 00:07:51.879 and New Zealand. They drifted nearly 6 ,000 yards 00:07:51.879 --> 00:07:54.339 of galleries deep beneath the German lines. 6 00:07:54.339 --> 00:07:56.680 ,000 yards? And they were using hand -cranked 00:07:56.680 --> 00:07:59.399 boring machines to minimize noise. Because the 00:07:59.399 --> 00:08:01.120 Germans were not entirely oblivious to this. 00:08:01.379 --> 00:08:03.100 Because they were countermining, right? Digging 00:08:03.100 --> 00:08:05.860 their own tunnels to find the British. Yes. The 00:08:05.860 --> 00:08:08.019 Germans were desperately trying to listen for 00:08:08.019 --> 00:08:10.939 the sound of British digging. At one point, German 00:08:10.939 --> 00:08:12.920 tunnelers actually broke through and found one 00:08:12.920 --> 00:08:15.939 of the British mines at a place called Le Petit 00:08:15.939 --> 00:08:19.579 Duf farm. They completely wrecked the explosive 00:08:19.579 --> 00:08:21.660 chamber with a counter charge. Fighting hand 00:08:21.660 --> 00:08:24.779 to hand or setting off explosives 100 feet underground 00:08:24.779 --> 00:08:27.939 in a collapsed tunnel is just a horrifying reality 00:08:27.939 --> 00:08:30.800 to try and picture. But even with the Germans 00:08:30.800 --> 00:08:33.779 discovering that one location, the British still 00:08:33.779 --> 00:08:38.000 managed to lay 26 massive mines. And they packed 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:42.299 them with over 400 long tons of an explosive 00:08:42.299 --> 00:08:45.419 called Ammonal. It's massive. Just how big were 00:08:45.419 --> 00:08:47.620 these individual charges? The scale is almost 00:08:47.620 --> 00:08:50.179 difficult to comprehend. One of the absolute 00:08:50.179 --> 00:08:52.940 biggest was the Spanbrook Molen Mine, which today 00:08:52.940 --> 00:08:55.429 is known as the Lone Tree Crater. The British 00:08:55.429 --> 00:08:58.389 packed 91 ,000 pounds of Amunal into a single 00:08:58.389 --> 00:09:00.909 chamber at the end of a gallery, 88 feet below 00:09:00.909 --> 00:09:02.789 the surface. The German troops holding the ridge 00:09:02.789 --> 00:09:04.690 actually suspected something was wrong, didn't 00:09:04.690 --> 00:09:07.830 they? They did. Their morale was already heavily 00:09:07.830 --> 00:09:10.110 depressed by the relentless bombardment above 00:09:10.110 --> 00:09:12.730 ground, and the psychological terror of knowing 00:09:12.730 --> 00:09:15.210 the earth beneath you might explode at any moment 00:09:15.210 --> 00:09:18.090 was taking a massive toll. I can't imagine. But 00:09:18.090 --> 00:09:21.139 the German High Command insisted. The ridge had 00:09:21.139 --> 00:09:24.059 to be held at all costs, keeping their men directly 00:09:24.059 --> 00:09:26.500 over the danger zone. Which brings us to zero 00:09:26.500 --> 00:09:28.919 hour. I want to paint this picture for you because 00:09:28.919 --> 00:09:30.799 the sensory details from the source material 00:09:30.799 --> 00:09:34.679 are just haunting. It's the morning of June 7th, 00:09:34.679 --> 00:09:38.980 1917. At about 3 .0 in the morning, the routine 00:09:38.980 --> 00:09:43.080 British night firing just stops. Completely stops. 