With regard to the infantry itself, the most interesting feature of the Battle of Messines was the triumph of the platoon. Each platoon had now a Lewis-gun section and a section of rifle grenadiers. It was converted thereby into a little self-sufficing force, an army in miniature, with every weapon necessary for the carrying out of the minor operations likely to confront it in such an assault. Some of the platoon leaders displayed in this battle a high order of tactical skill.
But let us glance also at the affair from the other side, where a German Army Commander, the famous Sixt von Armin, was seated at his map-table. What were the problems that confronted him, and how did he face them?
The Germans meant to hold the ridge if they could. It was a valuable position that had cost them dear in the winning. They knew an attack was coming, but they put it one or two days later than it was delivered. The Higher Command was well aware that the troops in the trenches were in no fit state to meet it, after days of terrific pounding, heavy losses, and shortage of food. It was in the act of relieving them when the attack was launched. The relief of one Division was incomplete when the mines went up and the British bayonets came in the dark upon the columns in the communication trenches. The confusion must have been indescribable. Again, the German position, admirable for trench warfare, had weaknesses in such a battle as this. It was a sharp salient, with a semi-circle of artillery about it. The artillery had excellent observation. Had the weather been misty, Kemmel would have been of little avail, and the work of destruction comparatively ineffective. But the atmosphere was wonderfully clear. The British fire upon the forts was overwhelming. The counter-battery work was the best accomplished in the war. An average of one gun to every German battery in action was destroyed by our fire, according to the evidence of captured artillerymen. The loss in horses alone constituted a severe blow. As to the counter-attack, which was made in the afternoon with the 7th and probably regiments of the 24th Divisions, it was launched late, and met the full weight of our barrage. With its failure the High Command appears to have decided, wisely no doubt, to abandon the struggle, and made all haste to get every gun left to it east of the Canal d'Ypres. It must have appeared to it that the position held by the British offered doubtful results to a counter-attack in force. The latter had now all the best of the ground, and a great counter-attack upon the re-entrant held by them would have required more troops than the enemy probably had available.