WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.439 Welcome to the Deep Dive. You brought us a massive 00:00:03.439 --> 00:00:07.120 stack of historical breakdowns focusing on a 00:00:07.120 --> 00:00:11.300 truly monumental subject today. Yeah, the Battle 00:00:11.300 --> 00:00:14.140 of Passchendaele. Right. Also known to history 00:00:14.140 --> 00:00:17.379 as the Third Battle of Ypres. We have been combing 00:00:17.379 --> 00:00:19.500 through the source material you provided. And 00:00:19.500 --> 00:00:22.039 frankly, we are just thrilled to unpack it with 00:00:22.039 --> 00:00:24.519 you. It is definitely not your standard textbook 00:00:24.519 --> 00:00:26.920 summary, that is for sure. No, not at all. We 00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:28.300 know you aren't looking for that surface level 00:00:28.300 --> 00:00:31.960 overview of just endless mud and, you know, tragic 00:00:31.960 --> 00:00:34.539 feudal charges. Exactly. Our mission today is 00:00:34.539 --> 00:00:37.039 to go far beyond those established stereotypes 00:00:37.039 --> 00:00:40.039 of World War One. Instead... We want to uncover 00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:42.520 the actual tactical chess match that took place 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:44.560 on the ground. And we are going to dig into the 00:00:44.560 --> 00:00:46.880 intense environmental controversies too. Yeah, 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:50.000 and untangle the incredibly complex legacy of 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:52.740 one of history's most infamous campaigns. We 00:00:52.740 --> 00:00:54.820 want to deliver the real strategic insights to 00:00:54.820 --> 00:00:57.219 you without just drowning you in a sea of memorized 00:00:57.219 --> 00:01:00.259 dates. Because it is a campaign that has provoked 00:01:00.259 --> 00:01:02.679 fierce, passionate debate since the moment the 00:01:02.679 --> 00:01:05.540 guns finally fell silent in late 1917. It really 00:01:05.540 --> 00:01:08.280 has. To actually grasp what happened, you have 00:01:08.280 --> 00:01:10.640 to look closely at the mechanical realities of 00:01:10.640 --> 00:01:14.379 the battlefield. The rapidly evolving doctrines 00:01:14.379 --> 00:01:16.980 of both the British and German armies and, of 00:01:16.980 --> 00:01:19.079 course, the staggering logistical nightmares 00:01:19.079 --> 00:01:20.840 they had to navigate. Right. The sources make 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:23.500 it super clear that this wasn't just a blind, 00:01:23.859 --> 00:01:26.519 stubborn push into the mud. No, it was a highly 00:01:26.519 --> 00:01:29.480 calculated, albeit phenomenally costly, series 00:01:29.480 --> 00:01:32.319 of strategic maneuvers. And it was really born 00:01:32.319 --> 00:01:35.060 out of sheer desperation. So let's set the stage 00:01:35.060 --> 00:01:38.140 a bit. It is the summer of 1917. right on the 00:01:38.140 --> 00:01:40.420 Western front. The British are planning a massive 00:01:40.420 --> 00:01:42.480 offensive in the Flanders sector in Belgium. 00:01:42.659 --> 00:01:44.400 But before we get to the boots on the ground, 00:01:44.739 --> 00:01:47.620 we really need to understand the tremendous strategic 00:01:47.620 --> 00:01:49.620 pressure the British were under at the time. 00:01:50.239 --> 00:01:52.859 The British commander in chief, Sir Douglas Haig, 00:01:53.040 --> 00:01:55.500 had his eyes set firmly on the Belgian coast. 00:01:55.599 --> 00:01:57.219 And there was a very specific reason for that. 00:01:57.319 --> 00:01:59.959 Yeah, in early 1917, the Germans had resumed 00:01:59.959 --> 00:02:02.620 unrestricted submarine warfare. British shipping 00:02:02.620 --> 00:02:04.739 was just being absolutely devastated. It was 00:02:04.739 --> 00:02:08.020 a crisis. So Hague's overarching, incredibly 00:02:08.020 --> 00:02:11.139 ambitious plan was to push through the ridges 00:02:11.139 --> 00:02:14.219 east of Ypres, break out into the open country, 00:02:14.500 --> 00:02:16.680 and basically march all the way to the coast. 00:02:16.960 --> 00:02:19.539 He wanted to capture the ports of Ostend and 00:02:19.539 --> 00:02:22.539 Zeebrug. Exactly. Because the Germans were using 00:02:22.539 --> 00:02:26.080 those ports as critical U -boat bases. That maritime 00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:28.539 crisis was really the driving engine behind the 00:02:28.539 --> 00:02:31.419 entire offensive. But Hague faced a mountain 00:02:31.419 --> 00:02:34.340 of political and military pushback. Oh, massive 00:02:34.340 --> 00:02:36.889 pushback. The British Prime Minister, David Lloyd 00:02:36.889 --> 00:02:39.490 George, was vehemently opposed to the operation. 00:02:40.129 --> 00:02:42.250 He was looking at the horrific casualty lists 00:02:42.250 --> 00:02:44.409 from the Battle of the Somme the previous year, 00:02:44.729 --> 00:02:47.469 and he just dreaded a repeat performance in Flanders. 