The Third Battle of Ypres represented the remaining fragment of what was to have been a great and extensive campaign. It was the stump of a tree shorn down to shoulder height and bare of leaves and branches.
One circumstance after another had postponed the execution of the large design. Troops which had been earmarked for it had had to be diverted to other parts of the front.
We had had to put it off to co-operate more closely with the French, and certain other obstacles had arisen, the full story of which has not even yet been told.
The Battle of Messines was over by June 12, but it was considered that if an attack in the strongly fortified Ypres Salient was to have a real chance of success, it must be an attack in force, a regular full-dress battle, for which the preparations were then held to be necessarily extremely elaborate.
About six weeks were therefore to elapse before the attack was launched. Once launched, however, the attackers must gain their objectives rapidly. That was essential to the plan.
The Russian front was crumbling. Germany was bringing troops and guns westward. We should soon be face to face with an enemy so strongly reinforced that our chance of victory in an attack would be slight.
[28]“It was in some degree a race against time. If a true strategic purpose was to be effected before winter, the first stages must be quickly passed. The high ground east of the Salient must be won in a fortnight, to enable the British to move against the German bases in West Flanders and clear the coastline.”
Not only must we hasten because we faced an enemy whose strength would be increasing daily, but because we were to attack in Flanders, and the summer would be far spent before we could complete our preparations.
The enemy’s lines lay on the slopes of the semicircle of low hills that overlook Ypres. Behind him lay another swampy valley, which rose again to another slightly higher crescent of hills.
In the inner arena lay the ruins of Ypres, and, set in the marshy levels and immediately overlooked by the first semicircle of hillocks and more distantly by the second, lay our lines.