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Updated: June 27, 2025
Just beneath Wytschaete one could see the German trenches, two lines of them, which showed like brick red seams in the earth and ran up over and along the crest of the Wytschaete ridge, which itself ran towards St. Eloi and Ypres. Between these German trenches and our own was a sandy waste no man's land scarred and churned by untold numbers of shells.
On the same date a German contingent after a preliminary bombardment attempted to penetrate British trenches southwest of Wytschaete. The attackers evidently expected that their heavy gunfire had demoralized the defenders and looked for an easy victory, but they were speedily repulsed with considerable losses.
On February 1, 1917, in the neighborhood of Wytschaete, parties of Germans dressed in white attempted two surprise assaults on British trenches, but were rolled back with severe losses before they could get within striking distance. In these encounters the British took prisoners without losing a man or incurring the slightest casualty.
He expressed his regret that he should have to leave Flanders without completing all his plans, but was glad that Passchendaele had been captured before his going. In front of him was the map of the great range from Wytschaete to Staden, and he laid his hand upon it and smiled and said: "I often used to think how much of that range we should get this year. Now it is nearly all ours."
These were, as a rule, converted into redoubts or "strong-points," and defended by both infantry and machine guns. To the northward, within the German lines, was the town of Wytschaete, while we had Mont Kemmel, a prominent hill which gave our artillery good observation all the way from Ypres to "Plugstreet."
"These people have probably not seen a woman in months, and the shock would be too severe. We must break it gently." So he went ahead, and I stood on the crest of that wind-swept hill and looked across the valley to Messines, to Wytschaete and Ypres. The battlefield lay spread out like a map. As I looked, clouds of smoke over Messines told of the bursting of shells.
Thus, on March 10, 1915, the First Corps attacked the Germans from Givenchy, but there had been but little artillery fire on the part of the British there, and the wire entanglements stopped them from more than keeping the German troops in the position which they had held. The Second Corps, on March 12, was to have advanced at 10 a. m. southwest of Wytschaete.
On the 27th March, at 4.15 a.m., the 3rd Division on the right attacked at St. A week later, on the 8th April, the Battalion was again in the line, this time relieving the 7th Battalion Shropshire Light Infantry in trenches N and O, in front of Wytschaete, with back area at La Clyte. These trenches were of the breastwork type.
In one place we had the "Southern, Eastern and Western" redoubts along the edges of a certain wood. The reproduction on the opposite page is a section from the map known as Wytschaete. Here are Shelley Farm, White Horse Cellars and St. Eloi, with the British front line shown by faint dashes, crossing the road that runs through White Horse Cellars, at figure 2.
Half a mile south from Dickebusch are cross-roads, and the sign-post tells you that the road to the left is the road to Wytschaete but Wytschaete faces Kemmel and Messines faces Wulverghem.
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