By the end of World War One more than 500,000 British servicemen were missing, lost forever on the battlefields of Western Europe. Robert Sackville-West’s book, The Searchers: the Quest for…
History
Remembering Passchendaele
The Passchendaele Offensive began on July 31 1917 and lasted a little over three months.
Torrential rain turned the battlefield into a sea of mud. By the beginning of November, the allies had gained only five miles of ground, with the loss of 240,000 men, 70,000 of them dead. German casualties numbered roughly the same at around 200,000. Historians still debate whether Passchendaele was worth the cost.