Kemmelberg

Situation on top of the Kemmelberg

Stepping briefly back in time a little, on top of the Kemmelberg - directly to the side of the road - there was already an inn in 1850, directly opposite a small viewing hill. The hill could possibly have been raised with earth from the so-called 'Kinderput' next to it. The existence of the 'Kinderput' is explained in the legend of the 'Mauguis' small horse (see related links, below).

The Belvédère lookout tower would not be erected until 1888, a few hundred metres farther on.

Belle Vue and viewing hill, 1913.

Even before the outbreak of the war, this inn had already become a restaurant by the name of 'À la Belle Vue', clearly a 'place to be' which offered on site cabaret, a maze, and numerous hiking opportunities. Tourists climbed the spiral-shaped path to the top of the viewing hill and enjoyed magnificent panoramas.

Small viewing hill, 1913.

During the war, this restaurant would give its name to a small resistance station which the British set up on the spot. They called it the 'Belle Vue Cabaret'.

Apart from its dominant position, the Kemmelberg offered few elements of resistance; the French found this small British resistance centre there and called it 'Cabaret-Bellevue'...

A few hundred metres farther on was the Belvédère lookout tower's observation post, with a hideout under the tower, and a trench down to the north. And that was all.

The British set up the area around Belle Vue Cabaret as a small resistance post with an infantry section which was reinforced with a machine gun section which was set up in a small dugout under the Cabaret-Bellevue maze. A trench - which was protected with a thin net at a height of three metres - circled the whole thing.

This resistance centre was much smaller than the Germans thought.

As shown on an aerial photograph taken in May 1917, the trench itself was also surrounded by a circle of earth which had been raised from it, slightly lower down the hill.

In the enlargement of this aerial photograph below, the Belle Vue - the black rectangular building at the bottom of the viewing hill - is clearly recognisable.

Detail aerial view of the British resistance post, May 1917.

On a December 1916 British staff map, this building was also designated as the Belle Vue Cabaret.

Viewing hill (red star) and observation post (green star), Dec 1916.

In 1951, a concrete base would be built on the viewing hill at the Belle Vue, upon which the geodesic point of the Kemmelberg top would also be installed.

The destroyed restaurant Belle Vue would not be rebuilt after the war, but only a few metres set back from the road itself, the Hostellerie Kemmelberg would instead be established in 1954.

A few hundred metres farther on from the Belvédère observation post, a trench ran down the bare slope to the sandy Loker-Kemmel road. This trench was fully in sight of the Germans. Under the Belvédère tower itself (the Kemmel Tower), the British dug out a pit with its sole entrance along the northern slopes. A similar shelter under the Monteberg became the French colonel's command post.

The 11th Company of the French 99th Infantry Regiment – which had only arrived on 17 April 1918 - had a big job to do. The sector which was assigned to it was the northern slope of the Kemmelberg where British batteries were positioned. But the company was also responsible for the organisation on top of the Kemmelberg, and for the defence of most of the hill: the plateau, including the 'Dreef', the Cabaret-Bellevue resistance post, and the Belvédère observation post.

The company's first section had to remain in reserve at the captain's headquarters on the Kemmelberg's northern slope, about fifty metres from Cabaret-Bellevue.

The second section had to defend the Cabaret-Bellevue resistance centre on the southern side and also the 'Dreef', a path of one hundred metres in length.

The third section in the west was going to defend the Kemmelberg in the southern direction, from the Kemmelbergweg to the trench which encircled the Cabaret-Bellevue resistance centre. Its combat locations are the shell funnels along the 'Dreef'.

The fourth section in the east had to defend the Kemmelberg in the south-east, by occupying the Belvédère trench and a line of grenade funnels connecting the Belvédère observation post with the Cabaret-Bellevue resistance centre.

The Battle of the Kemmelberg, 25-29 April 1918

On the eve of the German offensive, four German divisions and the Bavarian Alpine Corps were brought into position in the first line, on a seven kilometre-long front line between Wytschaete and Dranouter, to the south of the Kemmelberg. The allies had at their disposal a single British division and two French divisions.

German map of the front line, 25-29 April 1918.

In the very early hours of 25 April on the Kemmelberg, an inferno erupted out of the morning silence. German batteries fired at target points all around the hill, from the south, the east, and the north-west, bombarding the allied artillery units and the French first lines with gas grenades and brisant bombs for more than two hours, at a rate of one hundred units a minute...

This infernal artillery bombardment was quickly decimating all life on and around the Kemmelberg, Monteberg, and Lettenberg.

It was followed by another very heavy German bombardment, this time an aerial one.

The Kemmelberg's top did not escape. The Belvédère lookout tower of 1888 was completely destroyed, but the site of the former tower remained in use as a British observation post aimed at the German positions in Wytschaete.

A few years after the end of the war, the tower was rebuilt and is now a protected monument.

By dawn on that first morning, the Kemmelberg had been changed into a black and barren moonscape, with the hill's flanks completely stripped of any trace of vegetation, and the hilltop immersed in a dense cloud of smoke and dust which blocked out most light.

Belvédère lookout tower before the war.

