# Talk:First Battle of Passchendaele

The fighting in July and August wasn't a stalemate! British forces advanced, held ground and inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans. The Germans had a temporary local success on the Gheluvelt Plateau assisted by the weather. This isn't a stalemate. The modest success around Langemarck in the 16 August made the emphasis on the plateau inevitable. I will back this up with sources later today.Keith-264 (talk) 08:06, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

There is certainly debate on this fact (stalemate or genuine progress) but, in this article, I don't find it to be a primary concern. However, the OH is not a reliable source in this case, given the political sensitivities of the topic at the time of writing. Modern assessments are most appropriate. Increasing the battle section is where most efforts are best concentrated.--Labattblueboy (talk) 18:39, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
If you are unwilling to accept the OH as a source I think you need to justify your decision with a bit more than inference - you could say the same about any book. See Andrew Green Writing the Great War for a recent (2004) rebuttal of polemical views of the OH and a spirited counterblast to Travers's The Killing Ground.... (1987). Notice also the congruence of the OH and the German sources. Bear in mind also that the OH has a big mistake in it which has greatly influenced the 'stalemate school' (even as it is contradicted by other parts of the book and the appendices sections). In general I have found all the Wiki pages on Passchendaele (and the linked articles that I have been working on) accurate representations of sources but historiographically about 20-25 years behind the times.Keith-264 (talk) 19:45, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
What it comes down to is that is a contested source on the topic of Passchendaele, particularly in terms of analysis of progress. The official histories of Canada (and I believe Australia) diverge with the OH on this point.  I'm not opposed to different sources but in this case I'm not sold on the OH.--Labattblueboy (talk) 20:10, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Quoted text should be used rather sparingly. However, I find no issue in placing quoted text as notes. A good suggestion that comes out of WP:LONGQUOTE is to place longer quotations as  footnotes thus still facilitating "verification by other editors without sacrificing readability".--Labattblueboy (talk) 18:43, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxim_08/15#MG08.2F15
I read the article but couldn't find a definition of a long quote. Here's something I wrote earlier
I'm a beginner at doing more than writing the odd paragraph and moaning about people starting sentences with 'and' so I think it would be premature, as there's still much to do; finding out what GA is and how to do a dash instead of a hyphen for starters ;O). I think Menin Road needs a page and some of the material on the main page needs moving to the ones about particular operations (like Menin). I'd like to do something detailed about attacking and defensive developments at 3rd Ypres and how they fit into the trends either side. It's much clearer now that there was a convergence of methods and equipment - echeloned defence met echeloned attack, 'quiet' periods between attacks got more and more 'noisy' so the utility of position (no longer really 'trench') warfare to the Germans diminished considerably, hence staying on the defensive in 1918 wasn't really practical alternative (see Rupprecht's comments on the Cambrai page about there being no quiet sectors anywhere where tank operations were feasible after Cambrai) so this bit feeds into the strategic-economic context of the war. My next move is to try to be systematic about the air war over Ypres. As usual sources about the German side written in English are rarer so I'm stuck with the RAF and Canadian OHs and a couple of monographs from Archives org for the German side. Keith-264 (talk) 20:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

It`s true about the rarity of German sources in English (thank god for Sheldon starting to address that). The issue with the quotes was that it negatively affected the flow of the article. Summary style (WP:SS) is the writing form employed on Wikipedia. Concise versions are preferable. Consequently, direct quotes are not often used. There is also the fact that primary sources should be used sparingly. Either way you look at it, try to avoid quotes and stick to prose.--Labattblueboy (talk) 20:49, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

Red blue green. AOH. 909.Keith-264 (talk) 17:14, 9 June 2012 (UTC)
12 Oct: Harington, ... personally reconnoitred all the ground under the most appalling conditions and I feel sure that if he had been with me on the Gravenstafel Ridge, the most violent critic of Passchendaele would not have voted for staying there for the winter, or even for any more minutes than necessary. Keith-264 (talk) 14:26, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I have revised the page with such gleanings as I could find. I would be grateful if interested parties could read it and make recommendations. The previous version is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Keith-264/sandbox2 for the moment. Thanks.Keith-264 (talk) 16:56, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

I've been going over the article cleaning up formatting and the like. I haven't delved into the content, and that will take some time given the extent of the edit. The only large content change I made was to reinsert much of the background information in the previous version. I am personally not a big fan of large drop in edits like this because it makes discussion on nuisances more difficult, but I can certainly work with it.--Labattblueboy (talk) 07:23, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks very much, it's nice to see you back; hope the house can stand it. ;O) Australian Rupert has helped and so I now know how to use the metric converter, dash cure and note inserter. The references thing still eludes me, hence the laborious "Bean, C. AOH IV" all over the place. I noticed lots of 5:25 a.m. so I assume I should use that form. I wasn't sure about hyphenating pill box and it looks like I guessed wrong. Now that I have a bit more knowledge about the reponse to the 3rd Ypres revisions we've been doing, I feel much happier about reducing the number of quotations, in favour of paraphrasing them and putting shorter ones in the text where I leave them in.
I see your point about parachuting the stuff about the development of the campaign and had thought about adding some, when I looked at the lead and background sections. I expect it makes a nice change for you to add material to what I've done rather than take it out.;O) Perhaps my assessment request was premature as your fresh eyes have made substantial improvements. Sources are a bugger though, IX and X Corps are invisible, even in the English language ones; I'd hoped to glean more from the divisional histories but the library wants an outrageous £3.50 for each inter-library loan. There's an interesting historiographical point I noticed in Davidson's book, that these operations 7 Oct – 11 Nov added together only had the number of troops involved on 31 July, which if true adds to our understanding that "wastage" in the salient was exceptional, even when neither side was attacking.Keith-264 (talk) 07:52, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
We will sort it all out. If this is the article you'd like to move through to the good article stage, let me know. The no wrap is used to create a hard space (see MOS:TIME) something similar will have to be done for every case of quantities (e.g. 1000 casualties). My spell check gave me pillboxes (without a hyphen) as the British/commonwealth spelling. Have any details on the battle's influence in New Zealand. This was, after all, their single greatest number of losses in a single day during the history of the country.--Labattblueboy (talk) 11:50, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
There's this http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH1-Fran.html which I found very helpful, as was http://www.awm.gov.au/histories/first_world_war/volume.asp?levelID=67890 for the Dominion effort. The OH is very sketchy for 9 and 12 October and draws on the NZ and A OH's, usually it's the other way round. I had the impression that Edmonds was forced to throw the book together after the description of Broodseinde, although 2nd P has a little more detail. Sheldon and the AOH have tended to agree with the OH that Haig wasn't wrong about German disarray after 4 October, the PhD on BEF intelligence (Beach, 2004) says the same. I'll have a delve for the domestic consequences in NZ. As for the article ratings, I'd like to get them all to B first.Keith-264 (talk) 19:44, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Did the hard number form as suggested. Does this converter act as a hard whatsit too? {{convert|25|-|40|yd|m}}, thanks.Keith-264 (talk) 11:05, 24 June 2012 (UTC)

