Passchendaele

Author Nick Lloyd
Narrator Mark Elstob
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Publish Date 5 October 2017
Run Time 12 hours and 28 minutes
Format Audio
Genre First World War, History, Military history.

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What to expect

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Passchendaele by Nick Lloyd, read by Mark Elstob.

Between July and November 1917, in a small corner of Belgium, more than 500,000 men were killed or maimed, gassed or drowned - and many of the bodies were never found. The Ypres offensive represents the modern impression of the First World War: splintered trees, water-filled craters, muddy shell-holes.

The climax was one of the worst battles of both world wars: Passchendaele. The village fell eventually, only for the whole offensive to be called off. But, as Nick Lloyd shows, notably through previously unexamined German documents, it put the Allies nearer to a major turning point in the war than we have ever imagined.

Critics Review

A timely re-appraisal . . . a masterpiece

General Lord Richard Dannatt

Sweeps aside mythology and provides a rational explanation and cool description of what took place

The Sunday Times

Nick Lloyd has unearthed a mass of new material for this harrowing account of one of the most infamous engagements of the Great War

The Guardian

Meticulously researched . . . A harrowing and important history

The Guardian

With clean, clear and often eviscerating writing, Nick Lloyd compels us to re-evaluate Passchendaele and all that word conjures

Paul Gross, director and star of the film 'Passchendaele'

Rigorously researched . . . one of the great features of this excellent book, absent from too many less rigorous histories of events in the First World War, is a clear account of how things were on the German side, and how the British attack not only gained ground, but devastated German morale . . . Lloyd’s research is superb; the book is well-illustrated with photographs and maps; he brings the battle and its political context vividly to life . . . this is in almost every respect a model of what a work of military history should be, and is now perhaps the definitive account of this phase of the war on the Western Front

The Telegraph

I thought it both precise and compassionate – a properly definitive history, with clear sightlines from the strategic planning, to the horror of the battle itself from both sides, through to its consequences for the war as it entered its complex final phase

Dr Emily Mayhew

A fresh and thorough examination of the events of July to November 1917 is definitely needed. Dr Nick Lloyd has achieved this in his book Passchendaele: A New History, an account that is both scholarly and gripping.

Glyn Harper, Professor of War Studies, Massey University

Confirms his position among the best young scholars of WWI in this comprehensively researched, convincingly presented analysis of the still-controversial 1917 battle of Passchendaele . . .Lloyd’s thesis is controversial, but his scholarship makes it impossible to dismiss

Publishers Weekly

His narrative of the campaign is superb and written with clarity and dispassion. He teaches military history at King’s College London and has done his research thoroughly in German and Allied archives. It is fascinating to know the preoccupations, hopes and plans of the Kaiser (“The English must be made to grovel”) and his generals, and to hear the voices of German frontline soldiers

The Times

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