Remains of the Belvédère lookout tower after the battle, August 1919.

The German attack lines had therefore been able to approach so close that they could now deploy their machine guns.

For the German infantry this was the appropriate time to attack, and immediately after the air raids had concluded, thousands of German infantrymen led by the Bavarian Alpine Corps stormed the seven kilometre-wide ridge of Monteberg, Kemmelberg, and Lettenberg, through pits and over corpses. It was seven o'clock in the morning.

Around 7:30am the third section of French troops on top of the Kemmelberg was no longer sending out messages, while the fourth section was now under attack. The second section at Cabaret-Bellevue still had not seen any Germans, but more than one hour later they certainly did. The fourth section was now silent. Twenty metres behind the captain's headquarters, machine guns opened fire on the six remaining reservists of the first section.

The situation on the Kemmelberg became critical. Alpine fighters took advantage of the relief of the hill and of abandoned shelters to emerge undetected right in front of British and French artillery units. The Germans used hand grenades and fearsome flamethrowers to clear the last remaining French resistance nests.

Man-to-man fighting took place in the hideout on the flanks of the Kemmelberg-Monteberg transition. The surviving artillerymen of the French divisions were still building up resistance, but were unable to prevent the advance, and had to give away the Kemmelberg and the Monteberg.

German infantrymen in sunken road between the Kemmelberg and Monteberg.

At the time of the attack on the Kemmelberg, Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the front and followed the attack from an observation post. He triumphantly exclaimed: 'Die Schlacht ist entschieden. Wir haben den Berg' ('The battle is decided. We have the mountain').

The British, anxious to keep their fighting equipment out of the hands of the Germans at all costs, had managed to blow up twenty-five of their own guns.

The Germans had now the entire plateau in their possession and approached to within thirty metres of the summit, from the east, north, and south.

Around 9:30am, only two French survivors were left when German troops took possession of the Kemmelberg top.

The villages of Kemmel and Dranouter also fell into German hands.

The attack on the Kemmelberg has historically been considered one of the heaviest attacks of the First World War.

The villages and the beautiful landscape of the West-Flemish hills were completely destroyed after five months of war. Kemmel and Bailleul (Belle, France) - closely linked by the First World War - were left utterly devastated by this offensive.

Kemmelberg and Monteberg, 25 April 1918.

Never before had the German front line moved so far. The Germans were heading for a decisive breakthrough. Ypres was up for grabs, but after the dramatic events of 25 April, however, the odds changed.

The next day, 26 April, a French counterattack took place, but failed. The Kemmelberg remained in German hands.

A few days later, however, the weary Germans were making scant progress along the Lys, and German attacks in the West-Flemish hills also seemed to have come to an end. The German advance was halted.

Finally, on 29 April, Germany's General Ludendorff had no choice but to call off the Flanders offensive for good. The conquest of Ypres was stuck in the hills of West-Flanders and had not led to the hoped-for decisive breakthrough to the coast. From then on, no changes in the positions of either opponent could be noted. The Battle of the Lys was over.

The spring offensive ultimately came to nothing, but the bitter struggle had costed the lives of 200,000 soldiers, more than 82,000 of whom were French.

The end of the war in Flanders, 30 April to 18 July 1918

On 5 May 1918, the Battle of Flanders was finally decided. However, the fighting continued until 18 July 1918.

For the first time after the end of the Battle of the Yser, almost four years ago, the Germans withdrew from most of Flanders which was then taken by the allies.

During the 'Hundred Day Offensive' by the allies (between 8 August to 11 November 1918), at a point towards the end of August, the Kemmelberg fell almost without a fight to British and French troops who were backed-up by Americans, their first involvement in fighting on Flemish territory.

As part of the reconstruction effort, the bare Kemmelberg was demined and cleared during several months of work after the war, and was then replanted with deciduous tree species.

During excavations in partially-occupied trenches in the Lokerdreef - at the foot of the Kemmelberg's steep northern slopes - machine gun components and small pieces of textiles could be found from the clothing of soldiers. Both exploded and unexploded shells were also regularly disposed of by DOVO, the Belgian army's demining service.

During archaeological excavations in the 1970s at the top of the Kemmelberg, near the place at which the hostellerie now stands, an unexploded large-calibre German grenade of more than one metre in length was discovered, embedded in an iron sandstone bank. The area was cordoned off and evacuated until DOVO could remove this explosive in a vehicle which had been filled with sand.

The Kemmelberg did not play a significant military role during the Second World War. The only noteworthy event was Hitler's visit to the Kemmelberg on 1 June 1940 (see related links). On this occasion, German soldiers hoisted the flag on the Belvédère tower in memory of their fallen comrades of the First World War.

 

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

RELATED KEMMELBERG LINKS:
First World War: Relics & Monuments
Remarkable Stories: Hitler and the Kemmelberg
Witness Hills
Landscape
Landscape: Panoramic View of the Top
Maguis' Small Horse

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)

RELATED HISTORY FILES LINKS:
Digging up the Past in Belgium
Overview of the Western Front
Modern Belgium
Modern Netherlands

 

Text copyright © Archeo Kemmelberg. An original feature for the History Files: Kemmelberg.