00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:45.139 Total silence. The sudden quiet on the Western 00:09:45.139 --> 00:09:47.360 Front is so profound that the soldiers standing 00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:49.620 in the trenches can actually hear birdsong in 00:09:49.620 --> 00:09:52.259 the dark. And that silence was a highly deliberate 00:09:52.259 --> 00:09:55.039 psychological tactic. It lulled the German defenders 00:09:55.039 --> 00:09:57.740 into a false sense of security. Experiencing 00:09:57.740 --> 00:09:59.759 that sudden quiet, many of the German troops 00:09:59.759 --> 00:10:02.220 actually left their deep concrete shelters and 00:10:02.220 --> 00:10:04.679 returned to their forward positions. Oh no. They 00:10:04.679 --> 00:10:06.899 assumed the artillery had stopped because a British 00:10:06.899 --> 00:10:09.179 infantry assault was coming and they need to 00:10:09.179 --> 00:10:11.379 demand the breastworks to repel it. And then 00:10:11.379 --> 00:10:15.379 at exactly 3 .10 a .m. the ground opens up, 19 00:10:15.379 --> 00:10:17.980 of the deep mines detonate. But the source points 00:10:17.980 --> 00:10:20.179 out they didn't all go off at the exact same 00:10:20.179 --> 00:10:22.659 millisecond. They were detonated sequentially 00:10:22.659 --> 00:10:25.480 over a period of 19 seconds. Why wouldn't you 00:10:25.480 --> 00:10:27.840 just blow them all up at once for maximum impact? 00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:31.419 That 19 second stagger was a brilliant and devastating 00:10:31.419 --> 00:10:34.039 design choice. If you detonate them all at once, 00:10:34.179 --> 00:10:37.759 you get one massive localized upward blast. By 00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:40.340 staggering the detonations over 19 seconds, the 00:10:40.340 --> 00:10:44.000 engineers created overlapping seismic waves that 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:45.960 physically rippled through the earth. So it was 00:10:45.960 --> 00:10:48.600 like a wave. Exactly. It essentially mimicked 00:10:48.600 --> 00:10:51.259 a massive sustained earthquake, liquefying the 00:10:51.259 --> 00:10:53.039 ground and multiplying the destructive force. 00:10:53.179 --> 00:10:55.340 The human cost of that is staggering. The source 00:10:55.340 --> 00:10:57.980 states roughly 10 ,000 German soldiers were killed 00:10:57.980 --> 00:11:00.759 instantly in the blasts. It remains the deadliest 00:11:00.759 --> 00:11:03.080 non -nuclear man -made explosion in recorded 00:11:03.080 --> 00:11:05.049 history. Let's just sit with that for a second. 00:11:05.330 --> 00:11:08.090 10 ,000 lives extinguished in 19 seconds just 00:11:08.090 --> 00:11:10.009 from the earth beneath them ceasing to exist. 00:11:10.570 --> 00:11:13.370 It is a level of sudden devastation that is incredibly 00:11:13.370 --> 00:11:16.370 difficult to process. And the physical shockwave 00:11:16.370 --> 00:11:19.629 was so massive that it caused panic among German 00:11:19.629 --> 00:11:23.149 troops 15 miles away in the city of Lille. The 00:11:23.149 --> 00:11:25.409 reports even mention that the acoustic shockwave 00:11:25.409 --> 00:11:29.009 was heard as far away as London and Dublin. London 00:11:29.009 --> 00:11:31.549 and Dublin, yes. One second you're standing in 00:11:31.549 --> 00:11:34.090 a trench listening to birds and the next a man 00:11:34.090 --> 00:11:37.169 -made earthquake rips the ridge apart and the 00:11:37.169 --> 00:11:40.009 instant those 19 mines went off the British artillery 00:11:40.009 --> 00:11:43.149 resumed firing at its absolute maximum rate. 00:11:43.509 --> 00:11:46.320 What happened next? That artillery fire provided 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:49.179 the shield for the infantry advance. Roughly 00:11:49.179 --> 00:11:51.259 80 ,000 British, Australian, and New Zealand 00:11:51.259 --> 00:11:53.820 troops surged up the slope. They were