This image, captured by Henry Sanders in October 1917 really struck me when I came across it on the Alex Turnbull Archives. Its seemingly innocuous content of men from the New Zealand 2nd (or) 3rd Brigade moving up this road doesn’t do justice to the provenance of the photo.
‘Kansas Farm’ likely was an agricultural homestead prior to the war but as of October 1917, it’s believed to have been part of the German Second Line system around Wolf Farm and Wolf Copse which was situated about two and a half miles to the west of Passchendale. Many of these landmark locations became sites of first aid camps and communication outposts and based on this, I would place the photo having been took after the first day of the assault.
The 2nd and 3rd New Zealand Brigades responsible for securing the left flank of the assault on Passchendale itself were met with considerable problems. German defensive reorganisation had left this area rife with thick barbed wire fields and embedded machine gun positions situated on numerous anchor points. The 2nd Brigade suffered heavily trying to cross sparse open grounds around Fleet Cott, which was heavily exposed to German machine guns.
To the North-West, 3rd Brigade had more slight success employing a leapfrog tactic where once a battalion had captured an objective, a different battalion would be tasked with capturing the next, but upon the capture of the cemetery to the south-west of Wallemolen they quickly became bogged down in the barbed wire.
But ultimately, I find it incredibly harrowing this picture which is rather insipid in nature provides us with a glimpse of people going about living their lives during the absolute slaughter that was the Battle of Poelcappelle and without knowing the context, we wouldn’t know any different.