Capture of Westhoek 1917
Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Date | 10 August 1917 | Wikidata |
|---|---|---|
| Year | 1917 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
| Era | World War I era (1914–1918) | derived from year |
| Location | Belgium | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Europe | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Third Battle of Ypres | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 50.8436, 2.9718 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Capture of Westhoek (West corner, 10 August 1917) took place on the Gheluvelt Plateau near Ypres in Belgium, during the Third Battle of Ypres (31 July – 10 November 1917), in the First World War. The British Fifth Army attacked the Gheluvelt Plateau at the Battle of Pilckem Ridge (31 July – 2 August) but the German 4th Army had fortified its positions in the Ypres Salient since the Second Battle of Ypres (22 April – 25 May 1915). The British reached the first objective in the south and the second objective on the northern flank, losing some ground to German counter-attacks. A British attack due on 2 August was postponed because torrential rain from the afternoon of 31 July until 5 August washed out the battlefield.
The ground had been churned by artillery-fire into sloughs of mud, flooded shell craters, fallen trees and barbed wire. After several postponements, the attack was set for 10 August. British artillery fired a preparatory bombardment from Polygon Wood to Langemarck for the main attack due on 14 August but the German guns concentrated on the Gheluvelt Plateau. British counter-battery fire was hampered by low cloud and rain, which made air observation extremely difficult and shells were wasted on empty gun emplacements.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Capture of Westhoek (revision 1370609926), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
Nearby battles
- Battle of Polygon Wood 1917 · 1 km
- Action on the Polderhoek Spur 1917 · 1 km
- Battle of Mont Sorrel 1916 · 3 km
- Capture of Hill 60 (Western Front) 1915 · 4 km
- Actions of the Bluff, 1916 1916 · 5 km
- First Battle of Ypres 1914 · 6 km
Other battles of the Third Battle of Ypres
- Action of 22 August 1917 1917
- Action on the Polderhoek Spur 1917
- Battle of Broodseinde 1917
- Battle of Langemarck (1917) 1917
- Battle of Pilckem Ridge 1917
- Battle of Poelcappelle 1917
- Battle of Polygon Wood 1917
- Battle of the Menin Road Ridge 1917
- Capture of Wurst Farm 1917
- First Battle of Passchendaele 1917
All 13 battles of the Third Battle of Ypres →
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