protected 00:11:53.820 --> 00:11:56.139 by what is known as a creeping barrage. Could 00:11:56.139 --> 00:11:58.259 you break down exactly how a creeping barrage 00:11:58.259 --> 00:12:00.320 works for someone who might not be familiar with 00:12:00.320 --> 00:12:02.779 World War I tactics? Certainly. Instead of just 00:12:02.779 --> 00:12:04.720 firing at the enemy trenches and then stopping 00:12:04.720 --> 00:12:06.700 when your own troops attack a creeping barrage 00:12:06.700 --> 00:12:09.360 is a moving wall of high explosives and shrapnel. 00:12:09.399 --> 00:12:12.100 Okay. The artillery fires continuously, but they 00:12:12.100 --> 00:12:14.700 adjust their aim to physically move the curtain 00:12:14.700 --> 00:12:17.480 of explosions forward at a set pace, in this 00:12:17.480 --> 00:12:19.960 case about 100 yards every two minutes. So the 00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:22.440 troops are walking right behind it. The advancing 00:12:22.440 --> 00:12:24.820 infantry has to walk immediately behind that 00:12:24.820 --> 00:12:27.600 moving wall of fire. If they walk too fast, they're 00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:30.269 killed by their own artillery. If they walk too 00:12:30.269 --> 00:12:32.789 slow, the enemy has time to climb out of their 00:12:32.789 --> 00:12:35.710 bunkers and man their machine guns. The coordination 00:12:35.710 --> 00:12:38.129 required for that without radios for the infantry 00:12:38.129 --> 00:12:41.649 is wild. The dust and smoke from the mines and 00:12:41.649 --> 00:12:45.549 this creeping barrage were so thick that it completely 00:12:45.549 --> 00:12:47.990 blinded the surviving German defenders. They 00:12:47.990 --> 00:12:50.649 couldn't see anything beyond 100 yards. But the 00:12:50.649 --> 00:12:52.529 British didn't just walk blindly in a straight 00:12:52.529 --> 00:12:54.629 line either, did they? They used some new infantry 00:12:54.629 --> 00:12:56.889 tactics. They utilized what they called pillbox 00:12:56.889 --> 00:13:00.080 fighting. This was a crucial evolution. Previously, 00:13:00.259 --> 00:13:02.419 a massive attack with thousands of men might 00:13:02.419 --> 00:13:06.039 get completely bogged down by a single surviving 00:13:06.039 --> 00:13:08.100 machine gun nest. Right. Holding up the whole 00:13:08.100 --> 00:13:11.240 line. Exactly. At Messines, the leading troops 00:13:11.240 --> 00:13:13.759 were trained specifically to bypass those heavy 00:13:13.759 --> 00:13:16.600 strong points. They used portable Lewis machine 00:13:16.600 --> 00:13:19.759 guns and rifle grenades to suppress the defenders 00:13:19.759 --> 00:13:22.100 keeping their heads down and just kept moving 00:13:22.100 --> 00:13:24.820 forward. Specialized mopping up parties came 00:13:24.820 --> 00:13:28.379 up from behind to surround and secure the bypassed 00:13:28.379 --> 00:13:30.639 positions. That makes so much more sense. They 00:13:30.639 --> 00:13:33.500 even integrated new Mark IV tanks and cavalry 00:13:33.500 --> 00:13:35.840 patrols to support the advance. It seems like 00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:38.529 it totally overwhelmed the German defense. But 00:13:38.529 --> 00:13:40.490 from the German perspective, they had recently 00:13:40.490 --> 00:13:42.870 redesigned their entire defensive philosophy 00:13:42.870 --> 00:13:45.929 into what they called the Flandernstallung. What 00:13:45.929 --> 00:13:48.710 was that and why didn't it work? The Flandernstallung 00:13:48.710 --> 00:13:51.710 was a system of defense in depth. The