Battle of Passchaendale
- LAST REVIEWED: 31 March 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 31 March 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0161
- LAST REVIEWED: 31 March 2016
- LAST MODIFIED: 31 March 2016
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791279-0161
Introduction
The Third Battle of Ypres, or Passchendaele, took place between 31 July and 10 November 1917. Haig’s idea was to sweep out of the Ypres Salient to the Belgian Coast, thus outflanking the entire German-held Western Front in the north. As it happened, when the battle concluded the British army had secured the merest toehold on part of the Passchendaele Ridge, just ten miles from its starting line. The battle is remembered as a continuous slog in the mud, but it was more complex than this. It falls into four phases. The first, the capture of the Messines Ridge on 7 June, was quite successful. Sappers had been tunneling under this and had placed an enormous amount of high explosive under it. It was essential to capture this high ground before the main attack was launched. The explosion blew off the top off the ridge, allowing its capture. The second phase controversially did not commence for another seven weeks. Its aim was to capture Pilckem Ridge on the left of the front and the Gheluvelt Plateau on the right. The first objective was achieved but not the second, which allowed the Germans to observe every movement by the British on the remainder of the battlefield. Rain started to fall on 1 August and turned the low-lying battlefield into a quagmire. Progress was impossible but that did not prevent the High Command from ordering successive attacks. These all failed. In September the third phase began. A new commander, General Plumer, was introduced to conduct the main battle while General Gough who had conducted affairs until then was sidelined. Plumer asked for time to prepare his battles, and Haig agreed. Plumer’s three battles, which enabled the Gheluvelt Plateau to be captured, commenced on 20 September and concluded on 4 October. They were masterpieces of the limited objective battle, accompanied by enormous concentrations of artillery and conducted in dry weather. The fourth phase began after 4 October. Rain started to fall and the British were advancing into low-lying country. It seemed essential that the battle be halted but neither Haig nor Plumer agreed. The period from 9 October to 10 November saw conditions deteriorate as the British slogged on toward Passchendaele Ridge, by this time had lost all meaning as an objective. In the end men were drowning in the mud, and it is this phase that has branded the battle as an episode of futility. The so-called capture of the ridge (it was never completely in British hands) was hailed as a victory but in three days in 1918 the German offensives retook the ground that had taken three and a half months to capture.
General Overviews
There are many more books that cover the Battles of Passchendaele in their entirety than are listed here. The selection that follows attempts to strike a balance between tactical and strategic studies and those that see the battle through the eyes of individual soldiers. For serious readers and researchers, Edmonds 1948 is the place to start. For other accounts of the strategy of the battle, consult Prior and Wilson 2002 and Wolff 1958. For tactics, see Cecil and Liddle 1996, Liddle 1997, and Terraine 1977. For the soldier’s battle, see Macdonald 1978 and Steel and Hart 2000.
Cecil, H., and P. Liddle. Facing Armageddon. London: Leo Cooper, 1996.
A collection of essays on the Great War that contains a considerable number on aspects of the Passchendaele campaign.
Edmonds, Sir James. Military Operations: France and Belgium 1917. Vol. 2. London: HMSO, 1948.
The British Official History. This volume was originally written by G. C. Wynne, but his efforts were deemed too critical of the High Command so it was rewritten by Edmonds, hence the late publication date. Not surprisingly, the volume is one of the least useful of the series.
Liddle, Peter, ed. Passchendaele in Perspective: The Third Battle of Ypres. London: Leo Cooper, 1997.
An excellent collection of essays on all aspects of the battle including some valuable accounts of the Germans at Passchendaele.
Macdonald, Lyn. They Called It Passchendaele. London: Michael Joseph, 1978.
A superb reconstruction of the battle told through the eyes of the participants; a model of its kind.
Prior, Robin, and Trevor Wilson. Passchendaele: The Untold Story. London: Yale University Press, 2002.
A detailed account of the planning and execution of the British army’s Passchendaele campaign from which the High Command does not emerge well. Emphasizes the political control (or lack of it) of the battle.
Steel, Nigel, and Peter Hart. Passchendaele: The Sacrificial Ground. London: Cassell, 2000.
A first-rate account of the battle told through the eyes of the soldiers. Draws extensively on the superb collection of letters and diaries in the Imperial War Museum.
Terraine, John. The Road to Passchendaele: The Flanders Offensive of 1917: A Study in Inevitability. London: Leo Cooper, 1977.
