44 NAVY NEWS, SEPTEMBER 2007
‘The greatest martyrdom’
NO BATTLE casts a shadow over the soldiers struggling through the mud sometimes falling into shell craters REGULAR readers of our historical Flanders battle.
British psyche more than the Third which give this book its power. from which they have to be hauled. supplements will know that there are Using manifold first-hand
Battle of Ypres, more commonly Far more haunting are the aerial “Oh, it is a wicked, agonising sight. two sides to every battle. accounts, the author shows that the
known by the name of its fi nal photographs of the pockmarked Here and there lay dead, half-buried Too often, English-speaking Flandernkämpfer – the ‘Flanders
objective: Passchendaele. terrain or a solitary tank in mud, horses and broken wagons, historians focus solely on the Allied warrior’, as Crown Prince Rupprecht
The three-month slog in the mud struggling across the all cogently telling some tragedy role in victory between 1914 and of Bavaria, the senior German
cost the Empire a quarter of a million cratered moonscape. and horror, but one is immune to all 1918 at the expense of our foe, commander at Ypres, called him
men in the summer and autumn of Accompanying these and passes by as unperturbed save for a few choice quotes from – bore the privations, misery and
1917. this comprehensive as though they were just pieces of Ludendorff, Hindenburg and perhaps horrors of Passchendaele with the
But it cost Britain far more than ‘exhibition’ is a rock.” warrior poet Ernst Jünger. same bravery and stoicism as his
‘mere’ lives; it gave the ordinary narrative which draws Officer and poet Siegfried Reluctance to look at the Great opponent.
Briton cynicism, mistrust, a reason upon scores of diaries, Sassoon wrote the battle’s most War from the German viewpoint is “They simply endured and went
to doubt authority. letters and personal famous – and oft quoted – epitaph. certainly not due to a lack of sources: on enduring,” says the author.
Passchendaele cost the Tommy his accounts of the men who “I died in hell – they called it although the official archives are One landser – the German
soul. “For the fi rst time the British fought in the Ypres salient. Passchendaele.” incomplete (thanks, in part, to the counterpart to the British Tommy
Army lost its sense of optimism,” And if the British Army The ordinary Tommy could be RAF bombing campaign a generation – in 13th Bavarian Reserve Infantry
observed Times correspondent Sir lost its sense of optimism at equally eloquent. later) German publishing houses Regiment wrote after the
Philip Gibbs, “and there was a sense Passchendaele, it never forgot
of the
“They say we shall not go back to churned out scores of erudite onslaught on October 26,
of deadly depression among many its duty.
Empire and
Ypres,” a colleague told Pte Arthur regimental histories inter alia which the Royal Naval
offi cers and men.” “They were magnificent,” Lt
her Dominion.
Lambert of the Honourable Artillery in the 1920s. Unfortunately, Division took part
The battle’s 90th anniversary has, Douglas Wimberley enthused as he
The foe too takes
Company. they did so using Fraktur in:
rightly, sparked a flurry of interest in watched stretcher bearers carrying
second place to the Tommy
“I hope to God we never do,” – the ‘Gothic German’ “Dog-tired
the sacrifices made. the wounded from the battlefield in
– reasons of space meant German
the trooper responded. He had, he typescript beloved by and exhausted,
Peter Barton’s contribution – November.
accounts have largely been omitted.
admitted, “never uttered a more printers until Hitler our little band,
Passchendaele: Unseen Panoramas “You would see them slowly
And yet ‘Fritz’ is omnipresent,
fervent prayer”. decided it was ‘too those who were
of the Third Battle of Ypres picking their way down the duckboard
drawing condemnation and
Many histories of this terrible Jewish’ and banned still alive, stumbled
(Constable, £30 ISBN 978-1-84529- tracks in the midst of an inferno.
admiration in equal measure from
battle are little more than scathing it – which demands along the road in the
422-9) – is unique. “Then they would disappear
the British soldier.
indictments of Douglas Haig and a trained eye to pale moonlight. Nobody
The author has spent nearly altogether in a cloud of smoke as
“The Fritzes must be fighting
his generals, the much-maligned decipher it. spoke a single word.
a decade ferreting around in the some big shell dropped close, and
like the very demons of hell,” wrote
‘donkeys’ of popular historiography. Fortunately, “Deadly serious, the dark
photographic archive of the Imperial when it disappeared, on they came at
Gunner Aubrey Wade during the first,
Peter Barton passes little judgment former soldier Jack forms with the heavy helmets
War Museum, where, for the better their slow walk.”