Added two, removed tags.Keith-264 (talk) 09:22, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Tidied prose and punctuation, blammed a few typos and tidied picture captions.Keith-264 (talk) 14:14, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

9th
	19th Div, 37th Div
10th
	14th Div, 23rd Div
1st ANZAC
	4th (Australian) Div
5th (Australian) Div
2nd ANZAC
	3rd (Australian) Div,
New Zealand Div
5th
14th
	Guards Div, 4th Div,
17th Div
18th
	9th Div, 18th Div

Tidied page and cleaned up the maps.Keith-264 (talk) 00:12, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

There's a need to resolve the claim associated with this battle being the single largest loss of life in New Zealand history. Newzild has identified some potential issues of the claim. Other than this event, is there another event that is commonly associated with the claim. It can't be original research.--Labattblueboy (talk) 10:17, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Newzild added http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/1966/hongi-hika
The party reached the Bay of Islands on 11 July 1821 and, shortly afterwards, Hongi began to prepare for his campaign. On 5 September 2,000 Ngapuhi, armed with 1,000 muskets, laid siege to Mauinaina pa at Tamaki. It was taken with great slaughter – Te Hinaki and 2,000 of his men, as well as many women and children, being killed.
Seems fair enough, unless you consider New Zealanders to not include European invaders.Keith-264 (talk) 12:15, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Hello there, yes I did raise the issue of the Bay of Islands slaughter as being one example of a higher death toll for New Zealanders. There were lots of nasty battles in Maori history which make the Passchendaele claim dubious at best. I think the best way to resolve the issue is to say that the Passchendaele casualties were New Zealand's worst "since the Maori wars" or something like that. Unfortunately, there was a tendency until recently for historians to forget that New Zealand was inhabited by Maori for at least 400 years before Europeans arrived. Please note that there is no "original research" associated with the link I provided - teara.govt.nz is a New Zealand government website and the quote is from a respected encyclopaedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newzild (talk • contribs) 15:05, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Is there any sources which claim any of these battle has a higher number of casualties. I don't believe the source is measuring in deaths but a combination of killed and wounded. I would be OK with stating modern New Zealand history or something to that effect but stating "since the Maori wars" is clearly original research as none of the sources make that claim.--Labattblueboy (talk) 16:16, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
Te Hinaki and 2,000 of his men, as well as many women and children, being killed. seems pretty clearKeith-264 (talk) 17:42, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
New Zealand casualties in the battle are approx 2700, so I question whether it is clear. To state worst "since the Maori wars" is something I'd like to have a source make the claim of. There is no way to reach that conclusion without original research. Should the claim simply be removed?--Labattblueboy (talk) 18:09, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
I've put a feeler out to NZ so will give it a day or two.Keith-264 (talk) 00:02, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

I think the article is starting to look pretty good an close to submission for GA. I 'm going to go through Sheldon's book today and see if I can incorporate any material from that into the article. The article's main weakness is the battle section are almost entirely from the British perspective. The air operations section seems a bit out of place but I'm happy to see what a GA reviewer might have to say in terms of constructive criticism.--Labattblueboy (talk) 13:26, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
Quite agree, even when I looked in the German OH there wasn't much. Sheldon had a few details but I think I added most of them. I don't think we should delete the air operations because of a lack of German detail but we could add the details to the main section and note that there isn't any coverage of the Germans in English if you like.Keith-264 (talk) 14:09, 11 November 2014 (UTC)
I found a little bit more in Bean about the Germans, which I've added, copied in some page references separated during the last big CE and I found that Sheldon's coverage of 9 and 12 October was sometimes difficult to distinguish. Do you really want to keep the headings in the battle section? How about II Anzac Corps, XVIII Corps and XIV Corps?Keith-264 (talk) 15:33, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

I'd be good with adding the corps in addition to the current headings. The headings being the corps themselves isn't something I have seen employed in a GA/A/FA class battle article. I suppose we could return to the previous format of Main attack - Second Army and Northern flank - Fifth Army and simply have two sub section under the Fifth, preferably the titles being something more than just the corps number.--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:10, 12 November 2014 (UTC)
It seems to me that the heading "Battle" says it all and that sub-headers add detail. How about Second Army and Fifth Army as sub-headers, since the main effort can be explained in the first sentence and will have been explained in the lead, plan and preparations sections as well as the German defensive priority? Having re-read the article yesterday, I'm rather surprised at how such slender sources have been woven into a relatively good article but the lack of detail for German activities is frustrating. A sub-header "4th Army" would be a slim paragraph indeed,Keith-264 (talk) 08:26, 12 November 2014 (UTC)

