by Nick Lloyd
First published 2018
The Third Battle of Ypres claimed over 500,000 casualties between July and November 1917 in a small Belgian battleground. Lloyd challenges the conventional view of this campaign as a futile slaughter. He draws on previously neglected German archives to reveal how British forces nearly achieved a breakthrough that October. The offensive culminated at Passchendaele village, where soldiers fought through waterlogged craters and splintered forests before the entire operation was abandoned. Lloyd argues that British tactics had evolved dramatically by 1917, bringing the Allies closer to a major victory than historians have recognized. Rather than representing pointless waste, the battle demonstrated the effectiveness of new operational methods. The author presents evidence that German forces came remarkably close to a significant retreat in Belgium. Published on the centennial of these events, the book reconstructs the climactic phase of trench warfare on the Western Front through comprehensive research and fresh analysis.
Genres: history, 20th-century, non-fiction, military-history, world-war-i, academic
Vibes: suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: historical-fiction, military-fiction
Setting: Belgium, Ypres
Period: 1917
432 pages · Paperback · Penguin UK
Content warnings: death, graphic-violence, war