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Updated: April 30, 2025
One very soon sailed up, nice and white, into the inky sky, and I saw how we were placed with regard to the Germans, the hill and Messines. We were quite near a little stream, a tributary of the Douve, in fact it ran along the front of our trenches.
Bonar Law has stated in the House of Commons since these lines were written that the losses in the third battle of Ypres, from Messines to Passchendaele, July October, 1917, were 228,000. How deeply this Ypres salient enters into the war-consciousness of Britain and the Empire!
Messines, and the victory of June, 1917 Passchendaele, and the losses of that grim winter all the points indeed of this dim horizon from north-west to south-east have their imperishable meaning for Great Britain and the Dominions. For quite apart from the main actions which stand out, fighting and death never ceased in the Ypres salient.
It's just midsummer madness!" But only one of us went really mad and tried to cut his throat, and died. One of the best, as I knew him at his best. The battles of the Third Army beyond Arras petered out and on June 7th there was the battle of Messines and Wytschaete when the Second Army revealed its mastery of organization and detail.
In June, 1917, the British began an attack on Messines and Wytschaete, in an effort to straighten out the Ypres salient. By this time their flyers dominated the air, and they had gained the immense advantage of artillery superiority.
On January 27, 1916, the Germans attempted an infantry attack on a salient northeast of Loos, but were held back. A British night attack on the German trenches near Messines, Flanders, was likewise repulsed. In the morning of February 12, 1916, the Germans broke into the British trenches near Pilkellen, but were pushed out by bombing parties.
Recently we have had hardly any guns here; we have been biding our time; if we had had them here now the Germans would have found them out; as it is, they will come as a surprise upon the enemy now; he will not have time to locate them before the great push. We are having the same artillery which did the job at Messines. "I spent yesterday afternoon sleeping.
The noise as we passed them was deafening. And through our glasses we saw the German lines going up in smoke. If the artillery fails to achieve exactly what the General orders the infantry is foredoomed to failure; and, conversely, if the artillery is successful the infantry ought to have things all plain sailing. That was the secret of the victory of Messines last month.
Our line was thus drawn in a curve right round the south of Messines Hill, which twinkled with points of fire at every morning 'stand-to' from the tiers of trenches which honeycombed its face. Contrary to expectations, the centenary of Waterloo passed without incident during this tour, in spite of the Huns' reputed fondness for such celebrations.
Part of the church tower remained and one hand of the clock still hung to the side facing the German lines. This seemed to aggravate the boche as, every day, he would send from a dozen to forty or fifty shells over, all seemingly directed at the church tower. As Messines Ridge is now "ours" I think there can be no objection to my going into details about our dispositions.
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