In Flanders Fields - Leon Wolff

Of all the grim, gallant and inglorious battles of the Western Front, Passchendacle is the name uniquely evocative of the ‘mud and blood’ that pervaded the First World War. The total gain – a few thousand yards of indefensible slough – cost many tens of thousands of Allied lives.

In this now classic account of the Flanders campaign, Leon Wolff graphically describes the whole terrible business: from Haig’s initial plan; his determination to carry it out despite constant opposition from the Cabinet and the muddle of doubts and disagreement among the military staff; through the early stages of the ‘great offensive; and to the scene of the battle itself – the Flanders fields which will ‘forever haunt Western civilization’.

This is an outstanding book ….. much more than a military history, rather an invocation which summons from out of the depths of the past the catastrophie year of 1917… Here is brought to light again all its many facets, its antagonisms, its blunders, its horrors and its heroism’ MAJOR-GENERAL J. F. C. FULLER IN THE INTRODUCTION