Everything below the introduction is superb. However, if this should be submitted for feature article, in my opinion the introduction might be improved. What is already there describes very well the overall picture. But something more seems to be needed to link the basic summary (the Allied attack was stopped with heavy losses on both sides) with the intricate detail of the narrative. Perhaps in a third introduction paragraph it would be helpful to add one or two sentences to summarize each of the Battle sections and the Analysis section. Djmaschek (talk) 21:10, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's superb and I wrote most of it. The German sources are insufficient for a narrative of equal detail to the British one, there's the unresolved structural disagreement about dispensing the conventional right-to-left description of events, since it was re-edited earlier this year and the placement of obstructions on the left margin instead of keeping right makes the narrative harder to read. Not that I'm bitter mind, I've taken refuge in Bar Humbug.Keith-264 (talk) 22:20, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
Nominated for A-class, will see what feedback comes back but don't see any structural issues.--Labattblueboy (talk) 23:13, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Obviously, a lot of diligence has gone into copying out the operational minutiae, and I’m sure almost all of it is right apart from minor slipups. My interest is really is analysis and top-level decision making, and it’s there that the problems lie, and its probably best to flag them up now before the article progresses any further along the beatification process. The reader is still being invited to draw a somewhat exaggerated picture of how much pain it was putting on the Germans (relative to Germany’s total war effort etc) and to downplay the much more serious and arguably unsustainable strain which – at this point in the war – it was putting on the BEF.
And – to deal with this point first – obviously it is good to include German information where this is available. Provided – and this is an important caveat - one does not make the mistake of falling for the cherry-picked “evidence” and special pleading which has been a staple of a certain kind of British WW1 writing since about 1916. Many of us fall for this sort of stuff when we first start studying WW1 seriously - then we read more, grow out of it, and realise why the popular myths about WW1 (that the attacks were nothing but disasters, or that Haig was a moron) grew up in the first place. It is also good to include French information, and funnily enough when one does so the BEF contribution gets rather cut down to size (some modern Australian writers like Greenhalgh and Roy Prete are good on this). That does not mean that the coverage needs to be exactly equal, any more than it would for, say, the Battle of Normandy or Arnhem – for both those battles it matters most when, why and how the Allies decided to attack, not how the Germans reacted. History is what historians have chosen to write about, and usually for perfectly good reasons.

Minutiae? Brief description please; the rest of this section is opinion but surely Sheldon is exempt from soap operatic yah boo-ing?Keith-264 (talk) 02:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


### Minor Grammatical Quibble
In Para 3:
“On 7 October, the afternoon attack, which was to have reached the far side of Passchendaele village and the Goudberg spur to the north, was cancelled by Haig because of the heavy rain. The final plan for the attack of 12 October, was decided on the evening of 9 October.”
This is a bit unclear on first reading. I assume it should read “An afternoon attack planned for 7 October, which was to have …”

No, which justifies a re-edit. See if the revision worksKeith-264 (talk) 02:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


### Beach and Intelligence
“Encouraged by the unusually high German losses during the Battle of Broodseinde and reports of lowered German morale, Haig sought quickly to renew the Allied offensive and secure Passchendaele Ridge, as British Intelligence indicated that the German forces opposite Ypres were close to collapse.”     This is sourced to Beach p222
This is a bit of an exaggeration and so far from what Beach pp222-7 is saying as to be misleading
What Beach actually writes:
After 4 October (Broodseinde) Charteris (Haig’s intelligence advisor) hoped to be in Ostend before Christmas and “the war will be won”.  Anecdotal reports of the poor state of German prisoners. Haig’s infamous appraisal, sent to the War Cabinet on 8 October, implicitly acknowledged that the war would go on into 1918 but claimed that the Germans were “near to breaking point”. Beach points out that there was “very little intelligence to justify its assessments”. The only substantial bit of intelligence was the absence of large numbers of the German 1919 Class from the frontline and “patchy” evidence for the callup of the 1920 Class, so there would be no German manpower crisis until mid-1918. Beach points out that this was a more pessimistic prediction than the earlier ones that Germany would break by the end of 1917 – Beach is presumably referring to the June assessment in which Haig had, contrary to Robertson’s express advice, told the government that he might win the war that year and of which Robertson had refused to pass on Charteris’ statistical predictions to the government.

