Passchendaele: the Story Behind the Tragic Victory of 1917 by Philip Warner
London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1988 (first published 1987) ISBN 0283997451
This book, for me, was like the curate's egg - good in parts. As a blow-by-blow account of the campaign to take the Passchedaele ridge near Ypres, the book is serviceable. As an insight into broader strategy it is patchy. As a definitive story of one of the bloodiest episodes of World War One it is definitely not the final word.
For those after a brief rundown of the battles that together become what we know as Passchendaele, the Wikipedia article is excellent. This book adds colour to something like that article, but not much more meat from a historical perspective. Which is not to sell Warner's work short - He describes the actions that led to many of the Victoria Crosses won during the campaign, and his judicious use of letters and diaries adds an important element of verity to the book. I found his selections particularly interesting, as many of them were not the usual writings of soldiers or officers, but from medical staff and those at GHQ.
So, we have a book that does a reasonable job of describing the progress of the battles, and effectively uses commentary of the time to tell us what it was like to be a part of the fighting and how soldiers survived the horror. It is when Warner moves to broader themes that I think this book struggles.
Warner can't bring himself to decide whether Haig was a dunce, or just one among many other like-minded generals. What Warner fails to enunciate is just how Haig (or anyone else) would go about the battles of World War One differently. We can look back and pick holes in what happened, but with the knowledge and technology of the time, were there actually any alternatives to the type of mass attack that was normal during this campaign? Warner provides no conclusions, and does not, I think, emphasise that British tactics were indeed changing, and by the end of the battle they had hit upon methods against which the Germans could not defend.
What Warner does emphasise is the effect of the weather on the progress of the battles, and on the misery suffered by those involved. He points out that the constant artillery barrages destroyed the intricate drainage system that was important in stopping the land becoming waterlogged. This was compounded by the unseasonal amount of rain that fell during most of the campaign. In the end, the mud became almost as much of an enemy as the Germans.
And what of the strategy behind this campaign? Warner is equivocal about Haig's stated reasons for going ahead with such a large campaign. He dismisses the aim of getting to the coast to capture the U-Boat bases as so much hot air, deprecates the idea of a battle of attrition, and grudgingly accepts that the British needed to take the pressure off the French after the mutinies of 1917. However, I think that all three of these strategies made sense at the time. Haig may have been getting a false idea of German capability and morale (Warner is particularly scathing of Charteris in this area), but Warner himself, in a chapter devoted to German reaction to the campaign, shows us that the continued onslaught of the British did almost crack the German lines, and will to resist. The campaign also stopped Ludendorff from moving troops to crush Russia, and from assisting Austria against the Italians. It is easy to criticize Haig, but his options were to work in the situation he was in, and with the information he had.
Passchendaele was a terrible disaster for so many. The casualties were appalling - over half a million casualties from July to November. Those casualties included my great-grandfather, who was killed on 20 September 1917, in what came to be known as the Battle of Menin Road. I, and many others like me, read to try and understand. Warner's book is useful in understanding what it may have been like to be in Flanders in 1917, but on the larger themes I would be looking elsewhere for satisfaction.
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