00:02:47.590 --> 00:02:50.319 It wasn't just the politicians. Right. General 00:02:50.319 --> 00:02:52.360 Ferdinand Foch, the chief of staff of the French 00:02:52.360 --> 00:02:55.319 army, was also staunchly against the plan. Foch 00:02:55.319 --> 00:02:57.919 and Lloyd George both doubted a decisive breakthrough 00:02:57.919 --> 00:03:01.060 was even possible. But Hague remained just relentlessly 00:03:01.060 --> 00:03:03.500 optimistic. He firmly believed the German army 00:03:03.500 --> 00:03:06.439 was on its last legs and just needed one final 00:03:06.439 --> 00:03:09.500 massive shove. So after a grueling political 00:03:09.500 --> 00:03:12.120 battle, he finally secured approval from a war 00:03:12.120 --> 00:03:15.080 cabot in late July. Which was just days before 00:03:15.080 --> 00:03:17.560 the main assault was scheduled to begin. So, 00:03:17.560 --> 00:03:20.000 okay, let's unpack this. If you are going to 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:23.639 launch a massive, war -winning offensive to break 00:03:23.639 --> 00:03:26.539 the German lines, you really have to understand 00:03:26.539 --> 00:03:29.439 the suffocating physical landscape of the Ypres 00:03:29.439 --> 00:03:32.419 salient. It is a unique piece of geography. Think 00:03:32.419 --> 00:03:35.199 of the Ypres salient not just as a geographic 00:03:35.199 --> 00:03:37.819 saucer, but really as an operational fishbowl. 00:03:38.460 --> 00:03:41.479 The British forces and the city of Ypres itself 00:03:41.479 --> 00:03:44.340 sit right at the bottom of this shallow depression. 00:03:44.659 --> 00:03:47.340 And surrounding them in a semicircle is a lip. 00:03:47.479 --> 00:03:50.259 of low ridges. And the Germans held that lip. 00:03:50.439 --> 00:03:53.340 Which is everything in artillery warfare. Exactly. 00:03:53.759 --> 00:03:56.060 This meant the Germans had perfectly zeroed in 00:03:56.060 --> 00:03:58.599 coordinates, an absolute ground observation over 00:03:58.599 --> 00:04:01.139 everything the British did. Every time a supply 00:04:01.139 --> 00:04:03.639 wagon moved, every time an artillery battery 00:04:03.639 --> 00:04:06.139 massed at the bottom of that fishbowl, the Germans 00:04:06.139 --> 00:04:08.860 could just see it. and rained down highly accurate 00:04:08.860 --> 00:04:10.740 fire. Which meant that before the British could 00:04:10.740 --> 00:04:13.300 even entertain the idea of a grand push toward 00:04:13.300 --> 00:04:15.919 the U -boat bases on the coast, they had to deal 00:04:15.919 --> 00:04:17.980 with this immediate existential threat looking 00:04:17.980 --> 00:04:20.319 down on them. They had to violently evict the 00:04:20.319 --> 00:04:22.879 Germans from the high ground. Specifically, a 00:04:22.879 --> 00:04:25.180 dominating position to the south called Messines 00:04:25.180 --> 00:04:27.980 Ridge. And the preparation for this preliminary 00:04:27.980 --> 00:04:29.920 assault is honestly one of the most astonishing 00:04:29.920 --> 00:04:34.040 logistical feats of the entire war. It is wild 00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:36.160 to read about. They didn't just rely on a standard 00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:38.759 artillery bombardment to soften the ridge. The 00:04:38.759 --> 00:04:41.680 British tunneling company spent two full years 00:04:41.680 --> 00:04:44.800 secretly honeycombing the earth deep underneath 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:48.160 the German trench networks at Messines. Two years 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:51.199 of claustrophobic, agonizing manual labor in 00:04:51.199 --> 00:04:54.560 the dark. And it was entirely hidden from German 00:04:54.560 --> 00:04:57.360 aerial reconnaissance. And it all culminated 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:01.699 on June 7, 1917. The British detonated 19 separate 00:05:01.699 --> 00:05:03.920 mines packed with nearly one million pounds of 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:06.579 high explosives directly beneath the German lines. 00:05:06.680 --> 00:05:09.060 It remains one of the largest non -nuclear explosions 00:05:09.060 --> 00:05:11.300 in human history. It quite literally vaporized 00:05:11.300 --> 00:05:13.399 the German frontline defenses on the ridge in 00:05:13.399 --> 00:05:15.399 a matter of seconds. What's fascinating here 00:05:15.399 --> 00:05:18.160 is that this unimaginable explosion served a 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:21.579 very precise critical tactical function beyond 00:05:21.579 --> 00:05:23.699 just the psychological shock value. Right, it 00:05:23.699 --> 00:05:26.259 wasn't just for show. By securing Messines Ridge, 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:29.160 the British eliminated a catastrophic vulnerability. 