Kemmelberg

Kemmelberg 1918: Part 2 The German Spring Offensive

by W Willems, J L Putman, & M Soenen

The final year of the war, 1918, was marked by the importance of American participation in events and the allied final offensive, in which the battle for the Kemmelberg would mark a dramatic climax.

The Russian October Revolution of 1917 and the announced arrival of the Americans caused German plans to change. Russia and Germany signed a peace agreement in March 1918 and dozens of German divisions and much artillery could now be transferred to the Western Front.

Moving the artillery along heavy clay soil and around very deep bombardment pits, however, became an enormously difficult task.

Hoping to tilt the war in their favour and still reach the coast to take control of the seaports, the Germans were now forced to carry out an ultimate spring offensive, a breakthrough attempt against the allies, from the Somme to the Ypres salient.

The spring offensive (or the Ludendorff Offensive) was a combination of several offensives by the German army under the overall direction of General Ludendorff. He hoped to drive the British into the Channel and to defeat them there, resulting in the surrender of the French afterwards.

In mid-February 1918 the Germans started bombing several sectors in advance, among them the Ypres and Kemmel sectors.

First spring offensive: 'Operation Michael', 21 March to 6 April 1918

This rush begun early in the morning of 21 March 1918, in the vicinity of the Somme. British positions came under heavy bombardment by over one million gas and high explosive shells.

France's General Foch became commander-in-chief of the allied forces, and was tasked with coordinating actions on the Western Front.

Despite the fact that the Germans were able to advance their front line by thirty kilometres towards Amiens and the west, when coupled with the massive losses involved, the expected major breakthrough was not achieved and 'Operation Michael' stalled.

Second spring offensive: 'Operation Georgette', Battle of the Lys, Fourth Battle of Ypres, breakthrough to the West-Flemish hills, 7-24 April 1918

Starting on 7 April 1918, Armentières (on the Lys, south of Heuvelland in northern France) was heavily bombarded by the Germans using mustard gas but, due to the gas, they were forced to wait until they could attempt to take the city.

The British offered resistance, but were obliged to retreat behind the Messines-Wytschaete line.

This was the beginning of the Battle of the Lys, which would end on the Kemmelberg.

The German war machine seemed unstoppable. It was making tremendous progress. The German army conquered a large part of Flanders and, with full, pressing force, undertook an extreme attempt to push through to the French seaports.

This grew into a full-blown offensive which encroached on the allied front around Ypres and the West-Flemish hills, with the Kemmelberg as a central point in the plan of attack.

Photo © Provincie West-Vlaanderen: 'De Bergen', edited by W Willems

Municipality of Heuvelland today.

To the south of Armentières the Germans crushed the Portuguese present there, crossed the Lys and advanced further.

From 10 April, the Germans started to take Plugstreet, Armentières, Messines, Hollebeke, Wulvergem, and Nieuwkerke. On 15 April, Belle (Bailleul, France) also fell into the hands of the Germans, and on 16 April so did Wytschaete.

The River Douve, to the south of the Kemmelberg, was crossed.

A breakthrough was planned by the Germans both from the west along Dranouter and the less steep western slopes of the West-Flemish hills, and from the more southerly Nieuwkerke. They were approaching the south-western side of the Ypres salient and were dangerously close to the West-Flemish hills.

Still, on 16 April, the Kemmelberg was heavily bombed by the Germans and, on the following day, an attack on the British positions followed, but was repulsed.

However, in the following days British war materials were transported to Dunkirk. The exhausted British were relieved by more and more French, who were then stationed on and around the Kemmelberg.

General Foch described the Kemmelberg as 'The eye of Flanders' which had to be defended at all costs.

Inspired by his directives, the French soldiers were told: 'The hill line is the lock which opens the door to Calais. The Kemmelberg is the key and you will not let yourself be deprived of it'.

The soldiers translated it as follows: 'We die on the spot'. And they did, by the tens of thousands.

For example, the 11th Company of the French 99th Infantry Regiment was only one kilometre away from the Kemmelberg at the moment the German bombardments begun again on 17 April at eight o'clock in the morning. Without losses being too great, the French - with their faces covered by gas masks - soon afterwards reached the foot of the Kemmelberg's northern slopes, which their company had to defend.

Due to the German bombardment, on the northern steep slope - immediately below the edge - small niches had been formed in the form of balconies which could provide some shelter.

British observation post on the Kemmelberg, 22 April 1918.

The German bombardments continued unabated during the following days. From the neighbouring Scherpenberg, the Kemmelberg was looking like a fire-breathing volcano whose rumbling was audible as far away as Dunkirk, almost fifty kilometres away as the crow flies.

Hundreds of Frenchmen were badly wounded, terribly mutilated, or killed instantly.

Before the major assault could be launched by the Germans, French and British troops still fraternised on the Kemmelberg. All French units were at their posts by 24 April, manning or reinforcing British positions on the front line running from the west of Wytschaete to north of Meteren (to the north-west of Belle).

On 23 April, French and German artillery bombarded each other's positions with some intensity.

There had been skirmishes prior to the actual German offensive, and the French had been able to capture some German soldiers and thereby learn that a German gas bombardment was imminent.

Photo public domain

Shelter on the south-western hillside, 24 April 1918.

On 24 April, the Germans conducted another bombardment of the allied positions. At the top of the Kemmelberg, the French prepared for certain death.

Continued in Part 3

REFERENCES:
Baert K - Kemmel 1918 - Hoe Ieper uit de greep van de Duitsers bleef (2008, in Dutch)

Toland J - No Man's Land - 1918, The Last Year of the Great War (2002)

Sempf A - Der Tod am Kemmel: wahre Skizzen aus der Schlacht um den Kemmel (Vieweg Leipzig, 1920, in German)

Sempf A - De dood op de Kemmel: schetsen over de slag om de Kemmelberg (Uitgeverij Westvlaamse Bergen, 1968, in Dutch)

Vansuyt M - Het Duits Lenteoffensief 1918: Georgette - Kemmelberg (2014, in Dutch)

Knab J - Falsche Glorie: das Traditionsverständnis der Bundeswehr (Ch. Links Verlag Berlin, 1995, in German)

Baker Chris - The Battle of the Lys 1918 - North: Objective Ypres - Chap 8 Kemmelberg and the Flemish Hills (2018)

Kabisch Ernst - Um Lys und Kemmel, Flandern Erster Weltkrieg WW1 (Vorhut Vlg, 1936, in German)

Pinçon L - La Onzième du 99e au Kemmel (17-25 avril 1918) (Impr L Gaubert, Montmorency (Paris), 1921, in French)

In Flanders Fields Museum, Ypres

EXTERNAL LINKS:
La bataille du Mont Kemmel, 25-29 avril 1918 (in French)
Des Foréziens dans l'enfer du Kemmel 25 avril 1918 - Histoire d'une hécatombe, Albert Cellier (in French, PDF)
Jean Giono dans l'enfer des Flandres, '...le Mont Kemmel fume comme un volcan crevé', Christian Morzewski (in French)
Capitaine Pinçon, La 11e compagnie du 99e régiment d'infanterie au Mont Kemmel (in French)
Slag om de Kemmelberg (in Dutch, PDF)