The Battlefields of the First World War (Revised): From the First Battle of Ypres to Passchendaele

by Peter Barton (I), Peter Doyle

Here are the great battlegrounds of the First World War as you have never seen them before, from the First Battle of Ypres where gallant men on horseback find things do not go to plan to the closing horror of the mud at Passchendaele. The book showcases the most eye-opening panoramas, along with poignant personal photographs and the recollections of the soldiers caught in action in the battles shown.
These panoramic photographs were the nearest thing to satellite mapping in their day, taken by the British Royal Engineers for intelligence purposes thoughout the war. The photographers had to spend tens of minutes with their head above the parapet - a view normally seen by the troops only through a trench periscope. Many of the images give a field of view of up to 160 degrees, and so sharp that individual figures - a soldier picking lice on his shirt, a sniper lying in wait - can be made out.
The images cover the whole of the Western Front, end to end. For the general buyer they have an impact unlike anything seen before. For the specialist, they document a lost world, putting other forms of archive into temporal, topographical and geographical context. What they reveal challenges existing perceptions of the First World War. As well as tortured landscapes of featureless mud, they also show fields of flowers, beaches, churches still standing. There are desperate scenes for sure, but an important lesson is that much of the war was fought in a real, recognizable landscape.

Genres: Military History, World War I, History, Nonfiction, War

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Peter Barton is a historian, archaeologist and film-maker. He authored The Battlefields of the First World War after researching the forgotten Imperial War Museum panorama archive for eight years. His other books include The Somme, and Passchendaele.

He continues to lead an ongoing project to recover, interpret and publish all surviving battlefield panoramas - widely regarded as the 'missing link' for our full understanding of the First World War. He has since uncovered several equivalent unseen collections of panoramas in German archives, included here.

Barton has also led several major excavations on the Western Front, and produced the critically acclaimed documentary films The Underground War, The Soldiers' Pilgrimage and Conviction. He is co-secretary of the All Party Parliamentary War Graves and Battlefields Heritage Group.

Reviews

[Jerry Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at the battlefields of WW1 both pictorially and also in prose. The former leans heavily on the introduction of panoramas of the battlefields from the Sea to the Alps in sections, supported by a narrative that explains the battles and their significance.

Also some insights into life at the front, again with reference to the specific sections in question in many places. It's a think tome - highly detailed and lavishly illustrated with supporting maps, diagrams and regular photos (i.e. not panoramas).

Provides a fascinating new look at the war as seen from the trenches themselves and as such, casts a somewhat different eye over the fields of war. Many of the pictures look innocuous and not at all the mud filled hell holes we have come to associate with the battles. That somehow makes it worse - the war was fought over land that looks much the same as it does today, at least superficially.

Well worth seeking out if you are at all interested in this conflict although perhaps not one to read cover to cover.

[Hyarrowen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practically a trench-by-trench photo-essay of the British sector of the Western Front. The panoramas are unseen because anybody who tried to see them in real life would have got his head blown off within seconds; they were taken with extreme care and stealth, and give a picture of the Front with all its millions of men entirely out of view. What it does do very well is show how narrow the Front was, a few hundred yards at most - what an airman described in another book as a long brown rattlesnake stretching between the coast and Switzerland.

As a close analysis of the trench system it's unbeatably good IMO. You get a real impression of how the trenches varied over different geology and topography, and also through time as the tide of war ebbed and flowed. The periscope's-eye view is quite mesmerising.

[Bill W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The text is a good history of the war on the western front in the British sector, full of interesting personal notes and illustrative arcana from soldiers' letters and journals. But the treasure here is the trove of photographic images contained on two interactive CD-ROMs that are included. The discs hold hundreds of panoramic photographs, both British and German, showing the topography of the trenches from the North Sea all the way to Armentieres (and beyond). It's a heavy, expensive delight - look for it in a library, and be prepared to spend many hours studying the photos: they've never been published before.