An early WWI Western Front engagement demonstrating the tactical importance of mined terrain and foreshadowing the large-scale mine warfare used at Messines in 1917.
Key Facts
- Duration
- 17 April – 7 May 1915
- Initial British casualties (capture)
- 7 casualties
- Hill captured by Germans before battle
- 11 November 1914
- Mine gallery dimensions
- 3 ft × 2 ft (0.91 m × 0.61 m)
- Germans retook hill
- 5 May 1915
- Hill returned to Allied hands
- Battle of Messines, 1917
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
After the German 30th Division seized Hill 60 during the First Battle of Ypres in November 1914, Allied forces recognized the hill's strategic value as the only non-waterlogged elevated position in the area. French and then British units—first the 28th Division and then the 5th Division—planned a mining operation to recapture it, extending a French gallery with experienced miners from Northumberland and Wales.
British forces detonated mines beneath Hill 60 on 17 April 1915 and captured the position rapidly with only seven initial casualties. However, the newly created salient proved difficult to hold. Both sides accused each other of gas use during April fighting, and in early May German forces employed gas shells in counterattacks, successfully retaking the hill on 5 May 1915.
Hill 60 remained under German control from May 1915 until 1917, when two mines detonated during the Battle of Messines finally destroyed the German positions beneath it. The engagement highlighted both the tactical costs of holding exposed salients and the growing role of underground mining and chemical weapons on the Western Front.
Belligerents & Mobilization Analysis
Side A
1 belligerent
Side B
1 belligerent