ISBN: 1844153681 HB 194 £16.99 Published by Pen & Sword Books.
The Battle of Passchendaele is popularly associated with the misery endured by the British Army in the Great War.
This book offers a review of the Third Battle of Ypres that highlights the “bite and hold” policy that succeeded as its culmination, in securing the Passchendaele Ridge in November 1917.
By detailing specific battle actions on key dates it follows the tried and tested “day by day” method and so helps keep the narrative in context.
Some interesting original evidence is presented particularly with regard to the effective use of tanks in what were most unpromising conditions. From this, the use of tanks in conditions that were contradictory to the three criteria laid down by Colonel Ernest Swinton for the effective use of tanks (suitable ground, employment en masse and surprise) asks questions of the battle plan and its continued talent for optimism over experience: something at odds with the practical evolution and effectiveness of the British Army since 1915 under equally trying conditions.
It rightly emphasises the impact of rain on the execution of the attacks on the Ypres Ridges and the misfortune of rainstorms coinciding with renewed attacks with almost Faustian design. It also offers some thought provoking points regarding the extent to which the British Generals were forced to accept the conditions in order to maintain the wider strategic aim of the battle.
Valuable insight is given into the pressures faced by the Germans in attempting to repulse the attacks, and of the rotation of Divisions into the battle. That the normally self assured Ludendorff was compelled to change German defensive tactics to try (as it turned out unsuccessfully) to defeat the British attacks, gives some balance to the narrative, although more German primary sources would have been useful to the student seeking more detail. However this small criticism is applicable to many battle chronicles and does not detract from the narrative.
This is a readable book that will assist the general reader to understand the tactics, timescale and determination of the British command and soldiers, to achieve the capture of the Ypres Ridges.
Reviewer: Mike McCarthy