00:05:29.980 --> 00:05:31.779 If they had attempted their main push to the 00:05:31.779 --> 00:05:34.360 east, out of Ypres, without taking Messines first, 00:05:34.819 --> 00:05:36.740 the Germans would have unleashed Enflod fire. 00:05:36.959 --> 00:05:39.399 meaning they would have fired down the entire 00:05:39.399 --> 00:05:41.839 length of the advancing British lines from the 00:05:41.839 --> 00:05:43.980 southern flank. Exactly. It would have shredded 00:05:43.980 --> 00:05:46.620 the assault before it even began. So the capture 00:05:46.620 --> 00:05:49.040 of Messines Ridge was a masterclass in limited 00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:51.939 objective warfare. It successfully secured that 00:05:51.939 --> 00:05:54.480 vital southern flank and evicted the Germans 00:05:54.480 --> 00:05:57.959 from ground they had dominated since 1914. So 00:05:57.959 --> 00:05:59.920 with the flank finally secure, the main event 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:03.360 kicks off on July 31st, 1917 with the Battle 00:06:03.360 --> 00:06:06.759 of Pilcombe Ridge. This main offensive is spearheaded 00:06:06.759 --> 00:06:09.019 by General Hubert Goff and the British Fifth 00:06:09.019 --> 00:06:11.980 Army. And Goff was a very specific type of commander. 00:06:12.160 --> 00:06:14.399 Yeah, he was an ambitious, deeply aggressive 00:06:14.399 --> 00:06:16.680 commander. He wasn't interested in biting off 00:06:16.680 --> 00:06:19.740 small, incremental pieces of land. His strategy 00:06:19.740 --> 00:06:22.680 aimed for deep, sweeping breakthroughs to shatter 00:06:22.680 --> 00:06:25.420 the German defensive lines and basically unleash 00:06:25.420 --> 00:06:27.879 the cavalry into the open Belgian countryside. 00:06:28.139 --> 00:06:31.040 But his forces ran directly into a radically 00:06:31.040 --> 00:06:33.379 different German defensive system than the British 00:06:33.379 --> 00:06:35.740 had faced the year prior. Yeah, the German defense 00:06:35.740 --> 00:06:38.660 in Flanders was completely overhauled by Colonel 00:06:38.660 --> 00:06:41.360 Fritz von Lohsberg. A brilliant tactical mind. 00:06:41.480 --> 00:06:44.420 He understood that the 1916 doctrine of just 00:06:44.420 --> 00:06:47.199 packing trenches with men was basically providing 00:06:47.199 --> 00:06:50.100 cannon fodder for British artillery. So Lohsberg 00:06:50.100 --> 00:06:52.879 implemented a highly flexible defense in depth. 00:06:53.339 --> 00:06:56.279 And von Lohsberg's approach completely throws 00:06:56.279 --> 00:06:58.860 out the old playbook. He deliberately leaves 00:06:58.860 --> 00:07:01.899 the very front lines. practically empty. He holds 00:07:01.899 --> 00:07:04.420 them with just a light scattering of outposts, 00:07:04.480 --> 00:07:07.100 concrete pillboxes, and fortified ruined farms. 00:07:07.399 --> 00:07:09.920 This setup essentially forces the attacking British 00:07:09.920 --> 00:07:12.600 infantry to walk right into a trap. They end 00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:14.860 up exhausting themselves by fighting point blank 00:07:14.860 --> 00:07:17.899 for every single pillbox. Precisely. And that 00:07:17.899 --> 00:07:20.439 trap relies entirely on his specialized counterattack 00:07:20.439 --> 00:07:22.600 units, which were known as Eingreif divisions. 00:07:22.959 --> 00:07:24.980 Loosburg kept the vast majority of his combat 00:07:24.980 --> 00:07:27.699 strength safely in the rear, well out of range 00:07:27.699 --> 00:07:29.920 of the heaviest British artillery. His doctrine 00:07:29.920 --> 00:07:31.959 dictated that the German front line was actually 00:07:31.959 --> 00:07:34.759 expected to bend. Right. The strategy was to 00:07:34.759 --> 00:07:37.139 let the British infantry advance, let them get 00:07:37.139 --> 00:07:39.939 bogged down in the shattered terrain, and crucially, 00:07:40.300 --> 00:07:42.699 let them advance beyond the protective umbrella 00:07:42.699 --> 00:07:45.240 of their own artillery fire. And once the British 00:07:45.240 --> 00:07:48.079 were disorganized and exhausted out there, those 00:07:48.079 --> 00:07:50.620 fresh Eingrief divisions would sweep forward 00:07:50.620 --> 00:07:53.339 and systematically crush the attackers. Pushing 00:07:53.339 --> 00:07:55.560 them right back to their start lines, it was 00:07:55.560 --> 00:07:58.800 a deadly elastic defense that Goff's ambitious 00:07:58.800 --> 00:08:01.399 pushes simply couldn't crack. But here's where 00:08:01.399 --> 00:08:03.660 it gets really interesting. Because whenever 00:08:03.660 --> 00:08:06.519 you bring up Passchendaele, the very first thing 00:08:06.519 --> 00:08:09.079 anyone associates with the battle is the weather. 00:08:09.420 --> 00:08:12.680 The legendary apocalyptic mud. If you read the 00:08:12.680 --> 00:08:15.019 post -war memoirs, particularly those written 00:08:15.019 --> 00:08:17.120 by high -ranking officials who were trying to 00:08:17.120 --> 00:08:19.540 explain the lack of a breakthrough, you were 00:08:19.540 --> 00:08:21.980 given the distinct impression that August in 00:08:21.980 --> 00:08:24.740 Flanders is essentially a monsoon season. They 00:08:24.740 --> 00:08:27.100 frame it as an inevitable, predictable natural 00:08:27.100 --> 00:08:30.540 disaster that command foolishly ignored. But 00:08:30.540 --> 00:08:33.000 the source material you provided completely debunks 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:35.720 this. It proves the August monsoon is a massive 00:08:35.720 --> 00:08:38.440 historical myth. It's a remarkably persistent 00:08:38.440 --> 00:08:41.299 myth, actually. It was largely constructed after 00:08:41.299 --> 00:08:43.799 the fact to excuse the campaign's early failures. 