Intelligence wasn't the only thing which led to Haig et al.'s optimism and Beach's general point about intelligence is about the inferences made about morale and manpower, not the big victory on 4 October. Adding some detail from p 221 might help. Keith-264 (talk) 02:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
However, Charteris briefed Haig (15 October) with new anecdotal evidence about German morale problems. On that day Haig read Macdonogh’s 1 October appraisal (McD was Director of Military Intelligence at the War Office) stating that German morale was “no cause for anxiety” – Haig then infamously vented in his diary (15 October) that Macdonogh was biased as he was relying on Roman Catholic sources. Haig had Charteris prepare another paper to rebut Macdonogh, somewhat exaggerating the evidence for the presence of the German 1919 Class “in the ranks” and of the callup of the 1920 Class, and citing 10 examples, drawn from prisoners and documents. Robertson passed on the Haig/Charteris paper to the War Cabinet, but wrote privately to Haig (18 October) that the stuff about morale was “largely guess-work”, that false predictions about German collapse had now been made “by various people” for three years, that there would be no German manpower crisis for at least another year, that German soldiers’ morale was probably rather better than that on the German homefront, and that it was unwise to read too much into the pronouncements of prisoners (you can see why Haig was starting to feel by this stage that Robertson was no longer “One of Us”, as the late Mrs Thatcher used to describe her cronies). For the rest of October Charteris continued to crank out anecdotal accounts of poor German morale, described as “dubious” by Beach. In his conclusion Beach criticises the over-optimistic nature of Charteris’ intelligence, although implying that he was telling Haig what Haig wanted to hear (Leon Wolff quotes Charteris’s own diary in which he was privately more dubious, but Beach does not specifically mention this).
Now, none of this is “new”. Beach’s account is mostly derived from well-known documents and tells a story familiar to some of us, and which needs to be at least mentioned. If he is to be used as a reference, a more accurate rendering would be:
“Although Intelligence no longer predicted a German manpower collapse until some point in late 1918, Haig was encouraged by the unusually high German losses during the Battle of Broodseinde and a small number of anecdotal reports of lowered German morale, and sought quickly to renew the Allied offensive and secure Passchendaele Ridge before the winter. The reports of German morale on which Haig was acting were regarded with increasing concern by senior generals in London, and have been described as “dubious” by their most thorough modern analyst”
The detail will find its way into the appropriate biography articles eventually, but I have a lot less time for wiki writing at the moment than I would like.

I agree that this could go into a different article and I would support a revision thus "Haig was encouraged by the unusually high German losses during the Battle of Broodseinde, some anecdotal reports of lowered German morale and sought quickly to renew the Allied offensive to secure Passchendaele Ridge before the winter."
For what it’s worth, a good discussion of comparative German and British morale can be found in “Enduring the Great War” by Alexander Watson. British morale held up well through the Somme, Arras and 31 July 1917 but then grew alarmingly hairy as Third Ypres dragged on – and then at Cambrai there were serious instances of British units “breaking” altogether. German morale grew a bit strained amongst those serving in the Ypres Salient, but these units usually recovered quickly once transferred elsewhere. Neither British nor German morale was ever anything like as bad as French or Russian. No surprises there, but then “History only ever seems new to the man learning it for the first time” as the saying goes.

Refusals of orders began in 1914 and occurred in all armies. The British had been fighting with a continental sized army since mid-1916 so it wouldn't be unusual for the effect on survivors to mirror the other armies, after a comparable passage of time (during 1916, when there were admitted refusals in the French Sixth Army on the Somme for example). 70–80 German divisions fought at 3rd Ypres, which is hardly a bagatelle, especially after the Somme and the Nivelle Offensive. Did British units recover after a rest? If your paraphrase of Watson is accurate, he's using a teleological view for a generic cyclical phenomenon.Keith-264 (talk) 02:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Scott also reviewed discipline and morale in Liddle 1997 pp. 349–368 using disciplinary statistics and found that court martial numbers fluctuated in proportion with the size of the army and that the type of charges against the accused didn't vary much.Keith-264 (talk) 02:18, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


### Date of Gough's phone call (minor factual quibble)
Plumer’s biographer G Powell gives as midnight on 6/7 October. Wolff p294 gives it as the evening of 6 Oct and cites it to Bean. I don’t have a copy of Bean to hand, nor Gough's memoirs, so cannot check further.


### End of the Offensive (minor quibble)
“On 13 October, the British decided to stop the offensive until better weather returned and roads and tracks had been repaired”
Probably worth pointing out that Gough and Plumer (who had perhaps been a bit over-optimistic during Poelcapelle and First Passchendaele) had to stand solid to get Haig to agree to this.

If true another example of the BEF not being a top-down institution. The narrative gives the reasons for Plumer overestimating British prospects.Keith-264 (talk) 02:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


### Leon Wolff
Leon wolff pp235-40 has some useful material
The return of clear weather on 10-11 October worried the troops, as it meant an attack might be imminent. A New Zealand general wrote “I do not feel as confident as usual. Things are being rushed too much … the objectives have not been properly bombarded”
P237 Charteris confided to his diary “(Haig) was still trying to find some grounds for hope that we might still win through this year … the great purpose “we ha(ve) been working for all year has escaped” Haig told press correspondents that the BEF was “practically through the enemy’s defences” and faced no more blockhouses. (He was either lying or desperately misinformed).
P238 after the war “an official historian” (presumably Bean) complained of the men being sent in without artillery protection
P239 an Australian officer (Lt W G Fisher) recorded finding 50 men of the Manchesters cowering by a German pillbox (presumably their officers and senior NCOs were dead although the quote doesn’t specifically say so) “never have I seen men so broken or demoralised”
This is the quote in Bean pp 906-907: The slope . . . . was littered with dead, both theirs and ours.
I got to one pillbox to find it just a mass of dead, and so I passed on
carefully to the one ahead. Here I found about fifty men alive, of the
Manchesters. Never have I seen men so broken or demoralised. They
were huddled up close behind the box in the last stages of exhaustion
and fear. Fritz had been sniping them off all day, and had accounted
for fifty-seven that day-the dead and dying lay in piles. The wounded
were numerous-unattended and weak, they groaned and moaned all
over the place . . . some had been there four days already. . . .
Finally the company came up-the men done after a fearful struggle
through the mud and shell-holes, not to speak of the barrage which
the Hun put down and which caught numbers. The position was obscure
-a dark night-no line-demoralised Tommies-and no sign of the
enemy. So I pushed out my platoon, ready for anything, and ran into
the foe some 80 yards ahead. He put in a few bursts of rapid fire and
then fled. We could not pursue as we had to establish the line, which
was accomplished about an hour later. I spent the rest of the night in
a shell-hole, up to my knees in mud and with the rain teeming down.Keith-264 (talk) 10:11, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
P245, 294 a Bavarian officer (Rudolph Binding) wrote “although the battle rages constantly in incomprehensible confusion around Poelcapelle and Passchendaele, there is nothing frightening about that. We have been fighting the last summer flies, which attack one so unkindly, almost as much as the English, the morale of the men appears to be excellent” General Sixt von Arnim told the German press on 24 October “the Battles of Flanders, in spite of partial successes, remain bloody defeats for the English (sic) … as long as the enemy continues his pressure at this point, he is exposed to our flanking fire and to the danger of being threatened from all sides in the rear”

