The defence, which was directed by General Sixt von Armin, who had achieved great fame as a tactician during the battles of the Somme, was distributed in depth. Trenches being impossible in a swamp, the defenders were placed in the ruins of barns and farmhouses; these, strongly concreted to an average thickness of three feet, offered a small mark for artillery and were proof against all except the heaviest of our projectiles. These fortified farms, or “Pill-boxes” as they were called by the men, were so situated that each could support its neighbour by cross- and enfilade-fire and was a veritable fortress in itself. They were of various sizes, according to the extent of the ruins on which they were erected; some had several apartments, and were capable of accommodating a whole company of men. They were admirably adapted to break up and delay the line of an attack, and even if they were carried and the objective taken, the worn-out assailants would have to meet a counter-blast from the fresh German reserves in rear. Up to the 16th August no satisfactory means had been found of dealing with these fortifications.
Apart from these strongholds the great problem was how to keep rifles and machine-guns clean; on more than one occasion our men had been forced to give ground, because their rifle-bolts jammed owing to mud so that the rifles could not be fired. It was also clear that “Pill-box” fighting demanded skilful leading and resource on the part of subordinate commanders. The series of waves, so successful in the Arras battles, was not suitable to meet the new conditions. Accordingly it was planned that the attack should be carried out by lines of sections, each section being in file and separated from its neighbours by about twenty yards. This gave an opportunity of overwhelming a “Pill-box” by the co-operation of the nearest sections while the others made headway, and each part was to be cleared and garrisoned before the sections involved continued their advance. The plan ensured the attack being carried on with the greatest expedition and the least fatigue, and, provided the leadership was good, it held out reasonable prospects of success. This was the form of training practised in the devastated area near Achiet le Petit, the ground being marked out by tapes in facsimile of the actual country where the assault was to be made.
The next phase of the Passchendaele Battle was arranged for the 20th September, and the assembly line of the Division lay along the crest of the Frezenberg Ridge. The span of front allotted to the Ninth, fully 1500 yards in all, consisted of a number of posts placed at intervals along a road roughly at right angles to that on which stood the hamlet of Frezenberg. So battered and ravaged was the country by continuous shell-fire that no trace of the road could be discerned. From the ridge the ground sank to the valley of the Hanebeek stream, which trickled through the gaunt and melancholy remains of Hanebeek Wood and meandered northwards past the Ypres-Roulers Railway. From the hollow the ground rose gently to another ridge, higher on the right where the main point was Anzac Redoubt, and gradually sank on the left to a flat swamp. Beyond this was another valley, covered by the spur on which stood the ruins of the Station and the village of Zonnebeke. The ordinary landmarks indicated by the map did not exist; the only one remaining that the eye could pick up without much effort was the Ypres-Roulers Railway. All vestige of roads had been obliterated, and even the Hanebeek brook had ceased to flow. Its banks had been blown in by months of relentless gun-fire and a zigzag trail of shell-holes, rather deeper and more full of water than the others, alone gave evidence of its former existence. A bleaker and more repellant battlefield it is impossible to imagine, and even the sun served only to throw into stronger relief the dreadful ghoulishness of the landscape. If a personal reconnaissance was impossible, the one safe way to gain a knowledge of the country was by a study of the excellent air photographs furnished by the R.F.C. Apart from the Railway, and to the south of it, the most prominent guide was Hanebeek Wood, which housed a number of “Pill-boxes.” Clusters of these forts lay along the Railway and to the north of it, the most important being Beck House, Borry Farm, and a strong group called Potsdam.
The attack was allotted to the 27th and South African Brigades. The former had two objectives; the first (indicated on the map as the Red Line) ran from the eastern half of Hanebeek Wood up to Potsdam; the second (Green Line) was Zonnebeke Redoubt on the ridge running north-west from Anzac Redoubt. The 6th K.O.S.B.,[86] 9th Scottish Rifles,[87] and 12th Royal Scots were to take the former, and then the first two battalions were to go on to the latter. The South Africans had three objectives; the first (Red Line) was in prolongation of that of the 27th Brigade; the second included Bremen Redoubt (Yellow Line); and the third carried on the Green Line from the Frezenberg-Zonnebeke road to the Zonnebeke stream. The leading battalions were the 3rd and 4th[88] Regiments, and these were supported by the 1st and 2nd.[89] The assault was to be on the “Leap Frog” system; when any hostile work was met it had to be occupied and held while the line immediately behind the attacking one was to pass through and carry on to the next objective. The Ninth was flanked on the right by the Second Australian Division and on the left by the Fifty-fifth.
