In 1917, during the First World War, a mysterious incident occurred on the territory of Belgium. In preparation for the Battle of Paschendale, the largest battle of the war, there were many distractions. One of the operations, conceived as a sabotage of German positions in the Celtic Forest, ended with the disappearance of 71 fighters from the 10th battalion of the Australian Imperial Forces.
Stationery inaccuracies
Official documents provided conflicting data. German documents did not contain any mention of the attack. Some researchers wrote that the soldiers simply entered a dense curtain of fog and no one else saw them.
Army records mentioned 37 missing fighters. Their fate has remained unclear, although today the guides tell visitors that the missing are buried in a mass grave in the wilderness. In any case, the disappearance of so many soldiers in wartime is unusual.
Grozny 10th battalion
There were no deserters in the ranks of the battalion. In World War I, soldiers of the 10th battalion fought in the vanguard of the Austrian forces during the landing at Gallipoli, defended Anzac Bay, two fighters were awarded the Queen Victoria Cross.
Promotional video:
Australian troops in Gallipoli.
For the heroism shown in the trench war on the Western Front, the battalion was nicknamed "Terrible".
The commander of the British forces, Douglas Haig, believed that the Allied forces were superior to the 4th German Army and decided to attack. According to the general, the breakthrough at Ypres allowed the British to reach the North Sea and destroy German submarines. The British were to seize the Messina and Paschendale mountain ranges.
The history of the Battle of Messina is well known: British sappers have been digging mine galleries for 15 months. The tunnels with a total length of 7.5 km ran at a depth of 25 to 50 meters. They laid 600,000 tons of TNT and detonated on the morning of 7 June. This day was the last for 10 thousand Germans. The authorities in London demanded to build on the success and capture the Paschendale mountain range.
Great plan
General Haig knew that the Allies were superior to the Germans. The British brought up 16 divisions, more than two hundred tanks and seven hundred aircraft. The Germans had few aircraft and no tanks. The Entente troops devoted half a month to artillery preparation, and in early August, the tanks, followed by the infantry, moved to Paschendale.
The troops are moving towards the village of Paschendale.
The allies were tasked with advancing 6 km. The Germans retreated to a hill and freed a couple of kilometers of swamps and unprecedented, impenetrable mud. From the ridge, German artillery fired at the advancing.
It rained, the shells were instantly filled with water. Because of the rains, the planes were useless, the tanks skidded in the mud. To carry the wounded man, six orderlies were dragged to their waist in liquid mud on a stretcher. If a wounded man fell, he drowned. The Battle of Paschendale lasted for five months.
Diversionary maneuver
In the midst of this nightmare, in early October, Haig conceived a distraction. The soldiers of the Australian "Terrible" battalion were supposed to enter the forest, quickly blow up the German dugouts and leave at the signal. At the same time, the Australian Second Division, on the northern flank, was advancing, covering the British advance.
The guys of the 10th battalion attacked at dawn, so that the Germans had the impression that the main blow was going through the forest. At dawn, under barrage of fire, 85 soldiers of "Grozny", including seven officers, under the command of Frank Scott entered the Celtic forest.
Australian gunners in the forest near the village of Paschendale.
Newspaper success
In general, the story ended there. The Australians were never seen again. The Germans regrouped and left the forest themselves. The Celtic Forest was declared a no-man's land.
The newspapers reported on the successful attack and reported that the Germans had been driven out during stubborn fighting and offensive operations. The fact is that then the fighting was carried out mainly by England. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were drowning in the mud, and the authorities were waiting for optimistic news.
The battalion commander indicated in the report that the enemy suffered heavy losses and only 14 of the group were not injured. Evidence later emerged that several soldiers had returned to the Australian location. 14 or 7 people were named. Army records reported 37 missing.
The greatest mystery
Later, the disappearance of the group was called a great mystery and a complete disaster. The names of the missing were not on the lists of prisoners of war, and the post-war commission found no remains. The Germans did not write about the attack at all. The plot formed the basis for several books. Historians believed that the Germans could kill everyone and bury everyone in one grave, so the bodies could not be found.
Later explanations were based on assumptions and possible clerical errors. Allegedly, someone survived and could confirm that half of the soldiers were killed, and only 37 were missing. However, the remains were never found. Someone explained the loss of people with mystical reasons.
Later versions
Military historians have tried to reconstruct the course of events and have proposed two versions. According to the first version, the allied barrage was scattered. The Germans fortified their positions with machine guns and met the Australians with fire. Lieutenant Scott divided the soldiers into two groups and led one (37 people) from the flank. Knee-deep in mud, in an area dotted with huge funnels of water.
Thaw.
The attack was successful, the Germans retreated, but reinforcements arrived and the second group died in hand-to-hand combat. The first group did not receive the signal to retreat and could not get out under German fire, it was impossible. The survivors died without help.
Fog of war
According to another version, the mystery is explained by the "fog of war". This term means inaccurate data or the inability to establish the true picture in a military environment. In this version, the Germans could not pursue the Australian group, as they were restrained by barrage fire. But the Australians also could not retreat behind the German line of fire. The soldier was buried with those killed in the early battles, no one looked for their bodies in the swamps or tried to identify them.
Most likely, something went wrong, the operation was accompanied by heavy losses. A simple explanation is often correct. In early November, the allies occupied the village of Paschendale, losing more than 300 thousand people during the operation.
Vasily Smirnov