00:08:44.019 --> 00:08:46.539 Post -war writers went so far as to claim that 00:08:46.539 --> 00:08:49.200 80 years of weather records proved August was 00:08:49.200 --> 00:08:51.840 always torrential. But the actual historical 00:08:51.840 --> 00:08:54.139 meteorological data shows the exact opposite. 00:08:54.480 --> 00:08:57.250 The numbers are startling. Looking at the records 00:08:57.250 --> 00:09:01.649 from 1901 to 1916, it turns out that 65 % of 00:09:01.649 --> 00:09:04.590 August days in that specific region were totally 00:09:04.590 --> 00:09:07.309 dry. The British Expeditionary Force had a dedicated 00:09:07.309 --> 00:09:09.309 meteorological section. They weren't just guessing. 00:09:09.450 --> 00:09:11.769 They had the data. They planned the offensive 00:09:11.769 --> 00:09:14.450 for August precisely because it was historically 00:09:14.450 --> 00:09:18.029 a dry, highly suitable month for moving massive 00:09:18.029 --> 00:09:20.840 armies. The profound tragedy of the situation 00:09:20.840 --> 00:09:24.559 is that August 1917 was a freakish, exceptional 00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:27.399 meteorological anomaly. It wasn't the historical 00:09:27.399 --> 00:09:30.200 norm at all. And astonishing 127 millimeters 00:09:30.200 --> 00:09:32.360 of rain fell that month. Now when you combine 00:09:32.360 --> 00:09:35.019 the unprecedented torrential downpour with the 00:09:35.019 --> 00:09:37.240 battlefield landscape where three years of constant 00:09:37.240 --> 00:09:39.299 heavy artillery fire had already obliterated 00:09:39.299 --> 00:09:41.360 all the natural drainage ditches, streams, and 00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:43.940 canals, the transformation is instantaneous. 00:09:44.440 --> 00:09:46.779 The ground didn't just get muddy. It dissolved 00:09:46.779 --> 00:09:49.559 into an impassable, bottomless swamp. We are 00:09:49.559 --> 00:09:52.960 talking about conditions where men, horses, and 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:55.399 the newly introduced battlefield tanks were literally 00:09:55.399 --> 00:09:57.879 swallowed whole by the earth. It was a complete 00:09:57.879 --> 00:10:01.240 logistical nightmare. Between the agonizing mud 00:10:01.240 --> 00:10:04.340 and Lowesbury's brilliant eingreef counterattacks, 00:10:04.759 --> 00:10:08.139 Goff's strategy of deep, aggressive pushes was 00:10:08.139 --> 00:10:10.580 bleeding the British Army dry. By the end of 00:10:10.580 --> 00:10:13.000 August... the Grand Offensive had ground to a 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:15.720 muddy, horrific halt. Recognizing the failure, 00:10:15.980 --> 00:10:18.419 Haig makes a massive command shift. He brings 00:10:18.419 --> 00:10:20.759 in General Herbert Plumer and the Second Army 00:10:20.759 --> 00:10:23.700 to take over the primary effort. And Plumer recognizes 00:10:23.700 --> 00:10:26.279 immediately that Goss tactics are suicidal in 00:10:26.279 --> 00:10:28.559 these conditions. Plumer was a deeply methodical 00:10:28.559 --> 00:10:30.860 thinker. He understood that against Losberg's 00:10:30.860 --> 00:10:33.419 elastic defense in depth, especially in deteriorating 00:10:33.419 --> 00:10:36.019 ground conditions, you simply cannot outrun your 00:10:36.019 --> 00:10:38.600 own artillery support. So Plumer drastically 00:10:38.600 --> 00:10:41.500 overhauled the British approach. He instituted 00:10:41.500 --> 00:10:44.100 a strategy known as bite and hold tactics. The 00:10:44.100 --> 00:10:46.899 mechanics of bite and hold are ruthlessly pragmatic. 00:10:47.220 --> 00:10:49.240 Instead of swinging for a home run and aiming 00:10:49.240 --> 00:10:52.169 for objectives three or four miles deep, Plumer 00:10:52.169 --> 00:10:54.509 strictly limited the British advance to about 00:10:54.509 --> 00:10:57.269 1 ,500 yards at a time. The attacking infantry 00:10:57.269 --> 00:11:00.370 would advance behind a truly massive, creeping 00:11:00.370 --> 00:11:04.649 artillery barrage. A literal moving wall of high 00:11:04.649 --> 00:11:07.950 explosives churning up the German pillboxes just 00:11:07.950 --> 00:11:10.409 ahead of the troops. The infantry advances that 00:11:10.409 --> 00:11:13.450 short distance, they take the ground, and then 00:11:13.450 --> 00:11:16.009 rather than pushing forward to exploit the gap, 00:11:16.090 --> 00:11:19.289 they immediately stop and dig in. Which completely 00:11:19.289 --> 00:11:21.529 flips the tactical dynamic on its head. Plumer 00:11:21.529 --> 00:11:23.490 knew the German counterattack divisions were 00:11:23.490 --> 00:11:26.389 coming. That was the entirety of the German defensive 00:11:26.389 --> 00:11:28.649 playbook. But under this new system, by the time 00:11:28.649 --> 00:11:30.289 those German counterattack divisions arrived 00:11:30.289 --> 00:11:33.090 hours later, having slogged through their own 00:11:33.090 --> 00:11:35.870 muddy bombarded rear areas, they weren't hitting 00:11:35.870 --> 00:11:38.509 an exhausted, disorganized British force. They 00:11:38.509 --> 00:11:40.769 were hitting freshly entrenched British troops 00:11:40.769 --> 00:11:43.169 with machine guns fully set up who were still 00:11:43.169 --> 00:11:45.230 sitting securely under the protective cover of 00:11:45.230 --> 00:11:47.769 their own massive artillery batteries. The British 00:11:47.769 --> 00:11:50.409 artillery would simply slaughter the German counterattacks. 