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1999 Blades Geoffrey Ethesis This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ The Battles of the Lys the British Army on the Defensive in April 1918 Blades, Geoffrey Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 THE BATTLES OF THE LYS The British Army on the Defensive in April 1918 Geoffrey David Blades King’s College M. Phil. 1 ABSTRACT he Battles of the Lys, which lasted from the 9 to 29 April 1918, were the second TGerman attempt to break the British line in the spring of that year. As with the first German attack in Picardy on 21 March, using their new tactics of a hurricane bombardment and storm-troops, the British line was broken; but the BEF survived suffering no strategic loss, even though the Germans gained much ground. During the winter of 1917/18 the BEF had turned to captured manuals in an attempt to copy German defensive doctrine; the Germans having become experts in the defensive battle by using the analytical expertise of a small group of staff officers. However, lack of experience led to faulty tactics, mainly having too many troops in the front line. Also, a shortage of drafts meant that there were few reserves to provide the counter-attack, an essential part of the German doctrine. The German failure after their meticulous preparations creates a paradox. The answer is that the Germans were unable to exploit their spectacular initial success due to a failure of logistics; they could not bring material across the front-line area quickly enough, which meant that they were unable to keep the battle fluid. Also, by attacking towards Arras on the 28 March they delayed the attack in Flanders, which allowed GHQ sufficient time to re-form the shattered divisions which had been transferred north from Picardy. For a few days the situation looked serious for the BEF. Gaps appeared in the line which took the last of the reserves to fill, but the British held on tenaciously, this was after all the army that had learned its trade on the Somme and at Ypres. 2 CONTENTS Abstract ................................................................................................... 2 Contents ................................................................................................... 3 List of Diagrams ....................................................................................... 4 Acknowledgements .................................................................................. 5 List of Abbreviations ................................................................................ 6 Introduction ............................................................................................. 7 Chapter 1. The Development of German Doctrine and the Preparations for the Spring Offensives ....................................................... 16 Chapter 2. The British Preparations ....................................................... 37 Chapter 3. The Break-in Battle and its Preliminaries .............................. 57 Chapter 4. The Break-out Battle ........................................................... 87 Chapter 5. The 4th Guards Brigade and the Defence of Hazebrouck ...... 123 Chapter 6. The Battle for the Reserves .................................................. 148 Chapter 7. The Press and the Spring Offensives .................................... 167 Conclusions ........................................................................................... 188 Selected Bibliography ............................................................................ 201 3 MAPS AND DIAGRAMS Introduction 0-1 The Protagonists ............................................................... 13 Chapter 1. 1-1 Sketch From French Fifth Army Instruction .................... 20 1-2 Reverse Slope Position .................................................... 22 1-3 German Offensive Plans .................................................. 33 Chapter 3. 3-1 German Attacks on the British ........................................ 57 3-2 German Gains on the Somme .......................................... 59 3-3 XIII Corps Defences ........................................................ 62 3-4 The Containment of the German Advance on the 9th ..... 69 3-5 55th Division Defences ................................................... 71 3-6 40th Division on the 9 April ........................................... 74 3-7 Armentières Sector, 10 April .......................................... 79 3-8 Messines - Wytschaete Ridge, 10 April .......................... 82 Chapter 4. 4-1 Position of the Nieppe Forest ......................................... 89 4-2 Merville Sector 11/12/13 April ...................................... 92 4-3 Merville Sector 15 April ................................................ 93 4-4 Merville Sector 18 April ................................................ 94 4-5 Merville - Bailleul Front, 11/12/13 April ........................ 97 4-6 31st Division on the 11 April ......................................... 98 4-7 Merville - Bailleul Front, 14 April ................................. 103 4-8 Fall of Bailleul ............................................................... 105 4-9 Kemmel and Ypres Salient, 16 April .............................. 107 4-10 The Loss of Kemmel - 25 April ..................................... 111 Chapter 5. 5-1 The Battle Area ............................................................ 124 5-2 British Positions, Dawn 12 April .................................. 128 5-3 The First German Attack .............................................. 130 5-4 The Brigade Advance ................................................... 132 5-5 The Position After the Attack ....................................... 133 5-6 British Positions, Evening 12 April ............................... 136 5-7 British Positions, Dawn 13 April .................................. 138 5-8 The Break-up of the Line ............................................. 141 5-9 The Position at the End of the Battle ............................ 143 Divisions are shown as x Div, brigades with number only. 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS While a thesis is a student’s own work, many people influence its preparation. Special thanks must go to my supervisor, Professor Brian Bond, who oversaw my transition from chartered engineer to military historian, and whose comments were always worth taking note of. My colleagues at the Military History Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research gave me many suggestions and pointers; while Jacqui Hamilton helped with the typing and corrected many grammatical errors. Museum, archive and library staffs gave freely of their time; especially Rosemary Blackshaw of the Woburn Sands public library, who obtained rather more inter-library loan books than I was allowed. Lastly, but not least, my wife, who allowed many jobs to go undone until this thesis was finished. Crown copyright material in the Public Records Office is reproduced by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. All other copyrights are acknowledged. * * * This thesis is dedicated to my grandfather; who, as 21523 Private Albert Shipley 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards, was captured near Merville on 12 April 1918. 5 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS BEF British Expeditionary Force, in 1918 officially ‘The British Armies in France and Flanders’. BGGS Brigadier-General General Staff, the senior staff officer of a corps BGRA Brigadier-General Royal Artillery, the artillery commander of a division or corps. CEP Portuguese Expeditionary Force. CO Commanding Officer, usually a lieut.-colonel commanding a battalion. CRE Commander Royal Engineers, senior engineer in a division. MGGS Major-General General Staff, the senior staff officer of an army. GHQ General Headquarters, situated at Montrieul-sur-Mer. GOC General Officer Commanding, officer commanding a corps or division. GQG Grand Quartier Général, French General Headquarters. GSO General Staff Officer. HE High Explosive shell. HQ Headquarters. RFA Royal Field Artillery. OC Officer Commanding, usually a company or platoon. OHL Obersten Heeresleitung, German General Headquarters. SAA Small arms ammunition. SWC Supreme War Council. The ranks and titles used in this thesis are those held during the battle. In the army a rank goes with a position; for example, a division is always
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