Battle of Passchendaele

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in this debate commemorating the fearsome Battle of Passchendaele. As the noble Lord, Lord Black, mentioned in his very powerful opening speech, it epitomized the horror of trench warfare and combat on the Western Front during the First World War, but of course there was more to it than that. The fortitude and bravery of our men who were involved in the battle is very humbling but in hindsight, one has to wonder about how the battle was allowed to continue for over three months when it became clear in the first few weeks that there was limited strategic advantage to be won.

By that time of the war the British Army had begun to understand modern industrial-scale war, and the limited assault on the Messines ridge on 7 June 1917, using huge mines tunnelled under German positions and tanks, was a major tactical success. We were getting better at fighting tactically but fighting in a quagmire, created by nature and man, where tanks could not be used and men were bogged down—constrained by barbed wire and enemy blockhouses—was never going to achieve a strategic success. However, it did attrit and demoralise the German forces, far more than I think was realised at the time.

As has been said, one key reason for the battle was a desire to reach the Channel coast and stop German U-boats operating from ports there. Why was that considered so important? The Battle of Jutland, fought in the North Sea in mid-1916, had effectively decided the outcome of the war. The Germans knew their key adversary, which they had made clear was Britain, could be conquered only if they could defeat the Royal Navy. The Battle of Jutland, though not the crushing victory of annihilation that Britain expected, left the Navy pre-eminent and the Germans realized this.

On 22 December 1916, Admiral von Holtzendorff composed a memorandum which became the pivotal document for Germany’s resumption of unrestricted U-boat warfare in 1917. He proposed defeating Britain by sinking 600,000 tonnes of shipping per month, based on a study done in 1916 by Dr Richard Fuss, who had shown that if merchant shipping was sunk at such a rate, Britain would run out of ships and be forced to sue for peace within six months, well before the Americans—who were likely to enter the conflict because of the unrestricted U-boat campaign—could act. As an aside, is it not amazing that we had a shipbuilding industry that could build up to 600,000 tonnes of shipping each month? I leave your Lordships to reflect on where our shipbuilding industry is now.

On 9 January 1917, the Kaiser met with Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg and the military leaders to discuss measures to resolve Germany’s increasingly grim war situation. The German navy was bottled up in Kiel and the British blockade had caused food scarcity, which I am afraid in turn caused death by malnutrition in Germany. It is horrifying to think that by 1918, 900,000 German civilians had died of malnutrition as a result of the British blockade. There was a shortage of machine tools, copper and other essentials, which led to revolution and collapse within Germany. The German military staff urged the Kaiser to unleash the submarine fleet and on 31 January 1917, he duly signed the order for unrestricted submarine warfare, which started on 1 February. Germany had 105 submarines ready for action, of which 23 were based in Flanders. Its initial campaign was hugely successful: 500,000 tonnes of shipping was sunk in both February and March, and 860,000 tonnes in April, when Britain’s supplies of wheat went down below six weeks-worth. In May, the losses exceeded 600,000 tonnes and in June, 700,000 tonnes. Again, it is worth thinking that we still rely on ships for everything that comes into this country, 95% of which by volume comes by sea. We forget that at our peril.

By June 1917, there was a real possibility that Britain would be starved into surrender in a matter of weeks, and although the USA joined the allies in April as a result of the German campaign and the Zimmermann telegram, it was months before they could bring any military power to bear. At first, the British Admiralty failed to respond to the German offensive, refusing to consider widespread convoying. That changed on 27 April. In May and June a regular convoy system was established and after July, the monthly losses never exceeded 500,000 tonnes, although they remained above 300,000 tonnes.

With hindsight, we can see that the risk of Britain’s defeat by U-boats had been overcome by July, at the end of which the Battle of Passchendaele started. But when the battle was being planned there was a very real possibility of British defeat, and any action at all that could have some impact on the U-boats was worth considering, even a major battle such as Passchendaele, because if we did not stop the U-boat threat, Britain was going to be defeated.

When the Battle of Passchendaele juddered to a halt on 6 November, our gallant troops were no nearer to the key ports on the north Belgian coast, and for the loss of some 300,000 men or slightly more—the figure is disputed—the Ypres salient had been slightly expanded, by about five miles. However, many lessons had been learned and reinforced, and there were no more huge, meaningless, old-style offensive battles by the British in World War I.

By 1918, the British Empire Army was the best Army in the world. Having stopped the German spring offensive, it drove the German army back across the Siegfried line, defeating it daily, month on month, until the Armistice on 11 November. So perhaps Passchendaele had not been completely in vain, but it is completely appropriate that we should remember the gallant sacrifice of so many brave men during that battle.