What do you think?
Rate this book
Passchendaele
On 31st July 1917, the small Belgian village of Passchendaele became the focus for one of the most gruelling, bloody and bizarre battles of World War I. By 6th November, when Passchendaele village and its ridge were captured, over half a million British, French, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders and Germans had become casualties.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
10 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Philip Warner
87 books9 followersPhilip Warner (1914 - 2000) was an outstanding military historian, and for the last 13 years The Daily Telegraph's peerless Army obituarist. Indeed, he played a vital role in setting the standard for the modern Telegraph obituary. He had a relish for the piquant detail and an understanding that a good story should never be overdressed.
He was a master of the laconic, lapidary phrase. Warner's direct, uncluttered and transparent prose, was a reflection of the man. Above all, he felt deep admiration for the lives he celebrated. His own character, always strong, had been tempered by his terrible experiences at the hands of the Japanese during the Second World War.
One of the Allied soldiers rounded up and imprisoned after the fall of Singapore on February 15 1942, he spent some time in the infamous Changi jail, and worked on the Railway of Death. For every sleeper laid on the 1,000 miles of track through Malaya, Burma and Thailand, a prisoner of war was lost. Philip Warner was saved by his tough-mindedness and by his belief in the virtues of loyalty. To help his fellow prisoners forget their troubles, he organised plays, talks and debates.
Afterwards, he never liked to mention his ordeal. He felt he owed his survival to his physical condition (he performed 30 minutes of exercises every day of his life), his scrupulous hygiene (hard to stick to when one is starving), and to his strong sense of belonging to his family back in Britain. At night he would look at the moon, and think of it passing over Warwickshire.
In 1944 Warner and other able-bodied PoWs were stowed under deck in a troopship (he enjoyed the irony of being almost torpedoed by the Americans), and taken to Japan, where he worked in the copper mines, in dark, hot and dangerous conditions.
As the Americans closed in, he and his fellow PoWs had the unnerving experience of being herded into caves, while the Japanese guards set up machine-guns outside. The atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably saved the prisoners from massacre.
At the beginning of the war Warner had weighed 14 stone; in 1945 he was 4.5 stone. In 1,100 days of captivity, he only received half a Red Cross parcel. He was never among those inclined to bestow easy forgiveness upon the Japanese. The maltreatment which he had endured increased his natural reticence. Although he set great store by loyalty, he gave his trust warily.
Once certain that he could rely on someone, he would do anything for them; should anyone abuse his trust, he was slow to forgive. "There are six billion people in the world," he was wont to say, "and when this person gets to the top of the pile again, I will give him another chance." After the war Warner taught at Sandhurst and became a prolific writer, turning out more than 50 books.
He would produce two volumes a year, not to mention up to 200 obituaries and many book reviews - all with an absolute minimum of fuss. He worked on the principle that, once he had covered a page with writing, he could always cross it out. He was a firm believer in the virtues of perseverance - "Stick at the wicket and the runs will come" - and in early starts: "One hour in the morning is worth two in the afternoon, is worth three in the evening."
In the 1970s he was seriously ill, but under his colossal labour he throve as never before. Without it, he used to say, he would have had to play golf every day; and, useful player though he was, that was not his idea of a tolerable life.
Though the last man to preach, Philip Warner set a supreme example of how to tackle old age. While eager to enjoy himself, and, still more, to see that his friends enjoyed themselves, he instinctively understood that pleasure is best courted against a background of disciplined endeavour.
Philip Arthur William Warner was born at Nuneaton on May 19 1914, the last in
He was a master of the laconic, lapidary phrase. Warner's direct, uncluttered and transparent prose, was a reflection of the man. Above all, he felt deep admiration for the lives he celebrated. His own character, always strong, had been tempered by his terrible experiences at the hands of the Japanese during the Second World War.
One of the Allied soldiers rounded up and imprisoned after the fall of Singapore on February 15 1942, he spent some time in the infamous Changi jail, and worked on the Railway of Death. For every sleeper laid on the 1,000 miles of track through Malaya, Burma and Thailand, a prisoner of war was lost. Philip Warner was saved by his tough-mindedness and by his belief in the virtues of loyalty. To help his fellow prisoners forget their troubles, he organised plays, talks and debates.
Afterwards, he never liked to mention his ordeal. He felt he owed his survival to his physical condition (he performed 30 minutes of exercises every day of his life), his scrupulous hygiene (hard to stick to when one is starving), and to his strong sense of belonging to his family back in Britain. At night he would look at the moon, and think of it passing over Warwickshire.
