Attack at Wytschaete

On 14 December 1914 the first Allied attacks since the end of the First Battle of Ypres began on the front in Flanders. General Victor d’Urbal’s French Eighth Army and General Horace Smith-Dorrien’s British II Corps attacked the German positions near the village of Wytschaete (PL), on the ridge which the Germans had taken at the beginning of November. British summaries of the events of the war describe this day as the start of the Allied “demonstrations” in Flanders. The attack brought almost no gains, and one of the two attacking British battalions lost most of its officers within a few hours.

Why the attack was made

At the beginning of December the French and British commands concluded that the Germans had moved a considerable part of their forces from the west to the Eastern Front, where heavy fighting was going on in Poland. General Joseph Joffre wanted to take advantage of this and was preparing an offensive on several sectors of the front. General Ferdinand Foch, who coordinated Allied operations in the north, argued that the weakened Germans could be pushed off the ridges around Ypres. The British would have preferred to strike along the coast to recover the Belgian ports, but gave way to the French. Field Marshal John French agreed with the commander of the Eighth Army that the attack would begin on the morning of 14 December.

The main burden fell on the French. Their XVI Corps was to take Wytschaete and the ridge east of the village. The British II Corps was to advance together with its neighbours on the left, and only two battalions of the 8th Brigade of the 3rd Division were detailed for the first blow: the 2nd Battalion, Royal Scots and the 1st Battalion, Gordon Highlanders. The first was to take the Petit Bois copse west of Wytschaete, the second the rise by Maedelstede Farm south-west of the village.

Attack in the mud

At 7 a.m. the French and British artillery opened fire. The bombardment lasted about three-quarters of an hour and was too weak to destroy the German wire and trenches, all the more so as most of the shells were shrapnel. When it ceased, the infantry went into the attack. The ground between the trenches offered no cover and was sodden from the December rains. As French later wrote, at every step the men sank deep into the mud, so a rapid attack was impossible.

The Royal Scots ran about 140 metres under machine-gun fire and took a German trench on the western edge of Petit Bois. They took over 50 prisoners and two machine guns. They could not, however, force their way further into the copse. The Gordon Highlanders, advancing uphill across a ploughed field towards Maedelstede, came under heavy rifle and machine-gun fire. Some of the men reached the German wire and the first line of trenches, but there the attack broke down. After dark the survivors returned to their starting positions.

The French 32nd Division, which was attacking to the left of the British, made no progress. Since Wytschaete remained in German hands, a further British attack lost its point. According to French’s report the Royal Scots held the captured edge of Petit Bois, although some studies judge that by the end of the day there were no lasting gains.

Losses and further fighting

The Gordon Highlanders paid the highest price for the attack. According to regimental accounts, of the nine officers who went into the attack seven fell, and the battalion’s losses amounted to about 250 men. About 125 Gordons were killed or died of wounds, and most of them have no known grave. The Royal Scots lost several dozen killed. The French also suffered heavy losses.

In the following days the attack was renewed, but mainly in the form of artillery fire. The British infantry waited for the French to make progress that would cover its left flank, and this did not happen. On 17 December the commands agreed that instead of larger attacks only feint operations would be carried out, intended to pin the Germans in place. Similar local attacks were made in the following days on other sectors of the British front.

The December attacks in Flanders showed how much the war had changed after the autumn battles. A few dozen minutes of bombardment were not enough to prepare an attack on fortified trenches, and the attacking infantry got bogged down in the mud in front of uncut wire. The Messines–Wytschaete ridge remained in German hands until June 1917.