ZONNEBEKE FROM FREZENBERG
There were few novices in the Ninth in the art of mounting an attack, but Passchendaele demanded special and anxious consideration. The enemy’s powerful artillery swept all the back areas and the approaches to our line unceasingly, and roads and camps beyond the effective scope of shells were persistently bombed by fleets of Gothas. There were no roads or communication trenches to guide troops on their way to the front line, and along the ridges of craters zigzag routes constructed with duckboards became a mark for hostile gun-fire, but they could not be deserted except at the risk of death by drowning or suffocation, which was the melancholy fate of more than one poor man and animal. These routes required the most careful preliminary reconnoitring, as the chances of taking a wrong turn were too numerous to be neglected. Casualties on the march to the assembly area were regarded as inevitable, and there was nothing for it but to trust to luck. Everything was done to ensure that the wounded would be properly attended; numerous aid posts were established and the staff of stretcher-bearers was greatly increased by large parties from the infantry. The problem of conveying stores and ammunition was colossal, and so, in order to be independent of carrying parties as far as possible, the men were to take rations for forty-eight hours and extra water-bottles. Rifles were covered with sand-bags, so that they would be in good working order when the operation commenced, and each man carried a spade. For dealing with the “Pill-boxes” a liberal quantity of phosphorous bombs was issued.
The attack was to be carried out after a preliminary bombardment of twenty-four hours and under cover of a creeping barrage. The shell commonly used in the Second and Fifth Armies was shrapnel, and it was due solely to the insistence of General Lukin that the Division was given reluctant permission to use that combination of smoke and H.E., which had given so much satisfaction at Arras. During these weeks the gunners had a dreadful time, for our artillery supremacy had been boldly challenged by the foe, and day and night our battery positions were fiercely bombarded. Hostile bombing machines played their part by night and frequently interrupted the laborious toil of bringing up the ammunition for the guns; hence the work of our gunners was carried out under much greater difficulties than usually fell to their lot. The creeping barrage of smoke and H.E. was to open 150 yards in front of the leading line and move at the rate of 100 yards every four minutes for the first 200 yards; then it was to pass on to the first objective at the rate of 100 yards every six minutes. The infantry, who were expected to arrive at the Red Line in twenty minutes, were to wait there for an hour, protected by barrier-fire. On the resumption of the advance the rate of the barrage was to be 100 yards every eight minutes, till the final objective was reached. A searching barrage of shrapnel was to precede the creeping one and sweep the open country 500 yards in advance of it. The combination of H.E. and smoke allowed certain refinements to be introduced which would have been impracticable with shrapnel. The most prominent obstacles were kept under fire while the barrage moved on, so that the infantry could surround them on all sides when the fire lifted. This was most conspicuously illustrated in the case of Hanebeek Wood, bristling with “Pill-boxes” and machine-guns. To allow the K.O.S.B. to come to grips with the defenders before they could open effective fire, Brig.-General Tudor arranged for the barrage to be maintained on the wood, while a lane was to be left clear for men to move up and get to its rear; thus when the fire lifted the infantry would be able to attack the wood simultaneously from all sides.
Machine-guns also had an important rôle to play. They were to barrage the final objective until the infantry began their advance from the first, and then they were to lift on to an S.O.S. line in front of the Green Line. The machine-gun was expected to be of great assistance in defence, and several were to be taken up with the assaulting brigades to support them against the expected counter-stroke.
Until the 12th September the Ninth was in camp near Ypres, and on the 16th and 17th it relieved the Forty-second Division on the Frezenberg Ridge, the 27th Brigade taking over the right sector and the South African the left. Unhappily, a deplorable incident occurred. When the 11th Royal Scots,[90] who were conveyed to Ypres by rail, were detraining near the Asylum, a shell landed among the men, causing 51 casualties in killed and wounded.