failed, attempt to seize the village of
on Passchendaele, its conduct, the Sheldon does not share the on their heads, headed back
part of 80 years, sprawling black Given press reaction to single lives
Passchendaele in mid-October 1917.
rights and wrongs of the offensive. reticence of fellow historians to to their billets, sick to the heart
and white panoramic images of the lost in Afghanistan and Iraq 90 years
The ‘demons of hell’ were ably
Instead, he provides a compelling look at the Great War from the ‘other with mourning for the fallen.”
battlefield have lain forgotten. later, it is difficult to comprehend
assisted by all the demonic inventions
narrative. It is the voices of the men, side of the hill’ – or their reluctance General Hermann von Kuhl,
Barton has already produced how today’s media machine would
of the military-industrial complex of
not the author, which chastise the to tackle that hideous font. Rupprecht’s Chief-of-Staff, called
two books using these panoramas react to casualties at Ypres: in
the age: chemical warfare, tanks,
leaders. Having given us the Third Ypres “the greatest martyrdom
– photographs taken not for artistic October 1917, the British Army
heavy bombers.
In October 1917, Douglas Haig groundbreaking German Army on of the war”. His master hailed the
purpose but so the generals of both suffered 110,000 casualties – 3,500
In 1917, says the author, “we see
visited a headquarters at the front to the Somme to put faces and names battle as “a serious defeat for our
sides could dictate, or rather try to men a day killed or wounded.
the greatest ingenuity, deliberation,
give the men a pep talk ahead of the to the ‘Hun’ who inflicted the worst opponents and a great victory for
dictate, the battle in Flanders fields. Britain’s newspapers, censored
planning and colossal command and
final assault on Passchendaele. day on Britain in the history of her us”.
Passchendaele is by far the most by the Government, celebrated the
personal effort that made up the
“Gentlemen, it has become Army, the author has now turned his Tommy and Fritz alike probably
hauntingly magnificent of the trio “most important victory of the year”.
writhing serpent of a modern military
apparent that Passchendaele must be attention to the 1917 campaign with cared little for such tubthumping,
with hundreds of images – and not The obituary columns told a different
machine at the beginning of the 20th
taken,” he declared. the same thoroughness. as a young German machine-gunner
merely panoramic vistas of the story.
Century.”
“Some day I hope to be able to When future historians come to recalled.
Belgian terrain. The 63rd Division – the Royal
And yet, in the final analysis,
tell you why this must be done, but write of Passchendaele one would “It was war and it had to be
There are trench maps, trench Naval Division – suffered 3,000
Passchendaele rested on the
in the meantime I ask you to take my hope that The German Army at fought. We were not soldiers to be
diagrams, cross-sections of trenches, casualties during six days of heated
shoulders of man, not machines –
word for it.” Passchendaele (Pen & Sword, £25 having a good time. There was not a
sepia images of the battlefield, battle north-west of Passchendaele at
and sometimes his trusty steed.
For nine decades, Britons have ISBN 978-184-415-5644) would be man in our crater who need hang his
reconnaissance photographs, aerial the end of that month.
“One of the most pitiful and heroic
been waiting for an answer. They a constant companion. head in shame.”
images, sketches, diagrams which Sadly – and this is one of the
sights is to see the ammunition
will still be awaiting an answer in Passchendaele is the common
provide as complete a photographic few quibbles with Barton’s excellent
pack horses bringing up shells and
another nine decades. And never English name for the battle. The
marina Read our four-page tribute
record of the battle and battlefield as volume – the Royal Naval Division
charges,” wrote official photographer
again has a soldier merely taken a Germans never used it; they preferred
to the Royal Naval Division at
you could wish for. is a rather peripheral formation in
Capt Frank Hurley.
general’s word for it. Ypern (German for Ypres) or, more
Passchendaele in next month’s
Strangely, it’s not the images of an account dominated by the armies
“The horses stumble through,
usually, Flandernschlacht – the ●♦●
Navy News
● ‘Good God, did we really send men to fi ght in that?’ Canadian pioneers toil in the Passchendaele mud, November 1917.
From Peter Barton’s Passchendaele: Unseen Panoramas of the Third Battle of Ypres
0044_NN_Sept.indd 144_NN_Sept.indd 1 117/8/07 15:06:337/8/07 15:06:33
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