Philpott (2014) pp 277-278 quotes Binding thus [shortened quotations] "The troops are being used up at a disquieting rate.... Everybody is best pleased if his spell is over as soon as possible. General von Lossberg.... has not got an unlimited supply of divisions; not many seem to realise that.... How little spirit and determination remains, not to speak of such a quality of dash."
"Nobody can possibly calculate what he or we have got to face.... the odds against us are too big...." "... one cannot say that morale is low or weak. The regiments simply show a sort of staggering and faltering, as people do who have made unheard of efforts."
Evidently Binding had mixed feelingsKeith-264 (talk) 10:11, 4 January 2015 (UTC)


### Casualties
At the moment, the article infobox appears to suggest that casualties were nearly equal, which set my alarm bells ringing, as every schoolboy (although not, perhaps, every Wikipedia editor) knows that Poelcapelle and First Passchendaele were disasters. My second, admittedly churlish, thought, was that the BEF losses were for one day (12 Oct) and that some serious monkey business was going on in comparing ten days’ worth of German losses with one day of British losses.
The article gives German 12,000 losses over a ten day period. Over what area were these losses incurred?

Added a note to the infobox to explain that German losses were calculated in ten-day periods.Keith-264 (talk) 12:05, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
The article gives 13,000 BEF losses, but gives no area, time period or source. I guess this is probably lifted from Prior & Wilson, who give 13,000 for First Passchendaele but give no source. The Official History (p345) gives Fifth Army casualties as 10,973 for the period 9-14 October (a six day period). My guess is that Prior & Wilson may have extrapolated from this. Did they include some Second Army casualties as well? Or are they measuring over a slightly longer period? Impossible to say. If you take the OH figure and extrapolate it from a six day period up to ten days (to match the time period of the German figure) you are looking at a ball park guesstimate of 18,000 BEF losses. That may be an overestimate as some of the days may have been quieter, but nonetheless it seems reasonable to suppose that once we are comparing like with like BEF casualties exceeded German considerably.

conjecture and ORKeith-264 (talk) 12:05, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
Note that the calculations I’ve done above are quantitative adjustments, to ensure that we are comparing like with like, so that the casual reader is not being misled. I am not going to go down the route of qualitative adjustments like trying to massage the German figures upwards because they don’t include men who had stubbed their toes, cut themselves shaving, pulled a muscle etc.

### Casualties and Commemoration
Ludendorff divided the Third Battle of Ypres into five periods. In the "Fourth Battle of Flanders", from 2–21 October, he described German "wastage" as "extraordinarily high". Hindenburg wrote later that he waited with great anxiety for the wet season. In Der Weltkrieg, the German Official Historians recorded 12,000 casualties including 2,000 missing for the period 11–20 October. The 4th Australian Division suffered c. 1,000 casualties and the 3rd Australian Division c. 3,199 casualties. From 9–12 October, the  German 195th Division lost 3,395 casualties. There were 2,735 New Zealand casualties, 845 of whom were killed or mortally wounded and stranded in no man's land. Calculations of German losses by J. E. Edmonds, the British Official Historian, have been severely criticised for adding 30% to German casualty figures, to account for different methods of calculation. The New Zealand Memorial to the Missing at Tyne Cot, commemorates New Zealanders killed during the Battle of Broodseinde and the First Battle of Passchendaele, who have no known grave. The death toll made this the worst day in New Zealand history.
Did you even read this?Keith-264 (talk) 02:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


### Footnote 1
Footnote 1. I really don’t see what this footnote is driving at. “British losses in October 1917 were the third highest of the war after July 1916 and April 1917” and “which show that refraining from attacks did not avoid high losses in the salient” The first part does indeed come from Sheffield and Bourne and is correct (120,000 losses in 10/17, about the same as Arras 4/17 although nothing like the monstrous 196,000 of 7/16 – not just the First Day of the Somme but the month of hell which followed. Aug 17 and Sep 17 had been about 80,000 losses apiece). The second clause is somebody’s editorialising and needs to come out.

The second clause is sloppy citing but I can't remember the source. You can take it out until I find it. Thanks for assuming good faith.Keith-264 (talk) 02:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Of course it is true that casualties were always high in the Ypres salient, but October 1917 not only includes Broodseinde (27k, as opposed to Menin Road and Polygon Wood which had been about 20k each) but also  Poelcappelle 11k, and 1st Passchendaele 13k. So 10/17 BEF offensives cost 51k in total. In winter months and quiet months (e.g, the hiatus between Georgette and Amiens) you’d expect 25-35,000 BEF losses. That gets us up to about 85k casualties tops - to get us up to the magic 120k casualties for that month there’s about 35,000 “excess” casualties still to account for. To sum up, far from suggesting that high British losses were inevitable (and so one might as well attack), my back-of-a-fag-packet analysis suggests that the Germans, far from being as near ruin as Haig deluded himself, were in fact very much alive, kicking and giving the BEF a good hiding to the tune of 35,000 “excess” casualties in October 1917, presumably by shelling and counterattacking rather more heavily into the salient than they would have been had not a major battle been under way for over two months. British monthly casualties are for the whole Western Front, taken from the Official Statistics quoted by Churchill in “The World Crisis”. Figures for individual battles taken off wikipedia as life is too short to verify further.

