梅森战役

Background

British strategy 1916–1917

In 1916, the British planned to clear the Germans from the Belgian coast to deny them the use of the ports as naval bases. In January, Plumer recommended to Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig the capture of Messines Ridge (part of the southern arc of the Ypres Salient) before an operation to capture the Gheluvelt plateau further north. The highest ground north of the Messines–Wytschaete ridge lies on the Menin road, between Hooge and Veldhoek, 1.5 mi (2.4 km) from Gheluvelt, at the west end of the main Ypres ridge, which runs from Ypres, east to Broodseinde and then north-east to Passchendaele, Westroosebeek and Staden. The British called it the Gheluvelt Plateau or Menin Ridge. Roads and tracks converged on the Menin road at this point (Clapham Junction to the British).……

Ypres salient

Ypres is overlooked by Kemmel Hill in the south-west and from the east by a line of low hills running south-west to north-east.……

Prelude

British preparations

The Second Army centralised its artillery and devised a plan of great sophistication, following the precedent set at the Battle of Arras in April. The use of field survey, gun calibration, weather data and a new and highly accurate 1:10,000 scale map, much improved artillery accuracy. Systematic target-finding was established by the use of new sound-ranging equipment, better organisation of flash-spotting and the communication of results through the Army Report Centre at Locre Château. Counter-battery artillery bombardments increased from twelve in the week ending 19 April, to 438 in the last ten days before the attack. A survey of captured ground after the battle found that 90 per cent of the German artillery positions had been plotted.……

Battle

Second Army

Fine weather was forecast for 4 June, with perhaps a morning haze (between 15 May and 9 June the weather was fair or fine except for 16, 17 and 29 May, when it was very bad). Zero Day was fixed for 7 June, with zero hour at 3:10 a.m., when it was expected that a man could be seen from the west at 100 yd (91 m). There was a thunderstorm in the evening of 6 June but by midnight the sky had cleared and at 2:00 a.m., British aircraft cruised over the German lines to camouflage the sound of tanks as they drove to their starting points. By 3:00 a.m., the attacking troops had reached their jumping-off positions unnoticed, except for some in the II Anzac Corps area.

Routine British artillery night firing stopped around half an hour before dawn and birdsong could be heard. At 3:10 a.m.……

First objective (blue line)

The II Anzac Corps objective was the southern part of the ridge and Messines village.……

Aftermath

Analysis

Historians and writers disagree on the strategic significance of the battle, although most describe it as a British tactical and operational success. In 1919, Ludendorff wrote that the British victory cost the German army dear and drained German reserves. Hindenburg wrote that the losses at Messines had been "very heavy" and that he regretted that the ground had not been evacuated; in 1922, Kuhl called it one of the worst German tragedies of the war. In his Dispatches of 1920, Haig described the success of the British plan, organisation and results but refrained from hyperbole, referring to the operation as a successful preliminary to the main offensive at Ypres.……

Casualties

In 1941, Charles Bean, the Australian official historian, recorded II Anzac Corps casualties from 1 to 14 June as 4,978 in the New Zealand Division, 3,379 in the 3rd Australian Division and 2,677 casualties in the 4th Australian Division.……