old way 00:13:51.710 --> 00:13:54.090 of defending a trench was to pack all your soldiers 00:13:54.090 --> 00:13:56.549 into the very front line, which meant they all 00:13:56.549 --> 00:13:58.669 died when the artillery hit. Makes sense to change 00:13:58.669 --> 00:14:01.929 that. Right. So defense in depth meant holding 00:14:01.929 --> 00:14:04.669 the front line very lightly and keeping your 00:14:04.669 --> 00:14:07.269 main forces miles further back in support and 00:14:07.269 --> 00:14:10.200 reserve. When the enemy attacked and took the 00:14:10.200 --> 00:14:12.899 first line, these massive reserve units called 00:14:12.899 --> 00:14:15.740 Eingreif or intervention divisions would launch 00:14:15.740 --> 00:14:18.840 rapid, overwhelming counterattacks to crush the 00:14:18.840 --> 00:14:21.759 exhausted attackers. So why didn't these Eingreif 00:14:21.759 --> 00:14:23.899 divisions just sweep in and push the British 00:14:23.899 --> 00:14:26.539 back off the ridge? Because the theory completely 00:14:26.539 --> 00:14:29.059 collapsed under the sheer scientific weight of 00:14:29.059 --> 00:14:31.730 the British plan. The German frontline troops 00:14:31.730 --> 00:14:34.750 were entirely vaporized by the mines or instantly 00:14:34.750 --> 00:14:37.769 overrun by the creeping barrage. When the German 00:14:37.769 --> 00:14:39.629 Eingrief divisions tried to move forward from 00:14:39.629 --> 00:14:41.870 the rear to launch their counterattack, they 00:14:41.870 --> 00:14:43.909 had to march through the incredibly accurate 00:14:43.909 --> 00:14:46.029 British artillery fire we discussed earlier. 00:14:46.570 --> 00:14:49.110 They were horribly delayed, the roads were gone, 00:14:49.269 --> 00:14:51.190 and they were utterly decimated before they could 00:14:51.190 --> 00:14:53.230 even reach the frontline fighting. It sounds 00:14:53.230 --> 00:14:56.629 like a perfectly executed, flawless plan, but 00:14:56.629 --> 00:14:59.590 war is still just absolute chaos no matter how 00:14:59.590 --> 00:15:03.110 much science you apply. There is this striking 00:15:03.110 --> 00:15:05.269 anecdote from the source material about the friction 00:15:05.269 --> 00:15:08.480 on the battlefield. Late in the day, near a place 00:15:08.480 --> 00:15:11.139 called Blauport Beek, there was a massive mix 00:15:11.139 --> 00:15:14.120 -up. Australian troops were holding a line and 00:15:14.120 --> 00:15:16.059 British troops were moving in to relieve them. 00:15:16.539 --> 00:15:18.919 And that is exactly where the fog of war asserts 00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:21.600 itself. The British saw the Australians moving 00:15:21.600 --> 00:15:24.259 back and assumed it was a German counter -attack 00:15:24.259 --> 00:15:26.980 breaking through, so they called down an emergency 00:15:26.980 --> 00:15:30.470 SOS artillery barrage on them. At the exact same 00:15:30.470 --> 00:15:32.269 time, the Australians saw the British moving 00:15:32.269 --> 00:15:34.850 forward, thought they were the German counterattack, 00:15:35.149 --> 00:15:37.990 and also called down an SOS barrage. So you had 00:15:37.990 --> 00:15:40.669 British and Australian troops mistakenly calling 00:15:40.669 --> 00:15:43.110 down heavy artillery on each other for two hours? 