This is synthesis, so you might care to reflect on battle days being less costly than the non-battle days, since the opponent's fire power was usually suppressed more during British attacks. Bean has some interesting views on this. You might also consult Rupprecht et al. and the changes in German tactics during the month - fewer Gegenstoss, more Gegenangriffs.Keith-264 (talk) 02:08, 3 January 2015 (UTC)


### Conclusion
The conclusion is one of the first things people are going to look at. Very few people are going to pore through the fine detail of the article. The body of the article seems reasonably fair but the conclusion includes German quotes of questionable relevance and omits the opinions of British historians which are much more critical and much more directly relevant.

Who are you to assume what people read? Why carp at German quotes from decent sources which avoid Anglo-centric bias?Keith-264 (talk) 23:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Geoffrey Powell and Philip Warner are predictably (and correctly) rude about this battle, but don’t really say anything quotable.
Prior & Wilson devote a chapter to it so I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard to extract a quote suitably scathing about British generalship and the ultimate pointlessness of the attack.

Scathing quotes are how those hacks make a living off the credulousKeith-264 (talk) 23:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Haig’s most recent serious academic biographer J.P.Harris describes First Passchendaele as “an almost unmitigated defeat”. Not a book which brought delight to the Western Front Association but that's not really the point.

He's not a serious academic biographer but a hatchet man.Keith-264 (talk) 23:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Beach P223, 227 “the subsequent attacks on 9 and 12 October were failures” although he concedes “In retrospect it is obvious that the German Army found itself in serious difficulties in Flanders during the autumn of 1917.”

Ambiguous then.Keith-264 (talk) 23:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
Leon Wolff writes P238 that First Passchendaele “almost crossed the line which divides war from murder”. He is referring to knowingly sending in men without proper artillery cover – at some points the British bombardment was indistinguishable from the enemy’s or from the random sporadic shelling which went on at intervals on most days. Other Leon Wolff quotes above.

Wolff is a tertiary source and overlooks the fact that it was the field artillery which was inadequate not the heavy artillery; Sheldon offers German testimony to the weight of the bombardment.
"Ludendorff divided the Third Battle of Ypres into five periods. In the "Fourth Battle of Flanders", from 2–21 October, he described German "wastage" as "extraordinarily high"." So what? That includes Broodseinde. Was it any higher than you’d have expected it to be during a major offensive? It is also the case that BEF wastage was extraordinarily high, almost as high as it ever got during the war – yet that piece of information is tucked away in a footnote! And all this, let us not forget, at a time when German manpower and morale still had a year or more of life left in them, whereas Britain was running short of manpower (relative to what was politically feasible – Britain mobilised a much smaller proportion of her manpower than Germany or France) at the very moment when government and press were running out of patience and it was beginning to become clear that Germany was about to be massively reinforced from the East.

Average daily losses during Arras and 1918 were much higher. German troop shortages led to the offensive strategy of 1918, not plenty.Keith-264 (talk) 23:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
I don’t see what the Hindenburg quote is doing there at all, except to mislead the casual reader. I dare say he did long for the return of the rainy period. By 12 October, it had already returned, which was one of the main reasons why this attack failed.Paulturtle (talk) 16:53, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Some comments are entirely helpful but wow WP:WALLOFTEXT. 16kb of text is a bucketload to get through but i'll be honest my focus is comments regarding the A-class review. What would be more helpful is 16kb in article edits. If there is mateiral that you beleive dhould be incorporated please do so, you'll hear no complaints from me so long as the sources are fair.--Labattblueboy (talk) 23:19, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
The usual cavilling from Paul, trying to support a discredited revisionist view. I think there's plenty of properly sourced material in the analysis but if Paul wants to add a list of tertiary sources, so be it. To reject Hindenburg's judgement in favour of his own seems a little pov pushy though.Keith-264 (talk) 23:42, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
PS didn't anyone find it historically interesting that Hindenburg's periodisation was different to the British? Or does his grouping of Broodseinde, Polecappelle and 1st Passch contradict too many lazy assumptions by pop historians?Keith-264 (talk) 23:52, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Altered them again to try to satisfy all concerned by putting the main and supporting attack information into the text below. Any better?Keith-264 (talk) 10:50, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Apparently maps and drawings should be uploaded as png not jpg so I redid it yesterday as a png and nominated the original for speedy deletion [1] see here for the replacement.Keith-264 (talk) 17:08, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

Having a single subheading which is right at the start of a subheading, as currently within the background section, makes no sense at all. Think of it as a set; there is nothing within "Tactical developments" that isn't within background and, crucially, vice-versa too. As it is, it's just confusing and unnecessary.—Brigade Piron (talk) 19:38, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

It's not finished, there's another section to go in but there's an intermittent fault with Wiki, which either loads in an instant or takes ages and is slowing me down. If you look at the structure of the 3rd Ypres pages they are consistent - 2Ls separate sections and 3Ls separate topics within.Keith-264 (talk) 20:12, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

"Beyond the railway, the advance of the 51st Brigade veered slightly south, away from a German strong-point which caused many casualties, LOSING LOST TOUCH with the Guards Division." (all caps mine).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.52.96.14 (talk) 19:47, 23 March 2015 (UTC) 