In 1944 Warner and other able-bodied PoWs were stowed under deck in a troopship (he enjoyed the irony of being almost torpedoed by the Americans), and taken to Japan, where he worked in the copper mines, in dark, hot and dangerous conditions.
As the Americans closed in, he and his fellow PoWs had the unnerving experience of being herded into caves, while the Japanese guards set up machine-guns outside. The atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki probably saved the prisoners from massacre.
At the beginning of the war Warner had weighed 14 stone; in 1945 he was 4.5 stone. In 1,100 days of captivity, he only received half a Red Cross parcel. He was never among those inclined to bestow easy forgiveness upon the Japanese. The maltreatment which he had endured increased his natural reticence. Although he set great store by loyalty, he gave his trust warily.
Once certain that he could rely on someone, he would do anything for them; should anyone abuse his trust, he was slow to forgive. "There are six billion people in the world," he was wont to say, "and when this person gets to the top of the pile again, I will give him another chance." After the war Warner taught at Sandhurst and became a prolific writer, turning out more than 50 books.
He would produce two volumes a year, not to mention up to 200 obituaries and many book reviews - all with an absolute minimum of fuss. He worked on the principle that, once he had covered a page with writing, he could always cross it out. He was a firm believer in the virtues of perseverance - "Stick at the wicket and the runs will come" - and in early starts: "One hour in the morning is worth two in the afternoon, is worth three in the evening."
In the 1970s he was seriously ill, but under his colossal labour he throve as never before. Without it, he used to say, he would have had to play golf every day; and, useful player though he was, that was not his idea of a tolerable life.
Though the last man to preach, Philip Warner set a supreme example of how to tackle old age. While eager to enjoy himself, and, still more, to see that his friends enjoyed themselves, he instinctively understood that pleasure is best courted against a background of disciplined endeavour.
Philip Arthur William Warner was born at Nuneaton on May 19 1914, the last in
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 7, 2023
This book, for me, was like the curate's egg - good in parts. As a blow-by-blow account of the campaign to take the Passchedaele ridge near Ypres, the book is serviceable. As an insight into broader strategy it is patchy. As a definitive story of one of the bloodiest episodes of World War One it is definitely not the final word.
For those after a brief rundown of the battles that together become what we know as Passchendaele, the Wikipedia article is excellent. This book adds colour to something like that article, but not much more meat from a historical perspective. Which is not to sell Warner's work short - He describes the actions that led to many of the Victoria Crosses won during the campaign, and his judicious use of letters and diaries adds an important element of verity to the book. I found his selections particularly interesting, as many of them were not the usual writings of soldiers or officers, but from medical staff and those at GHQ.
So, we have a book that does a reasonable job of describing the progress of the battles, and effectively uses commentary of the time to tell us what it was like to be a part of the fighting and how soldiers survived the horror. It is when Warner moves to broader themes that I think this book struggles.
Warner can't bring himself to decide whether Haig was a dunce, or just one among many other like-minded generals. What Warner fails to enunciate is just how Haig (or anyone else) would go about the battles of World War One differently. We can look back and pick holes in what happened, but with the knowledge and technology of the time, were there actually any alternatives to the type of mass attack that was normal during this campaign? Warner provides no conclusions, and does not, I think, emphasise that British tactics were indeed changing, and by the end of the battle they had hit upon methods against which the Germans could not defend.
What Warner does emphasise is the effect of the weather on the progress of the battles, and on the misery suffered by those involved. He points out that the constant artillery barrages destroyed the intricate drainage system that was important in stopping the land becoming waterlogged. This was compounded by the unseasonal amount of rain that fell during most of the campaign. In the end, the mud became almost as much of an enemy as the Germans.
And what of the strategy behind this campaign? Warner is equivocal about Haig's stated reasons for going ahead with such a large campaign. He dismisses the aim of getting to the coast to capture the U-Boat bases as so much hot air, deprecates the idea of a battle of attrition, and grudgingly accepts that the British needed to take the pressure off the French after the mutinies of 1917. However, I think that all three of these strategies made sense at the time. Haig may have been getting a false idea of German capability and morale (Warner is particularly scathing of Charteris in this area), but Warner himself, in a chapter devoted to German reaction to the campaign, shows us that the continued onslaught of the British did almost crack the German lines, and will to resist. The campaign also stopped Ludendorff from moving troops to crush Russia, and from assisting Austria against the Italians. It is easy to criticize Haig, but his options were to work in the situation he was in, and with the information he had.
