The salient had been an active battlefield since 1914, and Canadian troops had fought there in 1915 ( see Second Battle of Ypres). Haig proposed a major offensive in the Ypres salient, a long-held bulge in the Allied front lines in the Flanders region of Belgium. Haig also believed that an aggressive British campaign in the summer of 1917 would draw German resources and attention away from the French forces, giving them time to recoup and reorganize. With some French armies temporarily unwilling or unable to fight, General Of the British armies in Europe, said that if the Allies could break through the German front lines in Belgium, they could advance to the coast and liberate the ports.Īt about the same time, legions of French soldiers, weary from years of grinding war, had begun to mutiny following the failure of a large French offensive on the Western Front. British naval leaders urged their government to force the Germans from occupied ports on the Belgian coast, which were being used as enemy submarine bases. That carried war supplies, food and other goods into Britain. Although the attacks had brought the United States into the war on the Allied side, they threatened the shipping routes
Preparation and Initial British Offensiveīy the spring of 1917, the Germans had begun unrestricted submarine warfare - sinking Allied merchant ships in international waters. A Canadian soldier walks across the blasted, mud-soaked Passchendaele battlefield during the First World War in 1917.
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