The third battle of Ypres, culminating in a desperate struggle for the ridge and little village of Passchendaele, was one of the most appalling campaigns in the First World War. In this masterly piece of oral history, Lyn Macdonald lets over 600 participants speak for themselves. A million Tommies, Canadians and Anzacs assembled at the Ypres Salient in the summer of 1917, mostly raw young troops keen to do their bit for King and Country. This book tells their tale of mounting disillusion amid mud, terror and desperate privation, yet it is also a story of immense courage, comradeship, songs, high spirits and bawdy humour. They Called It Passchendaele portrays the human realities behind one of the most disastrous events in the history of warfare.

1916 was one of the great turning-points in British history as the youthful hopes of a generation were crushed in a desperate struggle to survive. Although on paper, the Battle of the Somme was meticulously planned, 150,000 were killed in the punishing shellfire, the endless ordeal of attack and counter-attack; and twice that number were left maimed or wounded. Here, Lyn Macdonald lets the men who were there give their own testimony.

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.

Twelve year-old Ante (Antonia) Alganesh has a problem. It’s lunchbreak and Florence’s gang are after her. Desperate for a place to hide, she climbs the forbidden staircase to the old organ loft, where a hundred years ago a boy tumbled to his death. No one will think of looking for her there... Except Florence. Petrified, Ante watches her enemy approach, leaning on the rotten hand-rail. She shouts a warning, but it’s too late. There’s a crash – and a boy appears from nowhere, just as a door opens in the wall behind them. All three find themselves in a tunnel leading to a river bank where people queue to be rowed across by a filthy old ferryman…Forced to bury their differences, Ante and Florence accompany the strange boy, Gil, on a journey he should have taken 100 years ago through the Underworld. Making their way past the Shopping Maul and Multivice Complex, attacked by Cerberus, Harpies, Furies and the Minotaur, all this is bad enough: far worse is the doubt gnawing at Ante’s heart...Ante’s Inferno is a gripping combination of fantasy, Greek mythology and adventure, for children aged 9-12 years old. Author Griselda is inspired by C. S. Lewis and Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth. Ante's Inferno won the Children's award in the People's Book Prize 2013, and the Silver award in the 9-12 year-old category of the Wishing Shelf Independent Book Awards 2012.