The battle of Hill 70, August 15-22, 1917: in the seesaw battles of attrition on the Western Front, the cost in lives was steep--often just a few hundred meters of captured ground.
ON JULY 7, 1917 THE FIRST British Army ordered the Canadian Corps "to take Lens with a view to threatening an advance on Lille from the south." The addition of Lille was an unrealistic prize. The Canadian attack was intended to divert German effort and resources from the primary British offensive further north, No one involved expected a shift of strategic consequence would result. Whether the Corps captured Lens, let alone Lille, was immaterial. The Canadian Corps was to attack and die to distract the Germans.Lieutenant-General Arthur Currie, the newly minted and Canadian Corps commander, didn't approve of the order. His counter battery staff officer, Lt.-Col. Andrew McNaughton, described it as a "bloody tool operation." They believed that an alternative plan would divert and destroy more Germans, at less cost to the Canadians than an assault on Lens.
Involved in planning his first battle as a Corps commander and a Canadian militiaman amongst professional British officers Currie, remarkably boldly, argued for his alternative at a conference of Corps commanders on July 10. Currie proposed that the Canadian Corps capture Hill 70, a dominating point of ground immediately north of Lens. Control of Hill 70 would make retention of Lens an impossibility as troops on Hill 70 could enfilade Lens and from its height direct artillery fire on the city. Therefore, Currie continued, the Germans would be forced to counterattack to retake Hill 70 and when they did Canadian fire would engulf them. Currie proposed to distract the Germans and destroy those that fell for the ruse.
Currie carried the day. First Army issued an entirely new set of orders to the Corps that "place[d] the whole of the operations for the capture of Lens in the hands of G.O.C., Canadian Corps [Currie]." The new orders also changed the Canadian objective from Lens to "the high ground N.W. of the town [Hill 70)." For the Canadian Corps the Battle of Lens had just become the Battle of Hill 70.
Within the constraints of 1917 Currie's plan was brilliant. The Corps would launch a fast and furious assault on Hill 70 and then assume a defensive stance, forcing the Germans onto the tactical offensive to retake it. The defensive nature of the coming battle was evident in the operational notes compiled by the 15th Battalion after the battle--more of the document was devoted to the defense of the petition than the attack itself.
After a brief but thunderous assault Canadian outposts were to ring the base of Hill 70. The main defensive line would run along the summit and forward slope, adjacent to the former German lines. From this position, Lewis gun teams from the infantry battalions and heavier Vickers teams from affiliated machine gun units were to establish hundreds of positions sweeping the forward slopes of Hill 70 with interlocking fields of fire.
Indirect fire was a trademark of the Canadian way of war by 1917. The barrage that was to accompany the attack now consisted of multiple instruments and objectives. The creeping barrage slowly advancing ahead of the infantry remained a central component. Box barrages isolated key objectives. Jumping barrages leapt from ammunition dumps to crossroads behind the German lines. The heaviest artillery fired at known strong points. Finally, artillery and mortars were derailed to responding to SOS signals, three red flares, from the infantry.
Counter-battery fire targeted known German artillery positions to destroy or interdict them and prevent them from supporting German troops. Counter battery staff officer Lt-Col McNaughton had refined flash spotting and tele-locating of German batteries to a science, and since Vimy Ridge in April 1917 Canadian artillery terrified German gunners. The ability to immediately redirect tiring based on wireless reports from Forward Observation Officers (FOO) was introduced at Hill 70 and sped the process immeasurably. In the weeks before the battle Currie pestered the British so persistently that they finally allotted additional guns to the Canadian Corps.
Canadian tactical innovation had devised indirect fire roles for machine guns, particularly the revolutionary Canadian motorized machine gun batteries. On August 15 the Eaton Motor Machine Gun Battery of the 1st Canadian Motor Machine Gun Brigade estimated that it expended 197,500 rounds in strictly indirect fire. Throughout the battle it averaged 120,000 rounds per day.
Along with this fire a cauldron of burning oil was poured onto Cite St-Elizabeth, on the southern slopes of Hill 70, from batteries of Livens projectors. The ensuing fire and smoke from the oil blackened the sky and screened the attacking battalions from defensive fire from Lens. Gas accompanied the oil and a German prisoner later reported that "Your gas shells descended on us by the ton, and life in the underground defence of Lens is simply Hell."
Additionally, combat patrols into southeastern Lens were designed to confuse the Germans as to the focus of the Canadian attack. This difficult task fell to the 116"' battalion. Their objective was to draw German artillery fire away from Hill 70 and onto their simulated assault on the city proper from the southwest. Their success was limited, so too were their casualties. Currie refused to attack and hold ground in this diversion: Perhaps he realized that the Germans also understood that it was Hill 70 not Lens that was the tactically significant ground. Combat patrols attacked and then retreated to deep bunkers before the German artillery retaliated.
In the outposts and trenches facing Hill 70, 0435 hours was launch time for the Canadian offensive. The attacking battalions quickly attained their objectives and hastily dug in. The intermediary Blue Line was captured in minutes and the majority of the Green Line was in Canadian hands by 0800.
