Passchendaele Requiem for Doomed Youth (Audible Audio Edition) Paul Ham Robert Meldrum Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd Books
Download As PDF : Passchendaele Requiem for Doomed Youth (Audible Audio Edition) Paul Ham Robert Meldrum Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd Books
From Paul Ham, winner of the NSW Premier's Prize for Australian History, comes the story of ordinary men in the grip of a political and military power struggle that determined their fate and has foreshadowed the destiny of the world for a century.
Passchendaele epitomises everything that was most terrible about the Western Front. The photographs never sleep of this four-month battle, fought from July to November 1917, the worst year of the war blackened tree stumps rising out of a field of mud, corpses of men and horses drowned in shell holes, terrified soldiers huddled in trenches awaiting the whistle.
The intervening century, the most violent in human history, has not disarmed these pictures of their power to shock. At the very least they ask us, on the 100th anniversary of the battle, to see and to try to understand what happened here. Yes, we commemorate the event. Yes, we adorn our breasts with poppies. But have we seen? Have we understood? Have we dared to reason why? What happened at Passchendaele was the expression of the 'wearing-down war', the war of pure attrition at its most spectacular and ferocious.
Paul Ham's Passchendaele Requiem for Doomed Youth shows how ordinary men on both sides endured this constant state of siege, with a very real awareness that they were being gradually, deliberately, wiped out. Yet the men never broke they went over the top, when ordered, again and again and again. And if they fell dead or wounded, they were casualties in the 'normal wastage', as the commanders described them, of attritional war. Only the soldier's friends at the front knew him as a man, with thoughts and feelings. His family back home knew him as a son, husband or brother, before he had enlisted. By the end of 1917 he was a different creature his experiences on the Western Front were simply beyond their powers of comprehension.
The audiobook tells the story of ordinary men in the grip of a political and military power struggle that determined their fate and has foreshadowed the destiny of the world for a century. Passchendaele lays down a powerful challenge to the idea of war as an inevitable expression of the human will, and examines the culpability of governments and military commanders in a catastrophe that destroyed the best part of a generation.
Passchendaele Requiem for Doomed Youth (Audible Audio Edition) Paul Ham Robert Meldrum Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd Books
This audio book was amazing. It placed the Battle of Passchendaele in the context of the whole of the Great War. It is not just a military history but also a social history. Well done using both primary and secondary sources. Good analysis at the end.Product details
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Passchendaele Requiem for Doomed Youth (Audible Audio Edition) Paul Ham Robert Meldrum Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd Books Reviews
What a great account of the atrocious conditions ,& the stupid slaughter of soldiers just to gain recognition for snotty nose British generals. Well written Paul.
Listened to this w/ Audible. Great recording. There is a lot of extra information here-contextually within the war, which I didn't mind. But just so you know, there are large chunks devoted to background info.
As for the battle itself, great sources and truly awful (accurate) descriptions. There were times, when listening to this, I had to stop and compose myself due to the author's erudite narrative force.
The author does not shy away from bringing his own opinions into the mix, and enters into the current debate of "The War Was Just and Worth It" vs. "This Was Regretful Slaughter." To weigh in, Ham rightly focused in on Haig, and even freshly adds a human explanation of events by describing the caustic relationship between Haig and Lloyd George.
My only issue with his arguments is that he seemed to snap the entire war together morally, where in my opinion, all of the wars' actors, whether political or military, fell into this awful debacle with a thousand little stumbles. His conclusions, while justified, seemed in the end to be too neat. I guess that's the downside of actually taking a firm stance?
This is a magnificent book; it is a terrible book. It is a magnificent book about a terrible and destructive episode in 20th century history. The battle(s) of Passchendaele was fought in 1917, with (mainly) the British and Commonwealth troops attacking the German lines in Belgium. And they attacked them, and they attacked them, and they attacked them again, with terrible results for both sides. Paul Ham tells the story with moving sympathy for the hundreds of thousands of lost lives on both sides. The story is exciting, grim and deeply disturbing, and is brilliantly told. One of the thoughts that occurred to me as I read it was that Britain entered the war to defend Belgium from German aggression, but here they were wrecking Belgium. If there was ever justification for fighting WWI, there can be none for continuing it after Verdun and the Somme, and the whole mess should have been stopped before Passchendaele became a reality.
Extremely well written and researched, the best account of this whole campaign. My father was injured and sent back to England, therefore missing out on the battle. He was returned to Australia. Love Paul Hams work!
This audio book was amazing. It placed the Battle of Passchendaele in the context of the whole of the Great War. It is not just a military history but also a social history. Well done using both primary and secondary sources. Good analysis at the end.
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