"Passchendaele: Britain’s Most Controversial WW1 Battle" Topic

"Alfred Korzybski's famous expression has been used here before while discussing World War 1, and with good reason. It's meant to highlight the fact that there is often a big difference between reality and belief.

In the case of the First World War, the saying is doubly apt, because very often a map did actually represent the way a commander thought about the terrain his men were fighting on; meanwhile, the gripe of men on the ground was that the reality of battle was far different (read: less rosy) than their senior commanders believed…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Liddel Hart's pathetic attempt to "prove" that the staffers were ignorant has been debunked since shortly after he published it. Now, if he'd wanted to move the ignorance back to Nr.10 Downing Street, from which address the Third Ypres attack was ordered, he might have had a point. But the PM was untouchable, so the generals had to take the blame.

Interesting.

Of course 20/20 hindsight always gets the right answer.

There is no doubt that some of the terrain conditions in Third Ypres were atrocious. The article includes the classic photos that reinforce this perception. It surprises many to see other photos that show a very different perspective:

An example (one of many) of the very dusty conditions:

Robert

Thanks!

Amicalement
Armand