The murderous mud of one First World War battlefield

This November 11, 2018, marks 100 years since the end of the First World War.The 1917 Battle of Passchendaele, which took place during the Third Battle of Ypres, was, for the Canadian Corps, one of the most bloody and destructive of the war.

With mudholesdeep enough to swallow a man, the treachery of thatbattlefield and the futility of the achievement evokesthe senselessness of the four-year war.

On Nov. 10, 1917, Canadian troops captured Belgium'sPasschendaeleridge, ending a gruelling offensive that beganfor them 15 days earlier, and ending the drive for Vimy which had begun in June.

In 1972, theCBCpresented the story of the battle, as told by some of the men who were there.Here, fromCBCArchives, are excerpts from that program, Their Springtime of Life.

'The men would simply sink and disappear in that mud'

As veterans George Stevens and Paul-EmileBlangerrecounted, for some hapless soldiersthe muddy earth of the shell-blasted farmland itself brought death.

The Battle for Passchendaele begins in 1917

52 years ago

Duration 3:22

Canadian battalions are tasked with taking the Belgian town of Passchendaele, beginning Oct. 26, 1917.

GeorgePearkes, who was one of ninesoldiers who received the Victoria Cross for their part in the battle, describedthe land which had been transformed from pastoral farmland to a "quagmire,"due to the continual shelling during the earlier part of the campaign.

Conditions at 1917 Passchendaele battle create heavy losses

52 years ago

Duration 3:25

Shelling had destroyed the agricultural plain at Passchendaele and transformed it into a quagmire.

'The Canadians got hell'

"It wasn't the heavy fighting" that made the objective so difficult, according to Pearkes.

He described the difficulty of moving over the heavy ground to keepup with the Canadian barrage, which was moving at the rate of only 100 yards every eight minutes.

Men who slipped into the shell holes faced the impossibility of getting out without help, and Pearkes said he was positive that "many wounded men slipped into those shell holes and would have been drowned or suffocated by the clammy mud."

Battling the mud to gain the Passchendaele ridge

52 years ago

Duration 5:14

Veterans of the Battle of Passchendaele describe how the mud and swamp made advancing up the ridge near-impossible.

A 1965CBCRadio program, Flanders' Fields, which tells the story of the battle, can be heard here.