00:11:50.379 --> 00:11:52.620 in the open before they could even reach the 00:11:52.620 --> 00:11:54.759 new trench lines. And the results of this shift 00:11:54.759 --> 00:11:58.059 were immediate and devastating. Plemur's bite 00:11:58.059 --> 00:12:00.679 and hold tactics worked beautifully during a 00:12:00.679 --> 00:12:03.720 rare dry spell in September. At the Battle of 00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:06.799 the Menin Road Ridge on September 20th, and the 00:12:06.799 --> 00:12:09.639 Battle of Brutesign on October 4th, the British 00:12:09.639 --> 00:12:12.480 systematically dismantled the German lines. The 00:12:12.480 --> 00:12:14.960 vaunted German counterattacks were completely 00:12:14.960 --> 00:12:17.340 neutralized. They effectively walked headlong 00:12:17.340 --> 00:12:19.779 into an artillery meat grinder. If we connect 00:12:19.779 --> 00:12:22.720 this to the bigger picture, you can clearly see 00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:26.159 how Plummer's tactical shift created an absolute 00:12:26.159 --> 00:12:28.539 structural crisis for the German High Command. 00:12:28.590 --> 00:12:30.889 Everything von Luxburg had built was suddenly 00:12:30.889 --> 00:12:33.049 unraveling. The German leadership was thrown 00:12:33.049 --> 00:12:35.269 into a state of panic because they simply had 00:12:35.269 --> 00:12:37.850 no answer to the methodical British tempo. They 00:12:37.850 --> 00:12:40.149 were forced into a chaotic cycle of changing 00:12:40.149 --> 00:12:42.289 their defensive doctrines back and forth. If 00:12:42.289 --> 00:12:44.830 they pushed troops forward to heavily man the 00:12:44.830 --> 00:12:47.830 front line, those troops were instantly vaporized 00:12:47.830 --> 00:12:50.470 by the creeping British barrage. But if they 00:12:50.470 --> 00:12:53.629 held them back, they just surrendered vital ground 00:12:53.629 --> 00:12:56.629 piece by piece to the advancing British infantry. 00:12:57.070 --> 00:12:59.610 All while the German army was suffering from 00:12:59.610 --> 00:13:03.009 compounding severe manpower shortages. They were 00:13:03.009 --> 00:13:05.210 bleeding out, and Plumer's tactics were acting 00:13:05.210 --> 00:13:07.909 as a surgical instrument they had no shield against. 00:13:08.210 --> 00:13:09.889 It really looked like the British had finally 00:13:09.889 --> 00:13:12.750 cracked the code of trench warfare. But then 00:13:12.750 --> 00:13:15.350 the calendar turns to October, and the narrative 00:13:15.350 --> 00:13:18.769 takes its darkest turn yet. That vital dry spell 00:13:18.769 --> 00:13:20.769 in September that allowed Plumer's artillery 00:13:20.769 --> 00:13:23.870 to move forward abruptly ends. The torrential 00:13:23.870 --> 00:13:26.809 October rains return with a vengeance and that 00:13:26.809 --> 00:13:29.429 fragile drying battlefield immediately dissolves 00:13:29.429 --> 00:13:32.539 right back into a toxic sea of mud. The environmental 00:13:32.539 --> 00:13:35.600 conditions in October 1917 were arguably some 00:13:35.600 --> 00:13:37.820 of the most appalling ever recorded in the history 00:13:37.820 --> 00:13:40.919 of human conflict. Simple movement became a life 00:13:40.919 --> 00:13:43.139 -threatening ordeal. The heavy artillery, the 00:13:43.139 --> 00:13:45.539 absolute backbone of Plumer's bite and hold system, 00:13:45.960 --> 00:13:47.879 couldn't be brought forward to support the advancing 00:13:47.879 --> 00:13:50.509 infantry. The massive guns would instantly sink 00:13:50.509 --> 00:13:53.470 up to their axles in the slime. And without that 00:13:53.470 --> 00:13:55.710 moving wall of artillery support, the entire 00:13:55.710 --> 00:13:58.730 strategy collapses. To really ground the listener 00:13:58.730 --> 00:14:01.529 in the terrifying reality described in the sources, 00:14:02.230 --> 00:14:05.190 we have to look at the human toll this mud exacted. 00:14:05.389 --> 00:14:07.730 It is heartbreaking. During the first battle 00:14:07.730 --> 00:14:10.529 at Passchendaele on October 12th, the Allies 00:14:10.529 --> 00:14:12.769 attempted to push the offensive forward despite 00:14:12.769 --> 00:14:15.629 the torrential downpour. The attack failed miserably. 00:14:15.809 --> 00:14:18.909 In the devastating aftermath, 845 troops from 00:14:18.909 --> 00:14:21.269 New Zealand were left dead or stranded, severely 00:14:21.269 --> 00:14:24.190 wounded, out in the freezing, impassable mud 00:14:24.190 --> 00:14:27.169 of no man's land. The mud was so deep and the 00:14:27.169 --> 00:14:29.850 unsuppressed enemy machine gun fire so intense 00:14:29.850 --> 00:14:32.250 that stretcher bearers couldn't reach them. To 00:14:32.250 --> 00:14:35.340 this day, It remains one of the darkest, most 00:14:35.340 --> 00:14:37.980 tragic days in the entire military history of 00:14:37.980 --> 00:14:41.000 New Zealand. It represents an unimaginable nightmare 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:43.440 for the soldiers on the ground. The troops were 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:46.120 physically and psychologically depleted. Morale 00:14:46.120 --> 00:14:48.419 across the attacking divisions was plummeting. 