Passchendaele was a terrible disaster for so many. The casualties were appalling - over half a million casualties from July to November. Those casualties included my great-grandfather, who was killed on 20 September 1917, in what came to be known as the Battle of Menin Road. I, and many others like me, read to try and understand. Warner's book is useful in understanding what it may have been like to be in Flanders in 1917, but on the larger themes I would be looking elsewhere for satisfaction.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
For those after a brief rundown of the battles that together become what we know as Passchendaele, the Wikipedia article is excellent. This book adds colour to something like that article, but not much more meat from a historical perspective. Which is not to sell Warner's work short - He describes the actions that led to many of the Victoria Crosses won during the campaign, and his judicious use of letters and diaries adds an important element of verity to the book. I found his selections particularly interesting, as many of them were not the usual writings of soldiers or officers, but from medical staff and those at GHQ.
So, we have a book that does a reasonable job of describing the progress of the battles, and effectively uses commentary of the time to tell us what it was like to be a part of the fighting and how soldiers survived the horror. It is when Warner moves to broader themes that I think this book struggles.
Warner can't bring himself to decide whether Haig was a dunce, or just one among many other like-minded generals. What Warner fails to enunciate is just how Haig (or anyone else) would go about the battles of World War One differently. We can look back and pick holes in what happened, but with the knowledge and technology of the time, were there actually any alternatives to the type of mass attack that was normal during this campaign? Warner provides no conclusions, and does not, I think, emphasise that British tactics were indeed changing, and by the end of the battle they had hit upon methods against which the Germans could not defend.
What Warner does emphasise is the effect of the weather on the progress of the battles, and on the misery suffered by those involved. He points out that the constant artillery barrages destroyed the intricate drainage system that was important in stopping the land becoming waterlogged. This was compounded by the unseasonal amount of rain that fell during most of the campaign. In the end, the mud became almost as much of an enemy as the Germans.
And what of the strategy behind this campaign? Warner is equivocal about Haig's stated reasons for going ahead with such a large campaign. He dismisses the aim of getting to the coast to capture the U-Boat bases as so much hot air, deprecates the idea of a battle of attrition, and grudgingly accepts that the British needed to take the pressure off the French after the mutinies of 1917. However, I think that all three of these strategies made sense at the time. Haig may have been getting a false idea of German capability and morale (Warner is particularly scathing of Charteris in this area), but Warner himself, in a chapter devoted to German reaction to the campaign, shows us that the continued onslaught of the British did almost crack the German lines, and will to resist. The campaign also stopped Ludendorff from moving troops to crush Russia, and from assisting Austria against the Italians. It is easy to criticize Haig, but his options were to work in the situation he was in, and with the information he had.
Passchendaele was a terrible disaster for so many. The casualties were appalling - over half a million casualties from July to November. Those casualties included my great-grandfather, who was killed on 20 September 1917, in what came to be known as the Battle of Menin Road. I, and many others like me, read to try and understand. Warner's book is useful in understanding what it may have been like to be in Flanders in 1917, but on the larger themes I would be looking elsewhere for satisfaction.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
January 18, 2021
Well written and informative.
January 7, 2011
'Passchendaele' is another great book in the collection published by Pen & Sword. Philip Warner has written a great account of this four month epic blood bath of the First World War. My interest of this matter is personal. Grandad was one of the heroes. Like most of these veterans from WWI, there were very few words spoken of those times. One comment of his has always stuck with me, "Passchendaele...what a bloody mud heap." Fortunately for him, for my mother, my sister, myself and my son, Grandad was a victim of mustard gas and therefore got a ticket out to Blighty, and we have all lived to tell the tale. I have followed the progress of his war, through the war diaries of The King's Liverpool Regiment and visited many sites on the Somme and the Ypres salient on the Western Front. The ground around Ypres is today drained and no longer the mud heap it was. However, the metal harvest that is brought out of the ground every year by farmers can be seen in the piles of still deadly shells. Many lost mine workings are still packed with explosives. The town of Ypres still pays tribute, by sounding the last post, every evening at the Menin Gate, and have done so since 1923! Except for a brief interruption through WWII. There were half a million casualties here.
Warner's work is not a military guide, there are better books for this, but it is a historical overview of the campaign from both sides of no-man's land, providing many personal accounts, explaining the tactics and strategies and reasons behind the thinking of the generals who controlled the armies, some fifty miles behind the front lines.
Warner's work is not a military guide, there are better books for this, but it is a historical overview of the campaign from both sides of no-man's land, providing many personal accounts, explaining the tactics and strategies and reasons behind the thinking of the generals who controlled the armies, some fifty miles behind the front lines.
December 4, 2012
Very poor, really. One of the most aimless and poorly edited history books I've ever read. Much of the anecdotal evidence is shoe-horned in at inappropriate times, while the last three chapters are irrelevant and poorly placed.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews