Passchendaele and the Royal Navy
by Andrew A. Wiest
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There are two competitive views of Passchendaele and its commander, Sir Douglas Haig. One school contends that the battle was a very costly failure and that Sir Douglas Haig, the architect of the battle, was a blundering murderer. A second school of thought argues that Passchendaele was in many ways a success and that Haig learned much during the campaign and went on to put his learning to good use during the victorious offensive of 1918. This study removes some of the blame for the failure show more from Haig by examining the involvement of the Royal Navy in the planning and prosecution of the campaign. Documentary evidence demonstrates that the actions of the Admiralty were decisive in attracting the attention of the army to Flanders and in gaining approval for the battle itself. The Admiralty had a hitherto unknown effect on the prosecution of the battle. The fact that the British fought the battle for the wrong reasons and that the army on the coast waited while soldiers at Passchendaele died raises Passchendaele to an even higher plane of tragedy. show lessTags
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Dr Andrew Wiest is University Distinguished Professor of History and founding director of the Dale Center for the Study of War Society at the University of Southern Mississippi. Specializing in the study of World War I and Vietnam, his titles include Vietnam's Forgotten Army, which won the Society for Military History's Distinguished Book Award, show more and The Boys of '67, the basis for the Emmy-nominated National Geographic Channel Documentary Brothers in War. show less
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Passchendaele and the Royal Navy
- Important places*
- Passendale, West-Vlaanderen, België; België
- Important events
- World War I (1914 | 1918); Battle of Passchendaele (1917)
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- Languages
- English
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