A valuable collection of documents, diary extracts, and letters that tends to show that the offensive was well-thought out and only criticized by ignorant politicians. The subtitle is odd because the book contains no study—or even mention—of inevitability. There is a tendentious note on casualty statistics at the end of the book.
Wolff, Leon. In Flanders Fields: The 1917 Campaign. London: Longmans, 1958.
This is the classic account of the campaign that should be consulted by all who are interested in this topic. It should be noted, however, that the book was written before the release of official documents.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- 1916 Easter Rising, The
- 1812, War of
- Aerial Bombardment, Ethics of
- Afghanistan, Wars in
- Africa, Gunpowder and Colonial Campaigns in
- African Military History and Historiography
- African Wars of Independence
- Air Transport
- Allenby, Edmund
- All-Volunteer Army, Post-Vietnam Through 2016
- American Colonial Wars
- American Indian Wars
- American War of Independence
- Amir Timur
- Ancient Egyptian Warfare (3000 BCE–332 BCE)
- Animals and the Military
- Antietam, Battle of
- Arab-Israeli Wars, 1948-Present
- Arctic Warfare
- Argentine Armed Forces
- Armed Forces of the Ottoman Empire, 1683–1918
- Armored War
- Arms Control and Disarmament
- Army, Roman
- Artillery
- Artists and War Art
- Assyrian Warfare
- Attila and the Huns
- Australia from the Colonial Era to the Present
- Austrian Succession, War of the
- Austro-Hungarian Armed Forces
- Balkan Liberation, 1878–1913, Wars of
- Baltic Crusades
- Battle of Agincourt
- Battle of Bannockburn: 1341
- Battle of Plassey, 1757
- Battle of Route Coloniale 4, 1950: France’s first devastat...
- Battle of Salamis: 480 BC
- Battle of Tours (732?)
- Boer Wars
- Bonaparte, Napoleon
- Brazilian Armed Forces
- Britain and the Blitz
- British Armed Forces, from the Glorious Revolution to Pres...
- British Army in World War II
- British Army of the Rhine, The
- British-India Armies from 1740 to 1849
- Canada from World War I to the Present
- Canada in World War II
- Canada through World War I
- Cavalry since 1500
- Chaco War
- Charlemagne
- China's Modern Wars, 1911-1979
- Chinese Civil War, 1945-1949
- Chivalry
- Christianity and Warfare in the Medieval West
- Churchill, John, 1st Duke of Marlborough
- Churchill, Winston
- Civilians
- Clausewitz, Carl von
- Coalition and Alliance War
- Cold War, 1945-1990
- Cold War Dictatorships in the Southern Cone (Brazil, Argen...
- Commemoration
- Communications, French Revolution to the Present
- Conflict and Migration
- Conquest of Mexico and Peru
- Conscription
- Cornwallis, Charles
- Counterinsurgency in the Modern World
- Crimean War, 1853–1856
- Cromwell, Oliver
- Crusades, The
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Defense Industries
- Dien Bien Phu, Battle of
- Dominion Armies in World War II
- Douhet, Giulio, airpower theorist
- Eisenhower, Dwight
- Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide
- European Wars, Mid-Nineteenth-Century
- Finland in World War II
- France in World War I
- Franco-Prussian War, 1870–71 (Franco-German War)
- Frederick the Great
- French Armies, Early Modern
- French Military, 1919-1940
- French Revolutionary Wars, The
- Gender Issues
- German Air Forces
- German Army, 1871–1945
- German Sea Power, 1848-1918
- German Unification, Wars of
- Germany's Eastern Front in 1941
- Grant, Ulysses S.
- Greek and Roman Navies
- Guerrilla Warfare, Pre-20th-Century
- Gunpowder Warfare in South Asia: 1400–1800
- Haig, Douglas
- Haitian Revolution (1789–1804)
- Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert, Jacques Antoine
- Hiroshima/Nagasaki
- History of Intelligence in China
- Hundred Days Campaign of 1918
- Hundred Years War
- Hungary, Warfare in Medieval and Early Modern
- Imperial China, War in
- India 'Mutiny' and 'Revolution,' 1857-1858
- Indian Army in World War I
- Indian Warfare, Ancient
- India-Pakistan Wars
- Indochina Wars, 1946-1975
- Information Warfare
- Intelligence, Military
- International Efforts to Control War
- Iraq Wars, 1980s-Present
- Irish Civil War, 1922–1923
- Irish Revolution, 1911-1923, The
- Italian Armed Forces in the Modern Age
- Italian Campaign, World War I
- Japanese Army in the World War II Era, The Imperial
- Japanese Navy
- Jomini, Antoine-Henri
- Justice, Military, the Anglo-American Tradition
- Justice of War and Justice in War
- Khan, Genghis
- Kursk, Battle of
- Learning and Adapting: The British Army from Somme to the ...
