Second Battle of Flanders
| date | April 22nd to May 25th, 1915 |
|---|---|
| place | Around Ypres , Belgium |
| output | Cessation of the German attack |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Erich von Falkenhayn |
Joseph Joffre |
| Troop strength | |
| 7 divisions | 3 french, 1 canada. and 5 British divisions |
| losses | |
|
about 35,000 men |
British and Canadians: around 59,000 |
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In the Second Battle of Flanders - also known as the Second Battle of Ypres - in World War I , the German troops attempted another offensive on April 22, 1915 , to break through the Allied positions on the western front in Flanders in order to eliminate the front arch at Ypres . The German army used chemical weapons in the form of chlorine gas for the first time in this offensive . The breakthrough failed due to insufficient reserves, but the front arch could be made smaller. The conflict is counted among the four battles of Flanders .
Preparations
After the failure of the German breakthrough attempts in the First Battle of Flanders in November 1914, strong troop units - including the Guard Corps , the XIII. Army Corps and the III. Reserve Corps - moved to the Eastern Front. On March 14th and 15th, parts of the 2nd Bavarian Army Corps succeeded in bringing the elevation of St. Eloi into German hands, thus getting closer to the necessary strategic goal - the conquest of the Kemmelberg . Although no reserves were available, General Erich von Falkenhayn , the chief of the German Army Command, ordered a limited attack in the Ypres area in the section of the 4th Army in order to test the effect of a newly developed combat gas. The section Gheluvelt - Langemarck - Yser Canal was assigned to the army commander Albrecht von Württemberg , who was commissioned with the attack . The Chief of Staff of the 4th Army, Major General Ilse , organized the operation of the gas operation with Colonel Peterson , the leader of the chemical weapons. Whether the conquest of the canal ports was Falkenhayn's strategic goal remains questionable; the reserves made available speak against this assumption. Only five divisions ( 45th , 46th , 51st , 52nd and 53rd Reserve Divisions ) were planned for the first attack .
The defense of the Ypres arch with the Allies had been the responsibility of the newly established British 2nd Army since Christmas 1914 . Their commander General Horace Smith-Dorrien was subordinate to the III. Corps under General William Pulteney , in the center the II. Corps under General Charles Fergusson and in the eastern apron around Ypres the V Corps under General Herbert Plumer , only the latter subsequently came into the German main area of attack. In the north of Ypres, the French army department Détachement d'armée de Belgique of General Gabriel Henri Putz and the allied Belgians defended the front on the Yser Canal between Bixschoote and Langemark, where east of it the connection to the fresh Canadian division took place.
course
Between Steenstrate and Poelkapelle , the 35th German Pioneer Regiment released 150 tons of chlorine gas from 6,000 steel cylinders within five minutes on April 22, 1915 at 6 p.m. A white-yellow poison cloud was 6 km wide against the French positions. Since chlorine gas is heavier than air, it sank into the Allied trenches and positions. The remnants of the opposite French Corps de Mitry with the 87th and 45th (Algerian) divisions fled. There were several thousand casualties there, including about 1,500 dead; the soldiers had no gas protection whatsoever (e.g. gas masks). It succeeded the German XXIII. Reserve Corps under General von Kathen , to take the Allied position on the Yser Canal without opposing resistance and to advance three to four kilometers deep. The Germans, however, did not have gas masks themselves, which was supposed to hinder further advance. The 51st Reserve Division succeeded in taking Langemarck , and the eastern Yser bridgehead at Het Sas was wrested from the French by the German 46th Reserve Division . The Germans also managed to capture the heights of Pilkem .
On April 23, the Steenstrate, defended by the French 153rd Division, which had moved forward from the reserve, and the town of Lizerne fell into the hands of XXIII. Reserve Corps. At Gravenstafel the British 50th Division, brought in from the reserve, immediately began relieving counterattacks. On April 24th, the German XXVI. Reserve Corps under General von Hügel vigorously entered the battle with the 51st and 52nd Reserve Divisions and involved the 1st Canadian Division under General Edwin Alderson in heavy fighting northwest of Ypres near St. Julien. The battle raged back and forth between Broodseinde and Langemarck without a decision. Since the German side had failed to provide sufficient reserves, the gap in the front north of Ypres could not be used. All subsequent German attacks were repulsed. On April 26, the French side, led by General Foch, began counter-attacks against the German right wing. The Germans had to evacuate the village of Lizerne on the west bank of the Yser Canal on April 27th and were thrown back onto the canal front from Drie Grachten to Het Sas, on the east bank between Bixschoote and Pilkem the front froze. At the end of April, the Germans limited themselves to bombarding the exposed 1st Canadian and the 27th and 28th British divisions west of Ypres with artillery from three sides. To avoid this, these three divisions were withdrawn from May 1st to 4th on a shorter line of defense in front of Ypres. The German XXVII now also took part in the attacks . Reserve corps under Richard von Schubert in the Gheluvelt area and the XV with Hollebeke . Army Corps under Berthold von Deimling .
General Smith-Dorrien was already about to go back and voluntarily reduce the Ypres front arc. The British Commander-in-Chief John French then relieved him of his command and replaced General Herbert Plumer as the new leader of the 2nd Army. General Edmund Allenby , the previous leader of the cavalry corps in reserve near Ypres, was in charge of Plumer's V Corps and thus the defense of the front arch . From May 2 to 9, 1915, the Germans tried again to force a breakthrough using poison gas again. The attacks against the Canadians at the Battle of Frezenberg brought little gain in terrain and were brought to a complete standstill after the intervention of the British 4th Division. The second phase of the German offensive had thus also failed. On May 24th, the Germans attacked again unsuccessfully in the Battle of Bellewarde. On May 25, 1915, the German Supreme Army Command had to stop attempting to break through because of excessive losses, and the Second Battle of Ypres had to be broken off. General Falkenhayn had no reserves ready for a continuation, because after the successful battle of Gorlice-Tarnów all available troops were given priority to the Eastern Front. In Flanders, the fighting continued until mid-June, with a focus on Hooge and Lombartzyde.
Others
The 14-year-old John Condon , who is considered to be the youngest Allied soldiers to fall in World War I, dies in a chlorine gas attack on May 24th in the Ypres.
See also
- First Battle of Flanders (from October 20 to November 18, 1914)
- Gas war during the First World War
- Third Battle of Flanders (from July 31st to November 6th, 1917)
- Fourth Battle of Flanders (from March 18 to April 29, 1918)
literature
- Arthur Banks: A military Atlas of the First World War . South Yorkshire, 1975, pp. 138-143.
- Basil Liddell Hart: The real War . Boston, 1964, pp. 175-185.
- Werner B. Sendker: Fallen in Flanders fields . Der Andere Verlag, Tönningen 2005, p. 80.
