Those who should be blamed for such slaughter are the facile ‘statesmen’
Basil Liddell Hart claimed Douglas Haig’s chief of staff Sir Launcelot Kiggell said when he finally saw Passchendaele: “Good God, did we really send men to fight in that?”
That was, of course, a figment of Hart’s fevered imagination but it remains the great cliché of the much clichéd succession of battles that raged there for ten weeks after 31 July, 1917.
The failure of General Robert Nivelle’s spring offensive left the French army in disarray and General Petain only maintained his front by promising no more attacks before “les Yankees” arrive. However Germany’s chancellor had just resigned rightly believing victory was impossible, and Haig wanted to build on General Plumer’s epic victory on the Messines ridge on 7 June. Plumer’s failure to exploit his victory and his excessive caution led to his replacement as head of the Fifth Army by Hubert Gough, Haig’s youngest and most aggressive general. Sadly the damage was done and by the time the offensive finally got under way on July 31, Flanders - usually dry throughout August – was about to