The Most Pointless Battle of WW1? - Passchendaele 1917 (Documentary)

Support us and get 40% off Nebula: https://go.nebula.tv/the-great-war Watch 16 Days in Berlin on Nebula: https://nebula.tv/videos/16-days-in-berlin-01-prologue-the-beginning-of-the-end?ref=the-great-war For more than three long months in 1917, Allied and German soldiers fought tooth and nail over a battlefield churned into a sea of sucking mud and shellholes by the guns. Hundreds of thousands were killed and wounded, some of them drowning in the soupy ground — for Allied gains of just a few kilometers. So why did the Battle of Passchendaele happen at all, and was it the most pointless battle of the First World War? » SUPPORT THE CHANNEL Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/realtimehistory Nebula: https://nebula.tv/the-great-war » THANKS TO OUR CO-PRODUCERS Rose Flaglor, Reed Spilmann, Erik Ritter, Cardboard, Ken Brownfield, David Garfinkle, Raymond Martin, Konstantin Bredyuk, Lisa Anderson, Brad Durbin, Jeremy K Jones, Murray Godfrey, John Ozment, Stephen Parker, Mavrides, Kristina Colburn, Stefan Jackowski, Cardboard, William Kincade, William Wallace, Daniel L Garza, Chris Daley, Malcolm Swan, Christoph Wolf, Simen Røste, Jim F Barlow, Taylor Allen, Adam Smith, James Giliberto, Albert B. Knapp MD, Tobias Wildenblanck, Richard L Benkin, Marco Kuhnert, Matt Barnes, Ramon Rijkhoek, Jan, Scott Deederly, gsporie, Kekoa, Bruce G. Hearns, Hans Broberg, Fogeltje » SOURCES Boff, Jonathan. Haig’s Enemy. Crown Prince Rupprecht and Germany’s War on the Western Front. OUP, 2018. Fraser, Donald. The Journal of Private Fraser. CEF Books, 1998. Hart, Peter. The Great War 1914-1918. Profile Books, 2013. Jones, Spencer. “Ypres, Battles of.” In 1914-1918-online International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/ypres-battles-of/ Jünger, Ernst. Storm of Steel. Penguin, 2004. Ludendorff, Erich. My War Memories, 1914–1918. Hutchinson & Co, 1919. Moore, Chris. “The General Who Wept.” In Historia. https://www.historiamag.com/the-general-who-wept/. New Zealand History, “New Zealand’s Blackest Day at Passchendaele.” https://nzhistory.govt.nz/new-zealands-blackest-day-at-passchendaele Sassoon, Siegfried. “Memorial Tablet.” 1918. https://net.lib.byu.edu/english/wwi/children/memorial.html Sheffield, Gary. “Haig, Douglas.” 1914-1918-online International Encyclopedia of the First World War, https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/haig-douglas/. Stevenson, David. 1914 1918. The History of the First World War. Penguin, 2013. Warner, Philip. Passchendaele: The Story Behind the Tragic Victory of 1917. Pen & Sword Military Classics, 2005. Wiest, Andrew. Haig: The Evolution of a Commander. Potomac Books, 2005. » OUR SISTER CHANNEL https://youtube.com/realtimehistory »CREDITS Presented by: Jesse Alexander Written by: Jesse Alexander Director: Toni Steller Editing: Toni Steller Motion Design: Toni Steller, Philipp Appelt Mixing, Mastering & Sound Design: http://above-zero.com Research by: Jesse Alexander, Leander Lerch Fact checking: Florian Wittig Executive Producer: Florian Wittig Channel Design: Yves Thimian Contains licensed material by getty images, AP and Reuters Maps: MapTiler/OpenStreetMap Contributors & GEOlayers3 All photos and film in our documentaries are authentic historical footage. We do not use generative AI to create new assets. However, we may use AI tools to upscale or clean up certain assets without distorting or compromising the original image. All rights reserved - Real Time History GmbH 2024