00:14:48.820 --> 00:14:51.019 And Hague's grand strategic objectives, those 00:14:51.019 --> 00:14:53.220 U -boat bases on the coast, were now clearly 00:14:53.220 --> 00:14:56.299 a geographical impossibility for 1917. Facing 00:14:56.299 --> 00:14:59.259 this reality, to finally finish the job and secure 00:14:59.259 --> 00:15:01.720 a defensible line on the ridge, Hague brings 00:15:01.720 --> 00:15:04.940 in the shock troops of the British Empire. The 00:15:04.940 --> 00:15:07.200 Canadians were intimately familiar with the horrors 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:09.759 of this specific terrain. Having fought on this 00:15:09.759 --> 00:15:12.820 exact piece of ground back in 1915, they knew 00:15:12.820 --> 00:15:17.889 exactly what they were walking into. building 00:15:17.889 --> 00:15:20.269 wooden plank roads over the mud just to get the 00:15:20.269 --> 00:15:23.509 guns in range, they launched a series of agonizing, 00:15:23.789 --> 00:15:26.570 strictly limited attacks in late October and 00:15:26.570 --> 00:15:29.350 early November. Fighting yard by yard through 00:15:29.350 --> 00:15:32.049 waist deep mud and ferocious German resistance, 00:15:32.350 --> 00:15:34.909 they finally inched their way up the ridge. On 00:15:34.909 --> 00:15:38.190 November 6th, 1917, the Canadians capture what 00:15:38.190 --> 00:15:40.870 was left of the completely obliterated village 00:15:40.870 --> 00:15:43.429 of Passchendaele. With a few final pushes to 00:15:43.429 --> 00:15:45.370 secure the immediate high ground around the village 00:15:45.370 --> 00:15:48.600 by November 10th, the campaign effectively concludes. 00:15:49.100 --> 00:15:50.980 But stepping back from the tactical capture of 00:15:50.980 --> 00:15:54.120 the village, the source material asks a persistent 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:56.519 critical question regarding the campaign. Once 00:15:56.519 --> 00:15:58.820 the torrential October rains started and the 00:15:58.820 --> 00:16:00.700 ground conditions made a strategic breakthrough 00:16:00.700 --> 00:16:03.460 impossible, why didn't the British High Command 00:16:03.460 --> 00:16:06.259 just halt the offensive? Why continue to feed 00:16:06.259 --> 00:16:09.019 tens of thousands of men into the mud when the 00:16:09.019 --> 00:16:12.389 operational advantage was so clearly lost? Looking 00:16:12.389 --> 00:16:14.470 at it strictly from the geography of Flanders, 00:16:14.909 --> 00:16:17.370 it seems like madness to keep pushing. But the 00:16:17.370 --> 00:16:19.950 sources reveal a much broader crisis happening 00:16:19.950 --> 00:16:22.490 off the battlefield. You have to look southward 00:16:22.490 --> 00:16:24.690 to understand the precarious state of the Allied 00:16:24.690 --> 00:16:27.529 coalition at that specific moment. Earlier in 00:16:27.529 --> 00:16:30.889 the spring of 1917, the French army had launched 00:16:30.889 --> 00:16:33.610 the massive Nivelle Offensive in their sector. 00:16:33.889 --> 00:16:36.509 It was an unmitigated disaster, resulting in 00:16:36.509 --> 00:16:39.570 astronomical casualties and zero strategic gain. 00:16:39.710 --> 00:16:43.049 The resulting collapse in morale led to widespread, 00:16:43.490 --> 00:16:46.389 crippling mutinies across the French army. Entire 00:16:46.389 --> 00:16:49.490 French divisions flatly refused to attack. The 00:16:49.490 --> 00:16:52.090 French military apparatus was paralyzed and the 00:16:52.090 --> 00:16:54.350 entire Allied front was incredibly vulnerable. 00:16:54.450 --> 00:16:56.350 Which means Hague wasn't just fighting for the 00:16:56.350 --> 00:16:58.490 Belgian coast anymore. He was desperately trying 00:16:58.490 --> 00:17:00.789 to hold the entire Western front together by 00:17:00.789 --> 00:17:03.190 keeping the Germans entirely focused on the British 00:17:03.190 --> 00:17:06.000 sector. Hague and the British high command were 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:08.559 acutely aware of the French mutinies, though 00:17:08.559 --> 00:17:10.819 they kept it a closely guarded secret. They felt 00:17:10.819 --> 00:17:13.720 an immense, overwhelming strategic pressure to 00:17:13.720 --> 00:17:16.259 maintain the offensive momentum in Flanders, 00:17:16.619 --> 00:17:18.779 regardless of the horrific weather and mounting 00:17:18.779 --> 00:17:21.559 casualties. They had to continuously pin the 00:17:21.559 --> 00:17:24.259 German army down, forcing them to feed their 00:17:24.259 --> 00:17:26.819 own reserves into the meat grinder of Ypres. 