British soldiers inspecting a fallen German soldier laying in the muddy wasteland in Flanders, ca. October 1917.

British soldiers inspecting a fallen German soldier laying in the muddy wasteland in Flanders, ca. October 1917.

Today 106 years ago, on October 4, 1917, the Battle of Broodseinde was fought, as part of the Third Battle of Ypres.

Following the successful Battles of the Menin Road Ridge and Polygon Wood, the British planned for the next assault.

Along a 13 km front, the objective of this attack would be the Broodseinde Ridge and the Gravenstafel Spur, thus taking the rest of the Gheluvelt Plateau and obtaining positions from which a fresh assault could be launched on the Passchendaele Ridge itself later on. 

The British had assembled more than 1,300 guns and 12 Divisions for this attack, including 4 ANZAC Divisions, who were up against 10 German Divisions at Broodseinde. The Allies would use the bite-and-hold strategy, following its great successes at the Menin Road Ridge and Polygon Wood in September 1917.

No unit were to advance further than 2 km at a time and there would be no big preliminary bombardment, in order to maintain the element of surprise. British intelligence had picked up German plans for a big counter-attack on October 4 and were therefore ready for that as well.

On October 4, 1917, following a hurricane bombardment on the German trenches, the British and ANZACs attacked at Broodseinde Ridge, protected by a creeping barrage.

The German bombardment for their own attack, starting just 20 minutes before the British attack, inflicted many losses on the Allied troops assembled in the trenches. Despite this and heavy rains having fallen, the British and ANZACs were able to make great advances. As the Germans were preparing to attack themselves, they suffered heavy losses to the Allied artillery too, and many units were essentially wiped out.

When the British and ANZACs advanced they met the German infantry in no man's land, and in hand-to-hand combat were able to beat and overrun the Germans, who weren't defensively prepared because of their own attack.

 

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German counter-attacks were repulsed and by the end of the day, most Allied objectives were captured, including the Broodseinde Ridge and Gravenstafel Spur, with an average advance of 910 m along the line. 

In the Battle of Broodseinde, the British had suffered some 12,000 casualties, the Australians 6,400 casualties (making this battle the bloodiest 24 hours for Australia during the war), and New Zealand suffered 1,800 casualties.

The Germans had suffered some 35,000 casualties between October 1 - 4, with an extra 5,000 prisoners taken at Broodseinde Ridge.

British General Plumer called this battle "the greatest success since the Marne".