Een paar citaten uit of over de bloederige gevechten die midden augustus ’17 in de Ieperse Salient plaatsvonden:

‘In and out of line on Frezenberg sector. Hell all the time ! Mud awful, no trenches, no shelters, no landmarks. All movement by night, shellfire all the time an everywhere casualties: enormous !’ (Captain Arthur Glanville, 2e Bn. Royal Dublin Fusiliers)

‘ I am still alive though at present I am more likely to die from drowning than from hostile fire. It has rained solidly for three days and the place is knee deep in mud. It is extraordinary weather for August.’ (Major Roderick Macleod, 241 Brigade Royal Field Artillery)

‘As it was, the Ypres battlefield just represented one gigantic slough of despond into which floundered battalions, brigades and divisions of infantry without end to be shot to pieces and drowned, until at last and with immeasurable slaughter we had gaines a few miles of liquid mud…’ (Captain Charles Miller, 2e Bn. Inniskilling Fusiliers)

‘In the main it was a history of cold, wet, hunger, exposure and shell-fire more intense than any I have seen…’ (Lieutenant Staniforth, 7e Bn. Leinsters)

‘Oooooh, a horrible smell. There’s nothing like a dead body’s smell. It’s a purtrid, decaying smell,  makes you stop breathing, you think of didease. It’s a smell you can’t describe unless you’ve smelt rotten meat. You’ve got the smell right under your nose all the time and there’s one at the bottom of the trench and you keep walking over it  the black slime comes out – and that’s not pleasant..!’ (Private Alfred Griffin, 9e Bn. King’s Royal Rifle Corps)

‘The August failures were put down to the wet weather. As if it had never rained before in that dripping climate (…) Figures show what a reckless gamble it was to risk the life of the British Army on the chance of a rainless autumn on the Flemish coast.’(De Britse premier David Lloyd George)