Passchendaele In Perspective explores the context and real nature of the participants experience, evaluates British and German High Command, the aerial and maritime dimensions of the battle, the politicians and manpower debates on the home front and it looks at the tactics employed, the weapons and equipment used, the experience of the British; German and indeed French soldiers. It looks thoroughly into the Commonwealth soldiers contribution and makes an unparalleled attempt to examine together in one volume specialist facets of the battle, the weather, field survey and cartography, discipline and morale, and the cultural and social legacy of the battle, in art, literature and commemoration. Each one of its thirty chapters presents a thought-provoking angle on the subject.They add up to an unique analysis of the battle from Commonwealth, American, German, French, Belgian and United Kingdom historians. This book will undoubtedly become a valued work of reference for all those with an interest in World War One.

In 1914 the area around Ypres was a verdant landscape thick with vegetation, formed and transformed both by nature and human intervention. Before the First World War began, the landscape had already been the setting for multiple battles and military manoeuvres, and was known as 'the Battlefield of Europe'. In 'Passchendaele 1917' Lee Ingelbreght approaches the Great War and the Battle of Passchendaele from a unique angle. Why was the Westhoek such a popular place to fight wars, and what traces have all those military conflicts left on this landscape? AUTHOR: Lee Ingelbreght has a postgraduate degree in landscape development. Since 2010 he has been a scientific officer at the Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917. He is responsible for the project The Legacy of Passchendaele. SELLING POINTS: * Commemorates the centennial anniversary of the most terrible battles of the First World War * Examines the 'Battlefield of Europe' from a fresh ecocritical perspective * Contains reports from eyewitnesses, and dozens of images of the landscape before, during, and after the war 100 colour, 100 b/w

Between July and November 1917, in a small corner of Belgium, more than 500,000 men were killed or maimed, gassed or drowned - and many of the bodies were never found. The Ypres offensive represents the modern impression of the First World War: splintered trees, water-filled craters, muddy shell-holes. The climax was one of the worst battles of both world wars: Passchendaele. The village fell eventually, only for the whole offensive to be called off. But, as Nick Lloyd shows, notably through previously unexamined German documents, it put the Allies nearer to a major turning point in the war than we have ever imagined.

fers a groundbreaking account of World War I from the other side of the continent, brilliantly covering the major military events and the day-to-day life which resulted in the destruction of one empire, and the moral collapse of another

In the autumn of 1917, after years of stalemate at Ypres, the British and French armies launched a massive offensive to take Passchendaele Ridge. Following an intensive bombardment, the Allies began their attack, but the low ground between the lines had been churned into a quagmire, and the attack was literally bogged down. All surprise had been lost, and the German defence in depth was well organised. For the first time the Germans used mustard gas, while German planes flew low to strafe the British infantry with machine guns. After two and a half months the British finally took the ridge they had been aiming for, but at the cost of over 300,000 Allied lives. German losses in the offensive were estimated at 260,000. Based on the archival holdings at the Imperial War Museum, this book gathers together a wealth of material about this horrific offensive. A history to appeal to the scholar and the general reader alike.

During the First World War, the British army's most consistent German opponent was Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. Commanding more than a million men as a General, and then Field Marshal, in the Imperial German Army, he held off the attacks of the British Expeditionary Force under Sir John French and then Sir Douglas Haig for four long years. But Rupprecht was to lose not only the war, but his son and his throne. In Haig's Enemy, Jonathan Boff explores the tragic tale of Rupprecht's war--the story of a man caught under the wheels of modern industrial warfare. Providing a fresh viewpoint on the history of the Western Front, Boff draws on extensive research in the German archives to offer a history of the First World War from the other side of the barbed wire. He revises conventional explanations of why the Germans lost with an in-depth analysis of the nature of command, and of the institutional development of the British, French, and German armies as modern warfare was born. Using Rupprecht's own diaries and letters, many of them never before published, Haig's Enemy views the Great War through the eyes of one of Germany's leading generals, shedding new light on many of the controversies of the Western Front. The picture which emerges is far removed from the sterile stalemate of myth. Instead, Boff re-draws the Western Front as a highly dynamic battlespace, both physical and intellectual, where three armies struggled not only to out-fight, but also to out-think, their enemy. The consequences of falling behind in the race to adapt would be more terrible than ever imagined.

In 1914, Ypres was a sleepy Belgian city admired for its magnificent Gothic architecture. The arrival of the rival armies in October 1914 transformed it into a place known throughout the world, each of the combatants associating the place with it its own particular palette of values and imagery. It is now at the heart of First World War battlefield tourism, with much of its economy devoted to serving the interests of visitors from across the world. The surrounding countryside is dominated by memorials, cemeteries, and museums, many of which were erected in the 1920s and 1930s, but the number of which are being constantly added to as fascination with the region increases. Mark Connelly and Stefan Goebel explore the ways in which Ypres has been understood and interpreted by Britain and the Commonwealth, Belgium, France, and Germany, including the variants developed by the Nazis, looking at the ways in which different groups have struggled to impose their own narratives on the city and the region around it. They explore the city's growth as a tourist destination and examine the sometimes tricky relationship between local people and battlefield visitors, on the spectrum between respectful pilgrims and tourists seeking shocks and thrills. The result of new and extensive archival research across a number of countries, this new volume in the Great Battles series offers an innovative overview of the development of a critical site of Great War memory.