- Lee, Robert E.
- Lepizig, Battle of
- Literature and Drama, War in
- Loos, Battle of
- Louis XIV, Wars of
- Low-Intensity Operations
- Manzikert, Battle of
- Maratha Navy
- Media
- Medicine, Military
- Medieval French Warfare
- Medieval Japan, 900-1600
- Mercenaries
- Meuse-Argonne Offensive
- Mexican Revolution, c. 1910–1960
- Mexico and the United States, 1836–1848, Wars of
- Midway, Battle of
- Militarism
- Military Officers, United States
- Military Revolutions
- Militia
- Modern Piracy
- Mongol Wars
- Montgomery, Bernard Law
- Music and War
- Napoleonic Wars, The
- Napoleonic Wars, War and Memory in the
- NATO
- Navy, British
- Nelson, Horatio
- New Zealand
- Nimitz, Chester
- Nuclear Culture
- Nuclear Weapons
- Occupations and Military Government
- Operational Art
- Ottoman Navy
- Pacifism
- Passchaendale, Battle of
- Patton, George
- Peacekeeping
- Peninsular War
- Polish Armed Forces, 1918-present
- Political Purges in the 20th Century
- Poltava, Battle of
- Popular Culture and Modern War
- Prehistoric Warfare
- Pre-Revolutionary Mexican Armed Forces: 1810–1910
- Prince Eugene of Savoy
- Prisoners
- Private Military and Security Companies
- Propaganda
- Psychiatric Casualties
- Race, Ethnicity, and War
- Race in the US Military
- Red Cross
- Religio-Military Orders
- Revolt in the Spanish Netherlands: 1561–1609 (Dutch Revolt...
- Roman Empire
- Roman Republic
- Roses, Wars of the
- Russian and Soviet Armed Forces
- Russian Campaign of 1812
- Russian Civil War, 1918–1921
- Russian Military History
- Russian Military History, 1762-1825
- Russo-Japanese War
- Safavid Army
- Sailing Warships
- Science and Technology in War
- Science Fiction, Military
- Semi-Military and Paramilitary Organizations
- Seven Years' War
- Seven Years' War in North America, The
- Sino-Japanese Wars, 1895-1945
- South Africa's Apartheid Wars
- South West Pacific, 1941–1945, Campaigns in
- Southeast Asian Military History, Colonial
- Southeast Asian Military History, Precolonial
- Space and War
- Spain since the Reconquista
- Spanish Civil War
- Special Operations Forces
- Special Operations Forces
- Stalingrad, Battle of
- Steppe Nomadic Warfare
- Strategy
- Submarine Warfare
- Swedish Armed Forces
- Tactics
- Terrorism
- Tet Offensive
- The Allied Bombardment of Occupied Europe During World War...
- The United States and the Middle East, 1945-2001
- Third Battle of Panipat
- Thirty Years War, 1618–1648
- Trench Warfare
- Uganda–Tanzania War, 1978–1979
- United States Marine Corps, The
- Urban Warfare
- US Air Force
- US Air Power
- US Army
- Verdun, Battle of
- Victorian Warfare, 1837–1902
- Vietnam War
- Vietnam War in Hollywood Feature Films
- War at Sea in the Age of Napoleon
- War, Chemical and Biological
- War Correspondents
- War, Culture of
- War in Mughal India
- War of the Spanish Succession, 1701–1714
- War of the Triple Alliance (Paraguayan War)
- Warfare in Qing China
- Warfare, Precolonial, in Africa
- Warships, Steam
- Women in the Military
- World War I in Film
- World War I Origins
- World War I: The Eastern Front
- World War I: The Western Front
- World War II and the Far East
- World War II in Film
- World War II in the Mediterranean and Middle East
- World War II, Indian Army in
- World War II Origins
- World War II, Russo-German War
- Yugoslavian Civil War, 1991–1999
- Zhukov, Georgii
- Zulu Wars