DoneKeith-264 (talk) 20:17, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

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@Archon 2488: It's imperial first and metric second as per [[2]] unless I missed something? Keith-264 (talk) 13:44, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Do you know what country Passendale is in? Is it in the UK or USA? Does Belgium use imperial units? No. I've travelled there and I'm quite sure it doesn't. That settles it.
Perhaps you are implicitly arguing that this battle should be considered to have WP:STRONGNAT to the UK because British soldiers fought there (as, indeed, did soldiers of many other nationalities, but this seems not to be relevant for some reason). But that cannot do. A battle in Belgium is an event primarily in the history of Belgium. Or would you argue that Hastings was primarily an event in French history because William of Normandy and his army were from.... Normandy? Or that articles about colonial India are actually UK-related because the UK brutalised India and turned it into a vassal state for centuries? How deep does that rabbit-hole go?
Fortunately we do not need to ask this question. The WP:MOSNUM text, which I helped to write, is explicit. If other articles related to this subject do not use the correct unit presentation, that is a problem with those articles, not with the MOS. Archon 2488 (talk) 19:20, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Did you write this; "In non-scientific articles relating to the United Kingdom, the primary units for most quantities are metric or other internationally used units,[11] except that: the primary units for distance/​length, speed and fuel consumption are miles, miles per hour, and miles per imperial gallon (except for short distances or lengths, where miles are too large for practical use);"?
The First Battle of Passchendaele was a British battle with Commonwealth involvement, all of whom used imperial weights and measures. No French or Belgian troops participated. Refer to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history.Keith-264 (talk) 19:30, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
So, did German troops participate? I'm being slightly facetious but making a serious point. The battle was not fought on British soil, and therefore does not have WP:STRONGNAT to the UK. Even if it had important consequences for the UK. Same as Waterloo, same as Suez Canal. This is the consensus interpretation of WP:STRONGNAT. Unless the article is about an historical event that took place on UK/US soil, it does not have strong national ties to those countries. An event which occurred in a country is related primarily to that country, for reasons which should be obvious to anyone. Archon 2488 (talk) 19:43, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
This article clearly falls into the category of "non-scientific articles relating to the United Kingdom", even though Germans did participate, as it is both non-scientific and it relates to the United Kingdom. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:19, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Without prejudice to any other matter, I would question the wisdom of your involvement in this subject.
However, I will answer your point. Yes, this does indeed relate to the UK, as it relates to Germany (whose soldiers were also involved) and more directly to Belgium (where it actually took place). As I said above an article about colonial India would also relate to the UK (but, significantly, not in the sense implied by WP:STRONGNAT). However, an article about something that took place on Indian soil is related to India. An article about something that took place on Rhodesian soil in the 1930s is related to modern-day Zimbabwe – arguing otherwise is undoubtedly going to cause problems for innumerable reasons and open up cans of worms that should not be opened up. Archon 2488 (talk) 21:08, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Does seem discordant to have an article where the primary subject is British default to metric. Can you link to the discussion where that consensus interpretation was agreed? FactotEm (talk) 21:01, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
It is not correct that the "primary subject" of a battle in Belgium is British. A battle in Belgium is primarily an event in the history of Belgium. How could it be otherwise? Archon 2488 (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Because the RS say so? You can't rewrite history on Wikipedia. Keith-264 (talk) 21:14, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
If this means reliable sources, then source-based units have been rejected innumerable times on WT:MOSNUM. That won't fly. In the early 20th century, Belgium did not use British imperial measurements; that amounts to rewriting history. Archon 2488 (talk) 21:20, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
The primary subject of this battle in Belgium is Britain, followed by the Entente, followed by the Allies followed by the international guarantee of Belgian neutrality (1839) on which Belgian sovereignty was based. Show me RS that have it that this battle in Belgium is primarily an event in the history of Belgium and not primarily an event in the British and French guarantees of Belgian neutrality, the history of the Triple Entente, the history of the BEF etc blah.... You can make as many dogmatic remarks as you like but you do not have consensus and you never will, even on your criteria, the national exception and national ties apply; I suppose you could always rfc. Keith-264 (talk) 21:32, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
What you are proposing is an excessively Anglocentric view of history. How many Belgians would agree with you that a battle fought in their country was primarily about the UK (if anything, it was primarily about Germany, since German aggression initiated the violence in Belgium, but this is a separate discussion). My point is simply: in Belgium, about Belgium. In France, about France. In the UK, about the UK. In Germany, about Germany. As I said above, you would presumably not try to argue that Hastings was primarily about French history because it represented a French victory over England (which a tendentious reading of history could describe it as). But this isn't a history lesson. Archon 2488 (talk) 21:38, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
I am proposing nothing, I am telling you that you are wrong, wrongheaded, dogmatic and ignorant even on the criteria you adduce. Are you going to claim that the Battle of El Alamein was an Egyptian battle next? ;O) Keith-264 (talk) 21:50, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for those delightful epithets. And in response to your question, a battle that took place in Egypt is related to Egypt before any other country, because it took place in Egypt. If you would like to argue (say) that an article about it should use the imperial-first unit presentation style simply because the victors were the Allies who predominantly used non-metric units in the 1940s, then while that is a correct fact about history, it is not how WP:MOSNUM works, and any fair reading of it will back me up. Archon 2488 (talk) 22:07, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
They aren't epithets about you, they are objective descriptions of your point of view, a bird of a different plumage. I will leave your straw man to the WP:civil police and ask you again, will you call El Alamein (both) Egyptian battles? Keith-264 (talk) 22:15, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Mate, you've literally just called me names and given irritating and trivial non-apologies for it. Your concept of "objectivity" is like the punchline to a joke that the audience is too afraid to laugh at – I can, however, guarantee you that I'm a singularly fabulous bird of multifarious plumage, and I can easily withstand anything you can throw at me. I've already answered your insipid non-questions and see no merit in further pretending to do so. Archon 2488 (talk) 22:24, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
I would have thought the fact that the battle was primarily a British Empire operation would give a stronger national tie to the UK than any tie accrued to Belgium by virtue of being fought on its soil. Has consensus been reached on this specific issue anywhere? I'd be interested to read it.FactotEm (talk) 22:33, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

