Passchendaele is
rather poorly served by the historiography of the
war. The British Official History, not published
until after WW2, is one of the weakest volumes.
The rash of books on the "pals" and
other local units, such a feature of recent years,
has barely touched on Passchendaele, so mesmerised
have they been by the Somme. Among the "classics"
on this campaign are books written in the anti-military,
"lions led by donkeys", unable-to-access-archive-material 1960s
such as Leon Wolff's "In Flanders fields". David Lloyd
George's earlier and mightily influential "War
memoirs" categorises
the battle as futile and all down to dunderheaded Generals,
conveniently failing to mention his own culpability.
There are very, very few English language works
that consider the German side.
Thank
goodness then that Jack Sheldon is on a one-man mission
to educate us on the German side of the Western Front.
This splendid book follows hot on
the heels on his German
Army on the Somme and various guides in
Pen & Sword's Battleground Europe series.
Drawing on regimental
archives, official and semiofficial histories, Jack
illustrates that Passchendaele was for the German soldier
every bit as fearsome, fatiguing and damaging to morale
as it was to the attacking British. The
themes that emerge - they ring out from the opening
bombardment to the final deathly slog through the mud
to the Passchendaele ridge itself - are of the crushing
weight of British artillery firepower, of the dogged
and increasingly cunning abilities of the British infantry
and of the German will to resist. The latter is exemplified
by the constant use of "Eingriff" (counter attack)
formations. These were picked men, held back beyond
shelling range until an attack was almost spent against
the wire, pillboxes and machine guns of the front line
and only then sent in to recover and even push forward.
It was a combination of these factors that caused the
casualties to be so high for such little physical gain.
This is a very worthwhile book. I suspect that it will
be of little interest to the general reader and anyone
browsing in a bookshop may be put off again by the
odd choice of an upright typeface (that someone in
Pen & Sword presumably thinks looks more German). That
would be a pity, for "The
German Army at Passchendaele" is packed
with human interest and there is much to take
away in terms of learning of the experience of the
defending side in this most awful of struggles.
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