The Somme

by Peter Hart, Nigel Steel

Overview

A major new history of the most infamous battle of the First World War, as described by the men who fought it.

On 1 July 1916, Douglas Haig's army launched the 'Big Push' that was supposed finally to bring an end to the stalemate on the Western Front. What happened next was a human catastrophe: scrambling over the top into the face of the German machine guns and artillery fire, almost 20,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed that day alone, and twice as many wounded - the greatest loss in a single day ever sustained by the British Army. The battle did not stop there, however. It dragged on for another 4 months, leaving the battlefield strewn with literally hundreds of thousands of bodies.

The Somme has remained a byword for the futility of war ever since. In this major new history, Peter Hart describes how the battle looked from the point of view of those who fought it. Using never-before-seen eyewitness testimonies, he shows us this epic conflict from all angles. We see what it was like to crawl across No Man's Land in the face of the German guns, what it was like for those who stayed behind in the trenches - the padres, the artillerymen, the doctors. We also see what the battle looked like from the air, as the RFC battled to keep control of the skies above the battlefield. All this is put in the context of the background to the battle, and Haig's overall strategy for the Western Front, making this the most comprehensive history of the battle since Lyn MacDonald's bestselling work over 20 years ago.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781780225722
Publisher:	Orion
Publication date:	12/20/2012
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	463,398
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Nigel Steel is head of the Imperial War Museum's Research and Information Department. He and Peter Hart have collaborated on several titles, including works on Gallipoli, Passchendaele and the First World War in the air.

Peter Hart was born in 1955. He went to Liverpool University before joining the Sound Archive at the Imperial War Museum in 1981. He is now Oral Historian at the Archive.

Peter Hart was born in 1955. He went to Liverpool University before joining the Sound Archive at the Imperial War Museum in 1981. He is now Oral Historian at the Archive. He is the author of several highly acclaimed works on the First World War.

Editorial Reviews

Peter Hart pays handsome tribute to the ordinary soldiers who gave their lives in battle. One could not wish for a more appropriate testimony to that generation.” (The Literary Review)


“Starred Review. This book, published in Britain in 2005, is a masterful synthesis of the human and the operational aspects of a campaign that increasingly defines the British experience in the Great War.” (Publishers Weekly)


“Peter Hart's The Somme is a memorial. The book brings to life the men who fought at the Somme in an accurate and precisely detailed history of one of the most gut-wrenchingly obscene desecrations of humanity our species ever perpetrated upon itself.... As director and oral historian of the British Imperial War Museum in London, Hart is uniquely positioned to do justice to the British participants in the battle. A talented historian, he succeeds in that most important element of history, storytelling.” (Washington Post, Robert Bateman)


“The most comprehensive and insightful account of the vast tragedy of the Somme that I have read.” (The Spectator)


“Hart brings the human experience of the combatants well to the fore. A monumental feat of research, his book is also a memorial of the most compelling kind to the hundreds of individuals whose recollections are presented so vividly here.” (The Scotsman [Edinburgh])


“Hart is an accomplished author and in The Somme he is on top form. His narrative descriptions of the brutal realities of battle are outstanding.” (BBC History Magazine)

From the Publisher

Hart superbly depicts these months of brutal combat in all their complexity.

The New York Times Book Review