Far From Suitable?: Haig, Gough and Passchendaele: a Reappraisal

Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, until in recent decades eclipsed by the Somme, stood as the representative image of First World War frightfulness and fruitless endeavor. Post-war memory of its myriad horrors arose from the dissemination of traumatic personal experience; the tradition of futility largely from the 1930s condemnation by military historian Basil Liddell Hart and, rather ironically, the Prime Minister who authorized it, David Lloyd George. The former wrot...