For the effort expended, the gain in territory was small, the number of prisoners was 24,065, the number of guns captured (74) was insignificant. But the balancing of results is a very delicate affair. During the three and a half months of the offensive the enemy had employed 78 divisions (18 of them had been engaged a second or third time after having rested and refitted). Deductions from such facts, however, are a weak basis for argument. Sir Douglas Haig wrote: “It is certain that the enemy’s losses considerably exceeded ours,” but, apart from considerations of expediency, it is not clear how he arrived at this startling conclusion.
To compare the number of prisoners we captured with the number of bayonets which the Germans could transfer from the Russian front is absurd. What then have we left to show as a result for this costly enterprise? Only damage to that highly important but very elusive thing which we call “enemy moral.” The enemy charges us, perhaps with some truth, with being clumsy soldiers with no imagination, but he speaks with respect of the determination of the British infantry, in a manner which suggests a growing conviction that they could never be defeated.
* * * * * * *
An interesting figure was compiled by the II Corps
giving the amount of ammunition fired by the artillery of that corps from the 23rd June to 31st August—2,766,824 rounds with a total weight of 85,396 tons, delivered by 230 trains of 37 trucks and one of 29 trucks.
The battles of Ypres, 1917, are as follows: Battle of Pilckem Ridge, 31st July-2nd August; Battle of Langemarck, 16th-18th August; Battle of the Menin Road Ridge, 20th-25th September; Battle of Polygon Wood, 26th September-3rd October; Battle of Broodseinde, 4th October; Battle of Poelcappelle, 9th October; First Battle of Passchendaele, 12th October; Second Battle of Passchendaele, 26th October-10th November.
BATTERY POSITION, ZOUAVE WOOD, HOOGE, AUGUST 1917
From a photograph taken by Lt. Wallis Muirhead, R.F.A.