With the British Army in Flanders & France

Our tour begins on the western fringes of the village of Wytschaete (now Wijtschate) at the cemetery that bears the village’s name (if you haven’t read the prologue to this tour, which includes a tour map and a brief background to the Battle of Messines, you might like to click here before you continue).  To get your bearings, Messines (now Mesen) itself sits at the southern end of the ridge, about a mile and a half south of Wytschaete, if you continue north you will pass through the village of St. Eloi and eventually find yourself entering the Lille Gate at Ypres (Ieper), and the view above looks west towards, not much more than half a mile away, the positions of the front line trenches as they were in June 1917. Continue reading →

The Battle of Messines (above, the rebuilt Messines Church), which took place between the 7th & 14th of June 1917, was Haig’s preparatory offensive before his planned assault on the Passchendaele Ridge further north.  In order for the advance towards Passchendaele to have any chance of success, the Germans would first have to be forced off their long-held positions along the Messines Ridge to the south of Ypres.  At 3.10 on the morning of 7th June, 19 huge mines were simultaneously exploded beneath the German front line trenches from Hill 60, south east of Ypres, as far south as the borders of Ploegsteert Wood.  Remarkably, it took just three hours to capture the complete length of the Messines Ridge, and although stiffening German resistance in the hours and days that followed prevented any further appreciable advance east, the offensive’s objectives were nevertheless effectively attained on that very first day. Continue reading →