My understanding is that there does not need to be such a consensus on each article/issue, because the MOS lays out clear guidelines. That is why the MOS exists. As I have said above, the fact that the 11th century Norman invasion of England was a "Norman operation" does not mean that WP articles on it relate primarily to France. Archon 2488 (talk)
Then there is no consensus interpretation of WP:STRONGNAT, and this discussion is basically a difference of opinion on what should be given priority in terms of establishing WP:STRONGNAT, location or belligerents. Correct?FactotEm (talk) 22:55, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
My current understanding is that sensu stricto, WP:STRONGNAT applies only to English-speaking nations. For things that happened outside the Anglophone world, such as this battle, the "default" clause in the relevant part of WP:MOSNUM ("all other articles") applies. There shouldn't need to be any dispute about belligerents (but since the nation in which it took place and one of the belligerent nations were metric, that's two out of three anyway?) Archon 2488 (talk) 23:12, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
An event can have strong national ties to a nation without necessarily having taken place there. Or to put it another way, an event which occurred in one country can have stronger national ties to another country. This battle clearly has very strong national ties to the UK, even though it took place in Belgium. WP:STRONGNAT isn't so much concerned with the place where the topic is based - it is concerned with the national context of the topic. -- DeFacto (talk). 23:31, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
It has strong national ties to Belgium, the UK, and Germany. Picking one of these countries is arbitrary. Archon 2488 (talk) 00:38, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
It happened to take place in Belgium, but has stronger national ties to the UK. -- DeFacto (talk). 09:17, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
And, equally, to the Germans, who were the other belligerents? Seriously, if we accept Wiki-wide that an article about Belgium is primarily about the UK, that will cause innumerable problems. Archon 2488 (talk) 22:00, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Sorry. I don't see that restriction in the application of WP:STRONGNAT. The guide says "An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation..." (my emphasis). It doesn't place any geographic restriction that I can see. I'm also a little confused by your statement that "source-based units have been rejected innumerable times..." when the "all other articles" clause specifically says "...or such other units as are conventional in reliable-source discussions of the article topic...".FactotEm (talk) 00:06, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Having participated in WT:MOSNUM discussions for years, I can assure you that "source-based units" have surfaced in one guise or another, and have been rejected every time. If you're arguing that a battle that happened in Belgium is British, you're wasting your time. Likewise, Napoleon wasn't British, Blücher wasn't British, Waterloo wasn't British (the British like to fantasise that the entire history of humanity is somehow about them, but reality says otherwise). Archon 2488 (talk) 00:43, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
The WP:MOSNUM guideline is the standard, not what is discussed in WT:MOSNUM, surely? I do tend to agree with others that a battle fought by British Empire forces has a strong national tie to the UK which is not invalidated by the location in which that battle was fought. WP:STRONGNAT therefore applies. The disagreement here seems to concern which national tie should take precedence in determining unit of measure priority, and that's a case of interpreting a guideline that does not explicitly answer the question as far as I can see.FactotEm (talk) 17:35, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
WP:STRONGNAT is only concerned with the ties of English-speaking nations ("An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English of that nation.") so that only leaves the UK in this case. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:51, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks. I realise now that's what Archon 2488 was trying to explain last night, and it obviously didn't sink in here. FactotEm (talk) 21:24, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
While DeFacto is correct that the policy relates to topics with strong national ties to particular Anglophone countries, it says nothing about ties to countries outside the Anglophone world (traditionally construed). As I said above, an article about colonial India would be considered more relevant to modern India than modern Britain, for reasons that should be obvious. Arguing that topics outside the Anglophone world can have STRONGNAT to specific Anglophone countries (while true) is opening a can of worms that WP:MOSNUM rightly tries to keep closed. Archon 2488 (talk) 21:53, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
Perhaps the people who made this policy need to be taken to task for failing to publicise the fact of the discussion just as you have been overruled here for trying to impose a plainly wrongheaded opinion as if it's a fact. Perhaps the conclusion of the discussion would have been different if more people has participated? Keith-264 (talk) 22:18, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
No, I described your comments, explained the difference between ad hominem and objective reality, then asked you if the Battles of El Alamein were Egyptian battles. I think you've been through this sort of dispute far too often to be ignorant of the reactions of other editors to you attempt to dictate weights and measures. Since your point of view is new to me and perhaps other milhist aficionados, I suggest you comment on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history; reactions could be instructive for us both. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 22:35, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
I have no idea what a "milhist aficionado" is supposed to be. I do not need you to explain the concept of ad hominem to me, thank you, since you have already adequately employed it against me.
I do not "dictate" anything but what is described in the MOS, which I have linked to several times. You are apparently arguing that an event that occurred in Belgium is British. This violates the principle of least astonishment, at very least. Likewise, a battle that occurred in Egypt is related to Egypt more than to any other country, for reasons that should be quite obvious. From your reaction to this, I quite doubt that this is "new" to you. Archon 2488 (talk) 22:41, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
I made a suggestion in good faith, after going to the trouble of explaining myself, a generous act that you ought to acknowledge. I haven't argued anything, I've described facts; are you an NLP aficionado? Keith-264 (talk) 22:50, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Are you seriously asking me to accept that "explaining" tendentious editing is "generous"? Please, just stop this nonsense now. I neither know nor care what "NLP" is supposed to mean in this context. Archon 2488 (talk) 23:05, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
That isn't civil or constructive.Keith-264 (talk) 23:52, 13 October 2017 (UTC)
Pot, kettle. Archon 2488 (talk) 00:34, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
I'll grant you the last word.Keith-264 (talk) 08:14, 14 October 2017 (UTC)