The ground along the main ridges had been severely damaged by shelling and rapidly deteriorated in the rains, which began again on 3 October, turning some areas back into swamps.

Haig considered that although a collapse of the German defence was a condition for exploitation of the attack due on 10 October, which was not guaranteed, he desired that arrangements be made.

Gough ordered the Fifth Army to advance further and then cancelled the instruction, after a local German counter-attack was reported to have pushed the 4th Division off 19 Metre Hill.

The field batteries for the 66th (2nd East Lancashire) Division were placed beyond Frezenburg, along the Zonnebeke road 1 mi (1.6 km) short of their intended positions.

The Eingreifdivisionen were placed closer to the front line, to intervene as swiftly as possible once an attack commenced, despite the risk of being devastated by the British artillery.

[27] Further north the 95th Brigade attacked astride the Reutelbeek, advanced past Cameron Covert and was then stopped by German machine-gun fire.

By the time reinforcements were ready to attempt another advance to support them, the British troops had also retired and the 5th Australian Brigade consolidated on the first objective.

The brigades were expected to cover the distance in five hours but the dark, rain, state of the ground and fitful German artillery fire caused serious delays.

The creeper was difficult to follow, because much of the field artillery was out of action, some of the rest fired inaccurately from unstable platforms and many high-explosive shells were smothered by the mud.

German infantry from the 195th Division were found in shell holes and many were taken prisoner as the British reached the final objective (blue line) at 10:00 a.m., a patrol finding Passchendaele village empty.

Soon after arriving at the final objective, the rain stopped and in the better visibility, German machine guns and field artillery began to fire from the right flank.

German machine-gun fire from the pillboxes at Bellevue 500–800 yd (460–730 m) away, stopped the infantry halfway to the red line, despite a further attempt to advance by the supporting battalions.

[36] An attempt by following waves to leap-frog through the troops on the red line failed, due to the volume of fire from the Bellevue pillboxes.

Around 9:00 a.m., a company managed to work around Peter Pan and capture the pillboxes, which allowed the advance to continue up to a field of barbed wire, 150 yd (140 m) from Bellevue.

The British infantry lost the barrage, which was as ineffective as elsewhere due to shells being smothered and moving at 100 yd (91 m) in four minutes, too fast for the conditions.

The British advance was stopped 100–200 yd (91–183 m) beyond the front line on the left, at the Brewery near Polcappelle, from where the troops withdrew to their jumping-off trenches to reorganise.

The attacking troops had moved up the night before in torrential rain, the Newfoundland Battalion on the left flank, taking 4½ hours, to travel 6 mi (10 km) to the front line.

The rain stopped at midnight and the attack began at 5:20 a.m. On the right, German machine guns at Olga Farm caused many casualties and a delay but the first objective was reached on time.

The left brigade advanced to the right of Bear Copse, which was specially bombarded by Stokes mortars, which induced the German garrison to surrender.

[46][47] The Guards Division was to cross the Broembeek and close up to Houthoulst Forest, on a front from the Ypres–Staden railway, to the junction with the French army near Craonne Farm.

Before the attack 355 mats, 180 footbridges and enough wire to cover 3,000 yd (1.7 mi; 2.7 km) of front was carried forward by the pioneer battalion; much digging was done but the rain destroyed trenches as they were built.

[49] The average depth of the advance was 1.25 mi (2 km) and was accomplished in four hours, despite the ground conditions, with fewer than 500 casualties; I Corps took 300 prisoners.

[50] The bright dry weather at Ypres during September ended and high winds, rain and low cloud obscured the battlefield on 4 October.

[18] Little flying was attempted during 9 October but II and V brigade aircrews, managed fifteen contact and seventeen counter-attack patrols at very low level.

[57] After numerous German counter-attacks during the night, except near Reutel in the south, opposite Passchendaele and near Houthoulst Forest in the north, the British were back on their start lines.

[58] On Passchendaele Ridge and the Wallemolen Spur, inadequate artillery support, the German pillboxes and extensive uncut barbed wire of the Flandern I Stellung (Flanders I Position), rain, mud, shell-hole machine-gun nests and counter-attacks, led the attackers being forced back towards their start lines.

It places the rain had helped mask the advance but when it stopped, German machine-gunners and field artillery could see British and Australian infantry and inflicted many casualties.

[40] The battle was also costly for the Germans and Crown Prince Rupprecht wrote of the "oppressive superiority" of the British artillery, even though the 4th Army had fired 27 trainloads of ammunition during the attack.

Sixt von Armin noted that more German troops were trickling to the rear, even on quiet days and ordered that "the sternest measures" should be taken against them and be made public.

[72] In volume XIII of Der Weltkrieg (1942), the German official historians recorded 35,000 casualties, including 13,000 missing for the ten-day reporting period 1–10 October.