00:15:43.230 --> 00:15:46.190 Two hours, yes. Two hours of surviving this meticulously 00:15:46.190 --> 00:15:49.009 planned battle, only to be shelled by your own 00:15:49.009 --> 00:15:51.129 side because of a visual misunderstanding in 00:15:51.129 --> 00:15:53.789 the smoke. It really highlights that even in 00:15:53.789 --> 00:15:55.789 a perfectly planned victory, the reality on the 00:15:55.789 --> 00:16:03.019 ground is terrifying and uncontrollable. No matter 00:16:03.019 --> 00:16:05.720 how many 1 to 10 ,000 scale maps you draw or 00:16:05.720 --> 00:16:08.179 how beautifully you time your creeping barrage, 00:16:08.539 --> 00:16:11.000 human error, severed communication lines, and 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:13.919 the fog of war will always interfere. Yet despite 00:16:13.919 --> 00:16:16.460 that confusion, the overall operation was an 00:16:16.460 --> 00:16:19.019 undeniable success. It really was. The British 00:16:19.019 --> 00:16:20.919 took all their initial objectives in less than 00:16:20.919 --> 00:16:24.159 12 hours. They captured over 7 ,000 German prisoners, 00:16:24.700 --> 00:16:27.639 48 guns, and hundreds of machine guns. General 00:16:27.639 --> 00:16:29.659 Plumer's scientific laboratory of a battle had 00:16:29.659 --> 00:16:32.090 actually worked. If we connect this to the bigger 00:16:32.090 --> 00:16:34.169 picture, though, we have to look at the human 00:16:34.169 --> 00:16:37.090 cost and the strategic debate that has raged 00:16:37.090 --> 00:16:40.009 among historians ever since. The victory at Messines 00:16:40.009 --> 00:16:42.070 was brilliant, but it was certainly not bloodless. 00:16:42.190 --> 00:16:44.549 No, definitely not. The British and ANZAC forces 00:16:44.549 --> 00:16:47.450 suffered roughly 24 ,000 casualties, while the 00:16:47.450 --> 00:16:49.690 Germans suffered somewhere between 21 ,000 and 00:16:49.690 --> 00:16:52.789 26 ,000. And strategically after this stunning 00:16:52.789 --> 00:16:55.289 success, the British paused. I suppose they had 00:16:55.289 --> 00:16:57.470 it right. They had to rebuild all the roads and 00:16:57.470 --> 00:16:59.490 supply lines over the ridge. They had just spent 00:16:59.490 --> 00:17:02.409 a week completely obliterating with 3 .5 million 00:17:02.409 --> 00:17:05.309 shells and 19 underground earthquakes. The infrastructure 00:17:05.309 --> 00:17:08.769 was entirely erased. The delay required to consolidate 00:17:08.769 --> 00:17:11.190 their gains and build new supply routes over 00:17:11.190 --> 00:17:14.009 that devastated landscape meant that the larger 00:17:14.009 --> 00:17:16.650 Northern Operation Passchendaele did not begin 00:17:16.650 --> 00:17:19.579 until weeks later. Right. By the time it did, 00:17:19.700 --> 00:17:21.960 the Germans had regrouped, the weather had turned, 00:17:22.359 --> 00:17:24.339 and the British offensive bogged down into one 00:17:24.339 --> 00:17:26.960 of the most tragic, muddy slogs of the entire 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:30.359 war. Many argued that the long pause after Messines 00:17:30.359 --> 00:17:32.640 squandered the very momentum they had spent so 00:17:32.640 --> 00:17:34.880 much effort to build. So what does this all mean? 00:17:35.259 --> 00:17:37.660 For you listening today, why does a battle from 00:17:37.660 --> 00:17:41.299 1917 matter? I think it is a profound testament 00:17:41.299 --> 00:17:43.660 to the power of cross -disciplinary integration. 00:17:44.009 --> 00:17:46.230 They didn't just look at the problem as a purely 00:17:46.230 --> 00:17:49.789 military one. They used geologists to map the 00:17:49.789 --> 00:17:52.970 deep earth aviators to control the sky, and mathematicians 00:17:52.970 --> 00:17:55.650 to perfectly synchronize an unimaginable amount 00:17:55.650 --> 00:17:58.230 of artillery. It shows how deeply understanding 00:17:58.230 --> 00:18:00.509 your environment and applying rigorous science 00:18:00.509 --> 00:18:02.809 can completely overwhelm an entrenched opponent. 