00:17:27.210 --> 00:17:30.349 If the British stopped attacking, Haig feared 00:17:30.349 --> 00:17:32.690 the Germans would realize just how vulnerable 00:17:32.690 --> 00:17:35.690 the French lines were, shift their forces south, 00:17:35.930 --> 00:17:38.349 and launch a massive offensive that could have 00:17:38.349 --> 00:17:41.410 knocked France out of the war entirely. The brutal 00:17:41.410 --> 00:17:43.950 reality is that those final attacks in the mud 00:17:43.950 --> 00:17:46.789 were, in large part, a massive bloody diversion 00:17:46.789 --> 00:17:49.869 designed to shield a crippled ally. So what does 00:17:49.869 --> 00:17:52.930 this all mean? When the guns finally quiet down 00:17:52.930 --> 00:17:55.779 in November. and the front line solidifies around 00:17:55.779 --> 00:17:58.240 the ruined village, you are left with a completely 00:17:58.240 --> 00:18:00.779 devastated landscape and one of the most fiercely 00:18:00.779 --> 00:18:03.079 debated historical legacies in modern warfare. 00:18:03.319 --> 00:18:05.519 Specifically surrounding the casualty numbers. 00:18:05.940 --> 00:18:07.819 The counting dispute over Passchendaele isn't 00:18:07.819 --> 00:18:10.420 just a minor historical footnote. It is a major 00:18:10.420 --> 00:18:13.039 academic battleground. The historical acrimony 00:18:13.039 --> 00:18:15.960 regarding the true cost of Passchendaele is intense. 00:18:16.599 --> 00:18:18.960 It fundamentally shapes how the battle is remembered 00:18:18.960 --> 00:18:21.660 and evaluated. The disparity in the sources you 00:18:21.660 --> 00:18:25.119 provided is wild. For the British side, casualties 00:18:25.119 --> 00:18:29.480 range anywhere from 240 ,000 to nearly 450 ,000, 00:18:29.599 --> 00:18:31.539 depending entirely on who is doing the counting 00:18:31.539 --> 00:18:33.779 and what they classify as a casualty. And for 00:18:33.779 --> 00:18:36.259 the Germans, the losses are similarly debated. 00:18:36.650 --> 00:18:40.150 placed anywhere between 217 ,000 and 400 ,000. 00:18:40.470 --> 00:18:42.630 When we look closely at these sources, how do 00:18:42.630 --> 00:18:45.430 prominent historians evaluate the exact same 00:18:45.430 --> 00:18:48.269 campaign and come up with numbers that are literally 00:18:48.269 --> 00:18:50.829 hundreds of thousands of men apart? This raises 00:18:50.829 --> 00:18:53.089 an important question about the very nature of 00:18:53.089 --> 00:18:55.589 historiography and how official military histories 00:18:55.589 --> 00:18:58.069 are constructed. You have to look at the institutional 00:18:58.069 --> 00:19:00.210 motivations of the people compiling the data. 00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:02.759 take the British official historian, Brigadier 00:19:02.759 --> 00:19:06.319 General James Edmonds. Edmonds was fiercely protective 00:19:06.319 --> 00:19:08.740 of Sir Douglas Haig's reputation and the legacy 00:19:08.740 --> 00:19:10.940 of the British high command. He was determined 00:19:10.940 --> 00:19:13.920 to prove retrospectively that Haig's controversial 00:19:13.920 --> 00:19:16.819 strategy of attrition, the idea of bleeding the 00:19:16.819 --> 00:19:19.279 German army dry even at a massive cost to the 00:19:19.279 --> 00:19:22.039 British, had been a mathematical success. When 00:19:22.039 --> 00:19:24.640 you look at Edmonds' official numbers, it's almost 00:19:24.640 --> 00:19:27.750 a master class in creative accounting. He didn't 00:19:27.750 --> 00:19:30.509 just interpret data differently. He fundamentally 00:19:30.509 --> 00:19:32.910 altered it. He looked at the official German 00:19:32.910 --> 00:19:36.130 casualty figures, which sat around 270 ,000, 00:19:36.589 --> 00:19:38.910 and decided that the German method of counting 00:19:38.910 --> 00:19:41.309 wasn't comparable to the more comprehensive British 00:19:41.309 --> 00:19:43.750 method. Because the Germans often excluded lightly 00:19:43.750 --> 00:19:45.589 wounded soldiers who remained with their units. 00:19:45.829 --> 00:19:48.730 Exactly. So to make the numbers comparable for 00:19:48.730 --> 00:19:51.650 his official history, Edmonds just arbitrarily 00:19:51.650 --> 00:19:54.950 added a flat 30 % increase to the German casualty 00:19:54.950 --> 00:19:57.420 figures. He literally just bolted on an extra 00:19:57.420 --> 00:19:59.839 30 percent to the enemy's losses. And then he 00:19:59.839 --> 00:20:02.000 made even further sweeping assumptions about 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:04.880 German unit strengths and unrecorded reinforcements, 00:20:05.279 --> 00:20:07.460 artificially inflating the German losses all 00:20:07.460 --> 00:20:11.299 the way up to 400 ,000. It was a deliberate institutional 00:20:11.299 --> 00:20:14.039 effort to make it appear that the British inflicted 00:20:14.039 --> 00:20:16.299 far more damage than they suffered in the mud, 00:20:16.880 --> 00:20:19.480 effectively justifying the campaign. This cavalier 00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:22.180 handling of the facts sparked decades of fierce, 00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:26.180 ongoing academic warfare between historians desperately 00:20:26.180 --> 00:20:29.079 trying to parse out the real human cost. Which 00:20:29.079 --> 00:20:31.279 brings us to the ultimate overarching question 00:20:31.279 --> 00:20:34.940 of our analysis. Evaluating the outcome? Who 00:20:34.940 --> 00:20:37.400 actually won the battle of Passchendaele? If 00:20:37.400 --> 00:20:39.599 we judge the battle strictly by the original 00:20:39.599 --> 00:20:42.519 strategic goals Haig laid out in July, the British 00:20:42.519 --> 00:20:45.029 unequivocally failed. They never broke out