Anniversary Of Struggle For Passchendaele

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 9, 18 October 1950, Page 7

Anniversary Of Struggle For Passchendaele

By A Survivor

Although the occasion was not a defeat, the most disastrous day in New Zealand history was October 12, 1917. That year was a grim one in British history. The previous year, 1916, had ended hopefully—the invention of the tanks had shown that the German line could be broken; the British Secret Service had given the United States so much information of what was going on round her borders that, in selfpreservation, the United States, in January, 1917, declared war. Germany realised that if she could not win in 1917 the war was lost. The intensive submarine campaign for the starvation of England was started. Russia hesitated, and finally broke down with the Bolshevik revolution.

The German propaganda campaign in Italy was having its effect on an army which had long lost its martial spirit, but which nevertheless, was pressing Austria. France was fighting despairingly, and when a French attack, through shocking leakage of information, broke down in the mid-year of the Chemin des Dames, there was a big, gap in the Allied lines, where for a time the French troops refused to fight. The French Government! warned the British Government that it might be compelled to seek a separate peace, and all the Empire Prime Ministers were summoned to London. Foch was appointed Chief of Staff of the French Army and he quickly restored the French morale. And all the time the submarine blockade went on. Offensive Opens

This was the position when, on June 7 at Messines, the British 1917 offensive was successfully opened. In July a combination of pillboxes and bad weather, which gave trouble to the new tanks, gave us a setback south of Ypres. The offensive north of Ypres had the double objective of diverting action from the rejuvenated French, who were preparing an offensive on the Aisne, and threatening the rear of Zeebrugge and Ostend—the channel ports held by the Germans. In September* the Second Army, under General Plumer, took over part of the Ypres front, and on October 4, 1917, the Ist and 4th Brigades of the New Zealand Division made a very successful attack towards the Passchendaele Ridge, capturing over 1100 prisoners—a record for a division for one day.