Anniversary of the Battle of Messines 7 - 14 June 2017 The battle of Messines – Contents 1 Introduction 3 1.1 Background: the Ypres Salient and Messines Ridge 3 1.2 Trench warfare 3 1.3 The Battle of the Mines 3 1.4 Prelude to the Battle of Passchendaele 4 2 The Irish in Messines 5 2.1 The Sixteenth (Irish) and Thirty-sixth (Ulster) Divisions 5 2.2 The Irish objectives 6 2.3 The Spanbroekmolen mine 6 2.4 The outcome of the attack 6 3 The Australians and New-Zealanders in Messines 7 3.1 War underground 7 3.2 The ANZAC objectives 7 3.3 The outcome of the attack 8 4 Individual stories 9 4.1 Fighting deep in the tunnels 9 4.2 General Herbert Plumer 10 4.3 Eyewitness accounts of the explosion 10 4.4 Congratulations from King George V 11 4.5 John and Willie Redmond 11 4.6 Samuel Frickleton is awarded the Victoria Cross 11 4.7 Pte Alan Mather 12 4.8 Audio stories 12 5 Things to see related to the battle of Messines 13 5.1 Sites 13 5.2 Cemeteries 15 5.3 Memorial ceremonies and events 16 5.4 Exhibition: Total War in Flanders 17 5.5 Guided tours/routes/itineraries 20 6 Further information 22 6.1 Websites 22 6.2 Pictures 22 6.3 Interviews 23 6.4 Visit Flanders contacts 23 6.5 Sources 24 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Pagina 2 van 24 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background: the Ypres Salient and Messines Ridge The course of the First World War in the Flanders sector was determined by the hilly landscape. The front line between the towns of Ypres and Messines took the form of an inverted S, with the city of Ypres and the village of Wijtschate as the two centres, from north to south. The Germans spoke of the Ypernbogen and the Wytschaetebogen, the British, for their part, of the Ypres Salient and the Messines Ridge. In the north of the Westhoek (Flanders Fields) district, from Drie Grachten to Nieuwpoort, the flooding of the Yser plain in 1914 held up the German advance. This meant that the ridge was the only way the Germans could reach the sea and the channel ports of Dunkirk and Calais. The Allies had to defend those hills, no matter what the cost. The struggle was grim and relentless. British and French troops succeeded in bringing the Germans to a halt. Worn out by the heavy fighting and with winter approaching, the enemy armies dug in. 1.2 Trench warfare The war of movement was replaced by trench warfare. In the Wijtschate salient (Messines Ridge), the German defences were concentrated around advanced positions on a number of natural heights that were difficult to take. For the Germans, Wijtschate was an important observation post. From the height, they had a bird’s-eye view, from a distance of seven kilometres, of all troop movements to the south of Ypres. The British lines were much lower down and were all within range of the German artillery. The Germans transformed Wijtschate into an impregnable fort. A succession of attacks came to grief on the reinforced ridge at Wijtschate and Messines. Failure above ground led both armies to try a new approach. Already in 1915, the war in the whole Ypres Salient slipped stealthily underground. British (Tunnellers or Sappers) and German (Mineure) miners dug a network of passageways and tunnels towards and under each other’s positions. They frequently blew them up and built new, reinforced positions in the resulting craters. In 1916 alone, the British exploded 750 mines and the Germans 696. At the start of 1917, there were more than 40 German and more than 20 British mine craters visible in the no-man’s-land between Hill 60 and Ploegsteert. 1.3 The Battle of the Mines What the British know as the Battle of the Mines or the Battle of Messines (Ridge) and the Germans as ‘der Schlacht am Wytschaetebogen’ began on 7 June and ended on 14 June 1917. The British, aiming to take the Germans by surprise, deployed special ‘Tunnelling Companies’. The aim was to approach the German positions unnoticed and to tunnel under them. The ultimate goal was the capture of the ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge, as the German submarines based there were a constant threat to Allied supply lines. It took a year of planning, starting in 1916. On the morning of 7 June 1917, at 4.10 am local time (Zero Hour), the British exploded 19 of the 24 deep mines, almost simultaneously, between Hill 60 (Zillebeke) and ‘The Birdcage’ (south-west of Warneton). The gigantic explosions destroyed the enemy positions and created huge craters in the landscape. One bunker was actually turned upside down. The explosions created the loudest man-made noise in history – until, that is, the detonation of the atomic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A student is reported to have heard it in Dublin. The ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Pagina 3 van 24 explosion was heard by the