into 00:20:45.029 --> 00:20:47.250 the open country. They never shattered the German 00:20:47.250 --> 00:20:49.309 lines. They never captured the Belgian coast, 00:20:49.549 --> 00:20:52.029 and they completely failed to neutralize the 00:20:52.029 --> 00:20:54.789 critical German U -boat bases that initiated 00:20:54.789 --> 00:20:58.549 the entire campaign. On a purely geographic and 00:20:58.549 --> 00:21:01.250 operational level, it fell vastly short. However, 00:21:01.390 --> 00:21:03.329 when viewed through the grim attritional lens 00:21:03.329 --> 00:21:06.569 of the broader war effort, the picture is highly 00:21:06.569 --> 00:21:09.460 complex. The British offensive, and particularly 00:21:09.460 --> 00:21:12.079 Plumer's grinding bite and hole phase, successfully 00:21:12.079 --> 00:21:14.400 pinned the bulk of the German army to the Flanders 00:21:14.400 --> 00:21:17.440 sector. It inflicted completely unsustainable 00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:19.839 casualties on the German military apparatus. 00:21:20.680 --> 00:21:22.680 Veteran troops they simply could not replace, 00:21:23.180 --> 00:21:25.160 unlike the Allies who knew the Americans were 00:21:25.160 --> 00:21:27.660 mobilizing to join the fight. And most crucially, 00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:30.460 it successfully bought the paralyzed French army, 00:21:30.819 --> 00:21:33.470 the precious uninterrupted time it needed to 00:21:33.470 --> 00:21:35.990 recover from the widespread mutinies and rebuild 00:21:35.990 --> 00:21:39.549 its combat strength. It's a deeply complex, brutal 00:21:39.549 --> 00:21:43.509 strategic calculus. For you, the listener, making 00:21:43.509 --> 00:21:46.230 it through the horrific mud, the confusing and 00:21:46.230 --> 00:21:48.710 manipulated casualty numbers, and the intricate 00:21:48.710 --> 00:21:51.589 tactical evolutions of this campaign. you should 00:21:51.589 --> 00:21:53.890 congratulate yourself. Understanding these profound 00:21:53.890 --> 00:21:56.609 nuances equips you with a far deeper understanding 00:21:56.609 --> 00:21:58.890 than the standard historical narrative. Seeing 00:21:58.890 --> 00:22:01.730 exactly how Pluner's methodical tactics broke 00:22:01.730 --> 00:22:04.549 the German elastic defense, realizing the actual 00:22:04.549 --> 00:22:06.950 historical truth behind the persistent weather 00:22:06.950 --> 00:22:09.329 myth, and knowing the geopolitical desperation 00:22:09.329 --> 00:22:11.869 required to protect the French. It was not simply 00:22:11.869 --> 00:22:14.509 a senseless disaster or a foolish blunder. It 00:22:14.509 --> 00:22:17.609 was a highly calculated grinding battle of total 00:22:17.609 --> 00:22:19.829 endurance that fundamentally shaped the final 00:22:19.829 --> 00:22:23.069 year of the But we want to leave you with one 00:22:23.069 --> 00:22:26.630 final, incredibly provocative thought drawn right 00:22:26.630 --> 00:22:28.390 from the closing notes of the source material. 00:22:29.269 --> 00:22:32.109 After all the blood spilled, after the hundreds 00:22:32.109 --> 00:22:34.509 of thousands of casualties suffered by both sides 00:22:34.509 --> 00:22:37.069 just to capture the ruins salient of Passchendaele 00:22:37.069 --> 00:22:40.589 by November 1917, the British willingly gave 00:22:40.589 --> 00:22:43.450 up much of that exact same ground just a few 00:22:43.450 --> 00:22:46.230 months later. It is a stunning postscript to 00:22:46.230 --> 00:22:49.930 the campaign. In the spring of 1918, a revitalized 00:22:49.930 --> 00:22:52.829 German army launched a massive new offensive. 00:22:53.069 --> 00:22:55.190 To rapidly shorten their own defensive lines 00:22:55.190 --> 00:22:57.390 and consolidate their stretched forces to meet 00:22:57.390 --> 00:22:59.869 this new threat, the British voluntarily ordered 00:22:59.869 --> 00:23:02.009 a tactical retreat from the Passchendaele Ridge. 00:23:02.210 --> 00:23:04.369 They handed the blood -soaked ground right back 00:23:04.369 --> 00:23:06.869 to the Germans without a major fight. We ask 00:23:06.869 --> 00:23:09.089 you to ponder this as you step away from the 00:23:09.089 --> 00:23:12.019 material. If a piece of ground, one at such a 00:23:12.019 --> 00:23:14.980 horrific unimaginable cost in human life, can 00:23:14.980 --> 00:23:17.519 be so easily and voluntarily abandoned just a 00:23:17.519 --> 00:23:20.079 few months later for simple tactical convenience, 00:23:20.539 --> 00:23:22.619 how do we define the true value of a battlefield 00:23:22.619 --> 00:23:25.279 in a war of total attrition? Is victory measured 00:23:25.279 --> 00:23:27.720 by the shattered land you hold or strictly by 00:23:27.720 --> 00:23:29.839 the enemy forces you destroy in the process? 00:23:30.220 --> 00:23:32.440 It's a heavy concept to mull over as you go about 00:23:32.440 --> 00:23:34.500 your day. Thank you so much for bringing this 00:23:34.500 --> 00:23:36.599 material to us and joining us on this deep dive. 00:23:36.759 --> 00:23:39.779 Keep exploring, keep questioning the accepted 00:23:39.779 --> 00:23:41.900 narratives, and keep looking for the complex 00:23:41.900 --> 00:23:43.759 layers of history hidden beneath the mud.