By 0815, less than four hours after the Canadians attacked, German counterattacks had begun. In response the artillery included in its targets German communication trenches and known concentration areas. Most importantly, throughout the clay they responded to red SOS flares and, to a lesser extent, wireless reports from EOOs. Infantry battalion war diaries repeatedly refer to artillery destroying German counterattacks before they were able to enter Canadian lines. "Our gunners, machine-gunners and infantry never had such targets," Currie noted in his diary.
Late in the afternoon the Germans fought their way back into Chicory Trench, the extreme right flank of the attack and the bulwark against German operations north out of Lens. Directly below the summit of Hill 70 the Germans also managed to recapture the chalk quarry. The chalk quarry was located fifty meters cast of the summit of Hill 70. It had been an essential strongpoint in the Germans' Hugo trench complex, it was a Canadian objective on August 15 and it was slated to become a key component of the Canadian defence of Hill 70. By late in the afternoon it was securely in the hands of the 10th Battalion.
The Germans turned to mustard gas in their desperate desire to recapture Hill 70. "On the 17/18lh [the Germans] put on an intense barrage of 'Yellow Cross' gas shells and H.E. between the DOUBLE GRASSIER and LOOS, chiefly against our battery positions. "The General Staff War Diary for the Corps also opined that the gas had had no effect: "In spite of this the support given to the infantry who were being attacked at the time was perfect." After-action reports estimated the Germans fired between 15,000 and 20,000 gas shells in that "intense barrage."
A barrage that employed mustard gas, an insidious, persistent toxin that only revealed its presence after one was poisoned, further dirtied the already contaminated trenches. It added another element to the chemical stew the two sides regularly launched at one another. Most insidiously, it persisted on the battlefield. It attached itself to clothing and contaminated soldiers who then contaminated gas-proof bunkers. It could linger in shell holes for weeks and froze in the mud to be re-released with a thaw.
Just like at Second Ypres in 1915 the Canadians were one of the first to meet the newest poisonous gas on the battlefield. Unlike Ypres, the Canadians were prepared. Two weeks before the attack the 4th Canadian Infantry Brigade's operational orders concluded: "owing to the great danger from the New German Gas Shells, the moment the enemy puts up a heavy Artillery Barrage-Box Respirators are to be worn. Box Respirators will be worn in the ALERT position on leaving billets throughout the entire operation."
On the 18th of August the Germans followed the gas attacks with counterattacks supported by flammenwerfers. On the 2nd Battalion front a group of Germans temporarily captured a section of the Canadian forward trench "but was promptly driven out by a bombing party led by Lieut. Edwards and Pte. Lapointe. One prisoner with a flammenwerfers was taken by this party and five German dead were left in our trench."
Also on that date, the 18th Battalion was still contesting Chicory Trench on the northern outskirts of Lens. A handwritten message from Lieut. H.B. Johnson, acting command officer of C Company, well captures the desperation of the Canadian defenders still grimly hanging on to their gains despite days of German counterattacks: "C Company are in bad shape ...Sgt Woodcock has stood continuous strain from repeated shell shock (no. nine), Sgt Moore (often) is also shaken, and Bunch up front need a rest badly, they have hung on well but cannot stand much more."
By August 20th the battle was a decided success. A classic 'bite and hold' operation, another defining feature of the Canadian way of war in 1917. Repeated German counterattacks had been savaged. Later the Canadian official historian would estimate that the Corps suffered 5,600 casualties while inflicting 20,000 on the Germans. Canadians had been awarded six Victoria Crosses in the five days of fighting. Most importantly, elements of two German divisions had been drawn south, away from the major British offensive.
However, the denouement was a classic case of hubris. The 2nd and 4th Canadian divisions tried to push off from Hill 70 into Lens on August 21. There had been little time for reconnaissance and less for training. The Canadians had no idea that the elite 1st Guards Reserve Division had been moved into the line. Nor that it planned a peremptory attack on the 29th Brigade in the minutes before the Canadian start time of 1635 hours. In the 46th Battalion one company lost every officer before going over the top. The 5th Brigade War Diary noted that "the fighting throughout was of a desperate nature, such as never before been experienced by the Brigade." Along the line little was gained: Casualties amounted to 802 wounded and 354 killed.
Arguably, the most significant aspect of the Canadian way of war when the Canadian Expeditionary Eorce were the shock troops of the Allied armies, was the constant emphasis on technological innovation. The 5th Battalion's "Report on Operations August 14-18, 1917" concluded that "it was impossible to maintain telephone communication forward of our old front line ... and I would suggest that if at ail possible small portable wireless outfits should be carried by units going into action, as I believe that if direct and immediate communications are maintained the work of taking and holding a position would be facilitated by 90 per cent."
The battle of Hill 70 had been won, but the CEE remained committed to further refining the Canadian way of war. In the words of historian Tim Cook: "The high command was far from the mindless, ossified donkey-generals of literature; instead they were forward-thinking and willing to acknowledge and embrace the lessons of the past."
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| Title Annotation: | THE GREAT WAR |
|---|---|
| Author: | Bob; Gordon, Thomas |
| Publication: | Esprit de Corps |
| Geographic Code: | 1CANA |
| Date: | Jul 1, 2011 |
| Words: | 1921 |
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