{"title":"Belgian History","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"the-battle-a-new-history-of-waterloo","title":"The Battle: A New History of Waterloo","description":"\u003cp\u003eAt Waterloo, some 70,000 men under Napoleon and an equal number under Wellington faced one another in a titanic and bloody struggle. In the end, as John Keegan notes, contemporaries felt that Napoleon's defeat had \"reversed the tide of European history.\" Even 190 years later, the name Waterloo resounds.\u003cbr\u003e\nItalian historian Alessandro Barbero's majestic new account stands apart from previous British and French histories by giving voice to all the nationalities that took part. Invoking the memories of British, French, and Prussian soldiers, Barbero meticulously re-creates the conflict as it unfolded, from General Reille's early afternoon assault on the chateau of Hougoumont, to the desperate last charge of Napoleon's Imperial Guard as evening settled in. From privates to generals, Barbero recounts individual miracles and tragedies, moments of courage and foolhardiness, skillfully blending them into the larger narrative of the battle's extraordinary ebb and flow. One is left with indelible images: cavalry charges against soldiers formed in squares; the hand-to-hand combat around farmhouses; endless cannon balls and smoke. And, finally, a powerful appreciation of the inevitability and futility of war., ISBN13: 9780802715005 ISBN10: 0802715001 Material Type: paperback\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CheapBookDepot","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46115155804323,"sku":"FK-5-STR_UBD_H0000QAR","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0607\/9227\/5107\/files\/81ilskEJ3FL.jpg?v=1754743445"},{"product_id":"passchendaele-the-untold-story","title":"Passchendaele: The Untold Story","description":"\u003cp\u003eNo conflict of the Great War excites stronger emotions than the war in Flanders in the autumn of 1917, and no name better encapsulates the horror and apparent futility of the Western Front than 'Passchendaele'. By its end there had been 275,000 Allied and 200,000 German casualties. Yet the territorial gains made in four desperate months were won back by Germany in only three days the following March.\u003cbr\u003e\nThe devastation at Passchendaele, the authors argue, was neither inevitable nor inescapable; nor perhaps was it necessary at all. Using a substantial archive of official private records, much of which has never been previously consulted or exploited for a work of this kind, Robin Prior and Trevor Wilson provide the fullest account of the campaign yet published.\u003cbr\u003e\nThe book examines the political dimension at a level which has hitherto been absent from accounts of 'Third Ypres'. It establishes what did occur, the options for alternative action, and the fundamental responsibility for the carnage. Prior and Wilson consider the shifting ambitions and stratagems of the high command, examine the logistics of war, and assess what the available manpower, weaponry, technology and intelligence could realistically have hoped to achieve. Most powerfully of all, they explore the experience of the men on the ground in the light - whether they knew it or not - of what was never going to be accomplished., ISBN13: 9780300066920 ISBN10: 0300066929 Material Type: hardcover\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CheapBookDepot","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46126561591459,"sku":"A.27.2 F_04-29-25_ART_H000070H","price":13.44,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0607\/9227\/5107\/files\/81pt2OxksaL.jpg?v=1754893520"}],"url":"https:\/\/usedbookdepot.com\/collections\/belgian-history.oembed","provider":"Used Book Depot","version":"1.0","type":"link"}