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Updated: April 30, 2025
The Staff sauntered about outside in delicious anticipation. We all looked at our watches. Punctually at six the show began. Guns of all shapes and sizes had been concentrated. They made an overwhelming noise. Over the German trenches on the near slope of the Messines ridge flashed multitudinous points of flame. The Germans were being furiously shelled.
But the men of Kent, who were eager to be on their way, fought with such wild fury that the Germans, after they had incurred very heavy losses, were eager to drop their rifles and surrender. The part the armored tanks played in the battle of Messines Ridge was not very important, but they would have been missed if they had not been present in emergencies to help out the infantry.
One morning I crept along the ragged hedge, on the far side of the moat which led to the river, and started out for the trenches. I imagined a German with a powerful pair of binoculars looking down on the plain from the Messines Hill, with nothing better to do than to see if he could spot some one walking about.
But even when allowances were made, it seemed unnecessary that their first shell, a premature, should burst in the trees far behind on the Messines road, that the second should fall in our trenches, and the third damage our wire. The fourth, however, it is fair to say, reached if it did not seriously disturb its objective.
There were many tales current of his exploits on the Somme, in which again and again he had singed the beard of Death, with an absolute recklessness of his own personal life, combined with the most anxious care for that of his men. Since the battle of Messines he had been the head of a remarkable Officers' School at Aldershot, mainly organized by himself.
When first I came to a sign-post that told me how to get to a village I could not reach with my life, I thought of those hills above Witzenhausen. From Wulverghem to Messines is exactly two kilometres. It is ludicrous. Again, one afternoon I was riding over the pass between Mont Noir and Mont Vidaigne.
As my illustrations do not follow all the movements of my detachment, I will say here that from Armentières we were shifted to Houplines, about 4-1/2 to 5 miles north-east, where we made an advance of a hundred yards or so to straighten up. Eloi, after making a short advance in the vicinity of Messines. From St. Eloi we were ordered to Hill 60, taking part in the now historic battle there.
What were the British losses, in that three months' fighting from June to November, 1917, which has been called the "Third Battle of Ypres," which began with the victory of the Messines ridge and culminated in the Canadian capture of Passchendaele? Outside the inner circle of those who know, there are many figures given. They are alike only in this that they seem to grow perpetually.
Thank you very much indeed. They have been duly appreciated. "We had three artillery officers from the 36th Division here yesterday reconnoitring as to where to place their guns. They were at the Battle of Messines and are now coming up here.
In the course of his Order I remember the Field-Marshal declared that another such blow as those which we had inflicted upon the enemy on the Somme, on the Anare, and at Arras would win the war! Major Brighten, with his eternal optimism, honestly believed it; and so did everybody else. Everybody was effervescing with excitement about Plumer's brilliant victory at Messines. I hold now with Mr.
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