<Tr> <Td> 11--31 Dec </Td> <Td> 2,500 </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Total </Td> <Td> 217,000 </Td> </Tr> <P> In a German General Staff publication, it was written that "Germany had been brought near to certain destruction (sicheren Untergang) by the Flanders battle of 1917". In his Memoirs of 1938, Lloyd George wrote, "Passchendaele was indeed one of the greatest disasters of the war...No soldier of any intelligence now defends this senseless campaign ...". In 1939, G.C. Wynne wrote that the British had eventually reached Passchendaele Ridge and captured Flandern I Stellung; beyond them were Flandern II and Flandern III (which was nearing completion). The German submarine bases on the coast had not been captured but the objective of diverting the Germans from the French further south, while they recovered from the Nivelle Offensive in April, had succeeded . In 1997, Griffith wrote that the bite and hold system kept moving until November, because the BEF had developed a workable system of offensive tactics, against which the Germans ultimately had no answer . A decade later, Sheldon wrote that relative casualty figures were irrelevant, because the German army could not afford great numbers of losses or to lose the initiative by being compelled to fight another defensive battle, on ground of the Allies' choosing . The Third Battle of Ypres pinned the German army to Flanders and caused unsustainable casualties . </P> <P> At a conference on 13 October, a scheme of the Third Army for an attack in mid-November was discussed . General Julian Byng, commander of the Third Army, wanted the operations at Ypres to continue, to hold German troops in Flanders . The Battle of Cambrai began on 20 November, when the British breached the first two parts of the Hindenburg Line, in the first successful mass use of tanks in a combined arms operation . The experience of the failure to contain the British attacks at Ypres and the drastic reduction in areas of the western front that could be considered "quiet" after the tank and artillery surprise at Cambrai, left the OHL with little choice but to return to a strategy of decisive victory in 1918 . On 24 October, the Austro - German 14th Army (General der Infanterie Otto von Below), attacked the Italian Second Army on the Isonzo, at the Battle of Caporetto and in 18 days, inflicted casualties of 650,000 men and 3,000 guns . In fear that Italy might be put out of the war, the French and British Governments offered reinforcements . British and French troops were swiftly moved from 10 November--12 December but the diversion of resources from the BEF forced Haig to conclude the Third Battle of Ypres short of Westrozebeke, the last substantial British attack being made on 10 November . </P>

Who won the battle of passchendaele (1917)
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