In Flanders fields: The 1917 campaign (Time reading program special edition)

Of all the grim, gallant and inglorious battles of the Western Front, this 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 about a million Allied lives.

Of all the grim, gallant, and inglorious battles of the Western Front, Passchendaele 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, first published in 1959, 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 that will “forever haunt Western civilization.”