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Passchendaele Audiobook by Nick Lloyd
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Title: Passchendaele
Subtitle: A New History
Author: Nick Lloyd
Narrator: Mark Elstob
Format: Unabridged
Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
Language: English
Release date: 10-05-17
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: History, World
Publisher's Summary:
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Passchendaele by Nick Lloyd, read by Mark Elstob.
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.
Members Reviews:
Five Stars
A very good read, would recommend.
Excellent new book on a bloody battle of WWI
Excellent overview of this battle, what went wrong as well as right, what should and should not have been fought, and more. Lloyd covers all the major controversies on the battlefield, from the temporal separation of Messines and later portions of the battle, Gough's leading the Messines campaign, the wisdom or not of the final Canadian push at Passchendaele proper, and more. He also tackles the larger strategic issues such as whether this was the best place for the British to fight, and beyond that, the work of a relatively new prime minister, Lloyd George, in trying to assert civilian control over the British military in general and Haig in particular.
Haigh and Gough both come off poorly, as is right. Plumer comes off as well overall, but not perfect, and Currie, commander of the Canadian Corps comes off well.
Lloyd George doesn't get a free pass. Lloyd says he understands George's restraints, but that, at the same time, he could likely have put further clamps on Haig, Regarding his fears that if he pushed too much, the coalition would fail, Lloyd says that LG never came close to testing that statement.
Lloyd deals well with the German side of the lines, and this book is enhanced by multiple local-scale maps, well illustrated.
Good research, bad analysis, crazy conclusions
This is a very good and a very bad book at the same time. The author does a very good job of researching the battle of
Passchendaele. The overview and the detail he provides of the battle is reasonably good. But on the other side, the problem starts with the title of the book. Rather than just presenting a history of the battle, the author jumps off a cliff and presents an utterly absurd case that this battle represented good thinking, good planning and carried within it the possibility of a decisive success on the western front in World War I.
He claims that the British were close to a "decisive success" in September/October 1917. A success that would have forced a major German retreat from Belgium and would have even opened an opportunity for peace talks.
The problem is that his "lost victory" narrative isn't really supported by his own research. Its mostly the product of wishful thinking and speculative history. One could look at nearly any battle in history and "discover" a possibility for an overwhelming success. That if they had just tried a little harder to follow through on the battle plan, the entire war would have been changed.
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Title: Passchendaele
Subtitle: A New History
Author: Nick Lloyd
Narrator: Mark Elstob
Format: Unabridged
Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
Language: English
Release date: 10-05-17
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes
Genres: History, World
Publisher's Summary:
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Passchendaele by Nick Lloyd, read by Mark Elstob.
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.
Members Reviews:
Five Stars
A very good read, would recommend.
Excellent new book on a bloody battle of WWI
Excellent overview of this battle, what went wrong as well as right, what should and should not have been fought, and more. Lloyd covers all the major controversies on the battlefield, from the temporal separation of Messines and later portions of the battle, Gough's leading the Messines campaign, the wisdom or not of the final Canadian push at Passchendaele proper, and more. He also tackles the larger strategic issues such as whether this was the best place for the British to fight, and beyond that, the work of a relatively new prime minister, Lloyd George, in trying to assert civilian control over the British military in general and Haig in particular.
Haigh and Gough both come off poorly, as is right. Plumer comes off as well overall, but not perfect, and Currie, commander of the Canadian Corps comes off well.
Lloyd George doesn't get a free pass. Lloyd says he understands George's restraints, but that, at the same time, he could likely have put further clamps on Haig, Regarding his fears that if he pushed too much, the coalition would fail, Lloyd says that LG never came close to testing that statement.
Lloyd deals well with the German side of the lines, and this book is enhanced by multiple local-scale maps, well illustrated.
Good research, bad analysis, crazy conclusions
This is a very good and a very bad book at the same time. The author does a very good job of researching the battle of
Passchendaele. The overview and the detail he provides of the battle is reasonably good. But on the other side, the problem starts with the title of the book. Rather than just presenting a history of the battle, the author jumps off a cliff and presents an utterly absurd case that this battle represented good thinking, good planning and carried within it the possibility of a decisive success on the western front in World War I.
He claims that the British were close to a "decisive success" in September/October 1917. A success that would have forced a major German retreat from Belgium and would have even opened an opportunity for peace talks.
The problem is that his "lost victory" narrative isn't really supported by his own research. Its mostly the product of wishful thinking and speculative history. One could look at nearly any battle in history and "discover" a possibility for an overwhelming success. That if they had just tried a little harder to follow through on the battle plan, the entire war would have been changed.