| Home > Battles > Winter Operations 1914-15 > The attack of 8th Brigade at Wytschaete, December 1914 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| French pressure on British to take the initiative | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Based
on information that the enemy was reducing his strength in
the West, French Commander in Chief Joffre directed his Armies
to be ready to renew the offensive. On 7
December 1914 he sent a letter to General Foch, with
a copy to Sir
John French, with instructions that they should proceed
with partial attacks in the Yser area and around Ypres without
waiting for final preparations. |
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| 8th Brigade is ordered to attack | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Urged
on by pressure from the French to renew the offensive on the
Western Front, British GHQ called a commanders conference
on 12 December 1914. There would
not be a simultaneous attack, but a series of Divisional actions
in succession from the left, gradually spreading southwards.
The
first action would be the capture of Wytschaete and
a wood, Petit Bois, in front of it, to be undertaken
by French units with the 3rd
Division. (This Division had been severely mauled at First
Ypres, losing more than 8,000 men in a matter of days,
less than a month ago). Success there would be followed by
a II Corps attack on Spanbroekmolen, and then Messines.
The Divisions were instructed to make no special artillery
preparations for cutting barbed wire, although the infantry
would be issued with wire-cutters and mattresses with which
to climb over this obstacle. |
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| 8th Brigade is ordered to attack | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
"Yesterday
we made an attack and, as we only put two battalions into
it, the attack naturally failed. We had about 400 casualties.
It is very depressing. I should have thought that we
had learnt our lesson at Neuve Chapelle [in October 1914]
about unsupported attacks, but it seems not." |
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"The
truth of the matter is this I believe: Sir John French
wanted to see the Army on the offensive, so an attack on
the Petit
Bois was arranged. Then later, for some reason or
other, it was decided to also attack Maedelstede Farm.
Sir John, Sir H. Smith-Dorrien, HRH the Prince of Wales and
many other lights of the Gilded Staff sat about on the Scherpenberg,
and watched the preliminary bombardment by ours and the 5th
Division's artillery - and then saw these two unfortunate
battalions go to more or less certain failure. The reason
why? Because it was considered time to be able to report
some form of victory. It failed and the reason is obvious". |
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"A, B, C, D and E are the German trenches - B in Petit Bois and D round Maedelstede Farm. RS are Royal Scots and GH the Gordons. These two battalions were ordered respectively to take the wood and the farm. What happened was that for half an hour or more our guns gave the German trenches a very heavy and accurate fire with shrapnel and a smaller amount of HE. The results of which made the Germans laugh at us. The effect of field gun shrapnel on trenches is almost nil when the trenches are well and carefully made, and there was too little high explosive to do any good. The Germans so little minded this type of bombardment, which to us on the Scherpenberg looked like an inferno, that they kept up a heavy rifle fire the whole time from the bombarded trenches. The two battalions then attacked". |
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"The
Royal Scots actually got into B, taking two machine-guns
and 35 prisoners, but they were then so heavily enfiladed
from A - and fired on from the back of Petit Bois - that
further advance into the wood was impossible. Eventually
they had to be content with holding on to part of the captured
German trench. This enfilade fire that came from A held
up the attack. This could have been found out by a proper
reconnaissance before the attack. It was not done
and, as A was neither attacked or shelled, the Germans
holding it were able to shoot our fellows down one after
another". |
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"The
Gordons left their trenches to attack D and E and fared
even worse. The mud on the ploughed field which they had
to attack over was so bad that they could only just
move out of a walk. On leaving their trenches they at once
came under a terrible rifle and machine-gun fire from C,
D and E. Imagine sending a battalion alone to attack a
strongly wired position up a hill and over mud a foot deep,
under frontal and enfilade fire. It was a regular Valley
of Death. The losses were, of course, very heavy. They
were very, very gallant. Some almost reached the German
trenches, where they were killed. One or two even got into
the trenches where they were killed or captured. A few
lay in little depressions in the mud till darkness and
then crawled back. Those who got there could send no communication
to the supports etc in the rear. several men tried to get
back but were all shot. They lost 7 out of 9 officers and
250 men". |
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"Such
was the attack ordered by Sir John French. Next day, I read
in the paper 'British troops hurl back Germans at Wytschaete'.
A beautiful epitaph for those poor Gordons who were little
better than murdered". |
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| Casualties | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| The attack had been a complete failure | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Following the failure at Wytschaete, none of the other planned attacks followed. Shelling of the German lines merely brought down a much heavier retaliation. Joffre closed down the offensive. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| The attack had been a complete failure | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
The
sacrifice of the Scots battalions proved again the difficulty
of an infantry attack upon entrenched positions that had not
been suppressed, through barbed wire that was still intact.
Next time, more artillery firing more HE, more thorough reconnaissance,
wire cutting in advance, better ways to feed messages back
- and a wider attack - would be necessary. These lessons were
applied at the next serious British attack, at Neuve
Chapelle in March 1915. |
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| Truce | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Given the savagery of this fighting is seems all the more extraordinary that a matter of days after this attack came the famous Christmas Truce.
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For
a commentary on the attack made by two battalions of 8th
Brigade of 3rd Division, the 