British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who was working late in his Downing Street study. The surprise was total and the impact and the chaos among the Germans were enormous. In the fighting and the gigantic artillery bombardment that followed the mine explosions, British, Irish, Australian, and New Zealand units succeeded in taking the Wijtschate-Messines ridge. Their total losses came to 15,913 dead, 23,953 wounded, and 10,595 missing. On the morning of 7 June 1917, troops broke through at Messines, the totally devastated village of Wijtschate was taken by the Irish divisions, and British divisions occupied the Hollebeke ridge. It was the greatest British military success of the war up to that time. 1.4 Prelude to the Battle of Passchendaele Following the Battle of the Mines, the whole ‘Wytschaetebogen’ or Messines Ridge was occupied. Seven kilometres of territory had been gained. In the wake of the disasters of the previous year, 1916, the British were euphoric. Both civilians and the military needed a boost. But there was a sequel to come, and soon. The second phase was the Battle of Passchendaele, which did not begin until 31 July, nearly eight weeks later. Some say that the commander-in-chief, Douglas Haig, waited too long, thereby giving the Germans time to repair and improve their defences. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Pagina 4 van 24 2 THE IRISH IN MESSINES 2.1 The Sixteenth (Irish) and Thirty-sixth (Ulster) Divisions Three divisions raised in Ireland There were three divisions raised in Ireland during the Great War. The first to be raised was the Tenth (Irish) Division, which fought at Gallipoli in August 1915 and later at Salonika and in Palestine. The second division formed was the Sixteenth (Irish) Division, whose volunteer recruits were mainly southern Irish Catholics. The final division raised was the Thirty-sixth (Ulster) Division, which was raised mainly from the Ulster Volunteer Force, a predominantly Protestant body. All three divisions included what were called Service Engineers, Pioneers, Medics, Intelligence, and Transport units. The Sixteenth (Irish) and Thirty-sixth (Ulster) Divisions fraternising The two Irish divisions (Sixteenth and Thirty-sixth) retained their separate identities, although they came close to amalgamating in early 1917, following the dreadful losses at the Somme and the precipitous reduction in recruitment numbers in Ireland. Nothing came of this, mainly because no political compromise could be found that would make it acceptable at home. The aftermath of the Easter (1916) Rising and the new militant nationalist sentiment had contributed to an even more febrile atmosphere back in Ireland. Nationalists and unionists were even further apart. But, in this uncharacteristically hilly part of Flanders, both divisions had a common cause, even if they had diametrically different views of Ireland’s place within the British Empire. The divisions fraternised with each other behind the lines in Bailleul and played football matches against other. One match was watched by between 2,000 and 3,000 spectators, making it a tempting target for the Germans had they known about it. The Sixteenth (Irish) and Thirty-sixth (Ulster) fighting side by side The Thirty-sixth (Ulster) Division was positioned at Kruisstraat, just to the right of where the huge Spanbroekmolen mine was due to explode. They were to be the very first to go up the hill in the advance guard of the first wave of infantry. To their left was the Sixteenth (Irish) Division. The regiments from Ulster and from the south of Ireland would fight side by side. The Revd John Redmond, a Church of Ireland chaplain with the 9th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, commented on the friendly relations between the two divisions. ‘It was impressive to see what a feeling of security before the battle the Ulster Division had in having the 16th Irish on our left flank and that the 16th Division had in having the Ulster Division on their right flank. This feeling of goodwill and confidence between the two divisions had been growing for some time. I wish the entire North and South that they represent, could participate in the same Spirit.’ The Times observed on Friday 8 June 1917: In the capture of the ridge, both north and south Irishmen have their share.. Northerners and Southerners, Protestand and Catholic troops, fought alongside of one another and, whatever may be party feeling at home, it is as well to know that the feeling between the two bodies here is most cordial. The Southern Irishmen recently presented a cup for competition between various companies of ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Pagina 5 van 24 the Northern force, and of late there has been swearing of the utmost rivalry as to which would get to the top of the Messines Ridge first.