End of the Battle of Mount Sorrel

At 1.30 a.m. on 13 June 1916, in pouring rain, Canadian infantry advanced on the heights near Ypres that the Württemberg XIII Corps had captured eleven days earlier: the flat hillock of Mount Sorrel, the summit of Tor Top (Hill 62) and the Observatory Ridge spur. In less than an hour it had recovered almost the whole line lost on 2 June. The British official history (Edmonds) called this attack, the first carefully planned by the Canadians with larger forces, an “unqualified success”.

The first attempt to retake the heights, on the morning of 3 June, ended in a bloody failure: the battalions of the 1st Canadian Division went in at different times, in full daylight, and the Germans broke them one after another. The British commander-in-chief, Douglas Haig, agreed with the commander of the Second Army, General Herbert Plumer, that a position lying little more than three kilometres from Ypres must not be left to the Germans. But he was saving all his forces for the offensive on the Somme, so instead of fresh divisions he provided heavy guns and recommended that the next attack be made with a small number of infantry supported by powerful artillery. The commander of the Canadian Corps artillery, Brigadier-General Henry Burstall, assembled, according to the Canadian official history, 218 guns, from 18-pounders to two 12-inch howitzers. Rain and low cloud prevented airmen from spotting targets, so the date, first set for 6 June, was put back several times. Meanwhile, on 6 June, the Germans blew four mines under the Canadian trenches at Hooge, by the Menin road, and took the front line there. The corps commander, Lieutenant-General Julian Byng, decided not to retake it, so as not to disperse his forces.

Between 9 and 12 June the Canadian guns four times fired a short, violent bombardment that was not followed by an attack. The Germans were to get used to the idea that a hurricane of fire did not herald an assault. On 12 June the artillery shelled all the German positions from Hill 60 to Sanctuary Wood for ten hours, and in the evening and from 0.45 to 1.30 a.m. two more violent bombardments followed. For the attack the commander of the 1st Division, Major-General Arthur Currie, formed two composite brigades from the least depleted battalions: Brigadier-General Louis Lipsett’s against Mount Sorrel and Brigadier-General George Tuxford’s against Tor Top. On the left flank went the 58th Battalion of the 3rd Division. The right flank was screened by smoke from Stokes mortars, with which the 7th Battalion bombarded Hill 60, while the neighbouring British 20th Division to the north distracted the Germans with gas, smoke and raids.

The fire was so accurate that the leading waves of the 16th Battalion were able to go out into no man’s land early and wait there under cover. When at 1.30 the artillery lifted its fire, the 3rd, 16th, 13th and 58th Battalions broke into the German trenches. Most of the defenders, stunned by days of shelling and by the rain, offered no resistance. Only here and there did individual machine-gun nests and defended pockets have to be taken. Between 2.00 and 2.30 all the attacks reached their objectives: the 3rd Battalion stood on Mount Sorrel, the 13th Battalion on Tor Top and Observatory Ridge, the 16th Battalion in Armagh Wood, and the 58th Battalion recovered a large part of the old line in Sanctuary Wood. Five German officers and 186 men were taken prisoner, and the rest fell back to the positions held before 2 June. The Germans at once began shelling the recovered heights. Sappers and pioneers consolidated them in mud so deep that on Mount Sorrel the old line could not be found and the new position was built a few dozen metres in front of it.

On the morning of 14 June the Germans twice counter-attacked Mount Sorrel, but both attacks were broken up by artillery, and that was the end of the battle. Only the trenches at Hooge remained in German hands. According to the British official history, the Canadian Corps lost more than 8,400 men between 2 and 14 June, and the German units in this sector 5,765. For the Canadians it was the first clear victory of the Canadian Corps and a lesson that a limited objective, patient preparation and precisely directed artillery achieve more than a hasty counter-attack. Byng and Currie were to repeat it on a larger scale ten months later at Vimy.