00:18:03.549 --> 00:18:06.190 But there is a physical legacy to all of this 00:18:06.190 --> 00:18:09.250 too. A really memorable kind of crazy fact from 00:18:09.250 --> 00:18:12.049 the source text. We mentioned they laid 26 mines 00:18:12.049 --> 00:18:15.130 and 19 went off. The Germans found one, but several 00:18:15.130 --> 00:18:17.609 of them just didn't detonate. They just sat there. 00:18:17.670 --> 00:18:20.349 They were left to bury deep in the blue clay. 00:18:20.730 --> 00:18:24.670 In 1955, decades after the war ended, a lightning 00:18:24.670 --> 00:18:26.849 strike hit the ground at Messines and actually 00:18:26.849 --> 00:18:28.869 traveled down to the earth, setting one of those 00:18:28.869 --> 00:18:32.069 lost mines off. Decades later. Miraculously, 00:18:32.210 --> 00:18:34.450 the only casualty was a very unlucky cow and 00:18:34.450 --> 00:18:37.250 the wildest part. There is believed to be another 00:18:37.250 --> 00:18:40.309 fully loaded abandoned mine still buried somewhere 00:18:40.309 --> 00:18:43.349 beneath the Belgian countryside today. That unexploded 00:18:43.349 --> 00:18:45.869 mine feels like a potent metaphor for the lingering 00:18:45.869 --> 00:18:49.029 scars of the First World War just beneath the 00:18:49.029 --> 00:18:52.119 surface of modern Europe. But before we wrap 00:18:52.119 --> 00:18:53.700 up today, this raises an important question, 00:18:53.759 --> 00:18:55.619 something we haven't touched on yet, but is deeply 00:18:55.619 --> 00:18:57.519 connected to the source material. I'm intrigued. 00:18:57.859 --> 00:19:00.140 The text briefly notes a British artilleryman 00:19:00.140 --> 00:19:03.759 named Ronald Skirth. He fought at Messines, witnessing 00:19:03.759 --> 00:19:06.579 this exact battle. And afterward, he became a 00:19:06.579 --> 00:19:09.539 devoted pacifist, taking a solemn vow never to 00:19:09.539 --> 00:19:12.279 take another human life. I want to pose a question 00:19:12.279 --> 00:19:15.279 for you to mull over. When we look at Messines, 00:19:15.839 --> 00:19:18.680 the breathtaking, terrifying pinnacle of human 00:19:18.680 --> 00:19:21.140 engineering, geological mastery, and scientific 00:19:21.140 --> 00:19:23.680 coordination, what does it say about the human 00:19:23.680 --> 00:19:26.680 spirit that witnessing such a perfect technological 00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:29.680 victory is exactly what drove some men to renounce 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:32.759 war entirely? Wow. How is it that our greatest 00:19:32.759 --> 00:19:34.940 technological triumphs sometimes trigger our 00:19:34.940 --> 00:19:38.019 deepest moral awakenings? That is a heavy, beautiful 00:19:38.019 --> 00:19:39.619 thought to leave on. You really have to wonder 00:19:39.619 --> 00:19:41.160 what it was like to stand there and watch the 00:19:41.160 --> 00:19:43.759 earth literally shatter knowing human minds calculated 00:19:43.759 --> 00:19:46.420 and planned every single second of it. Thank 00:19:46.420 --> 00:19:48.240 you so much for joining us on this custom deep 00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:50.700 dive into the sources today. Keep asking questions, 00:19:50.839 --> 00:19:52.599 keep looking for the context, and to keep seeking 00:19:52.599 --> 00:19:54.839 out those aha moments in history. We will catch 00:19:54.839 --> 00:19:55.400 you next time.