Editing Battle of Passchendaele (section)

=== Analysis ===

{|class="wikitable floatright" style="text-align:right;"
|+German casualties{{sfn|Foerster|1956|p=96}}{{efn|German casualties were counted in ten-day periods. A discrepancy of {{nowrap|27,000 fewer}} casualties recorded in the {{lang|de|Sanitätsbericht}} could not be explained by the {{lang|de|Reichsarchiv}} historians.{{sfn|Foerster|1956|p=96}}}}
|-
! Date
! No.
|-
| 21–31 July||30,000
|-
| 1–10 Aug||16,000
|-
| 11–21 Aug||24,000
|-
| 21–31 Aug||12,500
|-
| 1–10 Sept||4,000
|-
|11–20 Sept||25,000
|-
| 21–30 Sept||13,500
|-
| 1–10 Oct||35,000
|-
| 11–20 Oct||12,000
|-
| 21–31 Oct||20,500
|-
| 1–10 Nov||9,500
|-
| 11–20 Nov||4,000
|-
| 21–30 Nov||4,500
|-
| 1–10 Dec||4,000
|-
| 11–31 Dec||2,500
|-
| '''Total'''||'''217,000'''
|}
In a German General Staff publication, it was written that "Germany had been brought near to certain destruction ({{lang|de|sicheren Untergang}}) by the Flanders battle of 1917".{{sfn|Edmonds|1991|p=xiii}} In his ''Memoirs'' of 1938, Lloyd George wrote, "Passchendaele was indeed one of the greatest disasters of the war&nbsp;... No soldier of any intelligence now defends this senseless campaign&nbsp;...".{{sfn|Terraine|1977|pp=xix–xx}} In 1939, G. C. Wynne wrote that the British had eventually reached Passchendaele Ridge and captured {{lang|de|Flandern I Stellung}} but beyond them were {{lang|de|Flandern II Stellung}} and {{lang|de|Flandern III Stellung}}. The German submarine bases on the coast had not been captured but the objective of diverting the Germans from the French further south, while they recovered from the Nivelle Offensive in April, had succeeded.{{sfn|Wynne|1976|pp=214–215}} In 1997, Paddy Griffith wrote that the ''bite and hold'' system kept moving until November, because the BEF had developed a workable system of offensive tactics, against which the Germans ultimately had no answer.{{sfn|Liddle|1997|p=71}} A decade later, Jack Sheldon wrote that relative casualty figures were irrelevant, because the German army could not afford the losses or to lose the initiative by being compelled to fight another defensive battle on ground of the Allies' choosing. The Third Battle of Ypres had pinned the German army to Flanders and caused unsustainable casualties.{{sfn|Sheldon|2007|pp=313–317}}

In 2018, Jonathan Boff wrote that after the war the {{lang|de|Reichsarchiv}} official historians, many of whom were former staff officers, wrote of the tactical changes after 26 September and their scrapping after the Battle of Broodseinde on 4 October, as the work of Loßberg. By blaming an individual, the rest of the German commanders were exculpated, which gave a false impression that OHL operated in a rational manner, when Ludendorff imposed another defensive scheme on 7 October. Boff wrote that this narrative was facile and that it avoided the problem faced by the Germans in late 1917. OHL had issued orders to change tactics again days before Loßberg was blamed for giving new orders to the 4th Army. Boff also doubted that all of the divisions in Flanders could act on top-down changes. The 119th Division was in the front line from 11 August to 18 October and replied that new tactics were difficult to implement due to lack of training. The tempo of British attacks and the effect of attrition meant that although six divisions were sent to the 4th Army by 10 October, they were either novice units deficient in training or veteran formations with low morale after earlier defeats; good divisions had been diluted with too many replacements. Boff wrote that the Germans consciously sought tactical changes for an operational dilemma for want of an alternative. On 2 October, Rupprecht had ordered the 4th Army HQ to avoid over-centralising command, only to find that Loßberg had issued an artillery plan detailing the deployment of individual batteries.{{sfn|Boff|2018|pp=181–182}}

At a British conference on 13 October, the Third Army (General [[Julian Byng, 1st Viscount Byng of Vimy|Julian Byng]]) scheme for an attack in mid-November was discussed. Byng wanted the operations at Ypres continued, to hold German troops in Flanders.{{sfn|Edmonds|1991|pp=345–346}} The [[Battle of Cambrai (1917)|Battle of Cambrai]] began on 20 November and the British breached the first two parts of the [[Hindenburg Line]], in the first successful mass use of [[tank]]s in a [[combined arms]] operation.{{sfn|Harris|1995|pp=124–125}} The experience of the failure to contain the British attacks at Ypres and the drastic reduction in areas of the western front that could be considered "quiet" after the tank and artillery surprise at Cambrai, left the OHL with little choice but to return to a strategy of decisive victory in 1918.{{sfn|Sheldon|2009|p=312}} On 24 October, the Austro-German 14th Army ({{lang|de|General der Infanterie}} [[Otto von Below]]), attacked the Italian Second Army on the Isonzo at the [[Battle of Caporetto]] and in 18 days, inflicted casualties of {{nowrap|650,000 men}} and {{nowrap|3,000 guns.}}{{sfn|Miles|1991|p=15}} In fear that Italy might be put out of the war, the French and British governments offered reinforcements.{{sfn|Bean|1941|pp=935–936}} British and French troops were swiftly moved from {{nowrap|10 November to 12 December}} but the diversion of resources from the BEF forced Haig to conclude the Third Battle of Ypres short of [[Westrozebeke]]; the last substantial British attack took place on 10 November.{{sfn|Bean|1941|p=936}}