Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43319 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Review
'Peter Hart pays handsome tribut to the 'ordinary soldiers...' ... one could not wish for a more appropriate testimony to that generation for which the Somme was much more than a topic for academic research or a source of poignant reflection.' LITERARY REVIEW 'A monumental feat of research, his book is also a memorial of the most compelling kind to the hundreds of individuals whose diaries, letters and recollections are presented so vividly here.' THE SCOTSMAN '[Hart] has produced a remarkably even-handed account... and the first-person accounts he has unearthed are rich in vivid images...' SUNDAY TIMES 'Hart has succeeded in presenting his massive subject with objective clarity... the material gives it curious immediacy... brilliantly well-written extracts... Prepare to be enlightened, but prepare to feel respect for all the men involved.' SOLDIER MAGAZINE 'Excellent' TLS 'Hart is an accomplished author of anecdotal histories and here he is on top form... it deserves a wide readership.' BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE

TLS
'Excellent'

BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE
'Hart is an accomplished author of anecdotal histories and here he is on top form... it deserves a wide readership.'

Customer Reviews

Not Just Another Somme Book!
I cannot praise this book enough! Hyperbole is not something that I am given to but for any book on such a well trodden subject as the Somme to be as engaging as this signals a major achievement.

What I believe sets this book apart from many that I have read is the strength of genuine feeling that the author has for the men who experienced the battle. That is not necessarily the impression I get from some authors. You do get a real sense of how deeply moved he was when laying out the first hand accounts of men who underwent such appalling experiences. The book never, though, descends into sentimentality.

It would be a book that I would happily recommend to anyone who'd never read anything about the Somme or to someone who had their own personal equivalent of the British Library in the spare room. As such, it stands in a clear line from Martin Middlebrook's classic, "The First Day on the Somme", and stands some what higher, in my view, than Lynn McDonald's book, "Somme", good book though that is.

The Somme
'The Somme'. To many people these few words have come to be bywords for murder, mayhem and pointless slaughter. They conjure up views of Chateau Generals and poor Tommy Atkins living in fetid trenches waiting to die in a hail of machine gun bullets.

At long last we have a book which challenges this often heard view of the battle of the Somme. For nearly 90 years many eminent military historians have helped to colour the views of our nation with the same old bigoted, jaundiced and ill informed view of this great but tragic battle.

In this work Peter Hart looks at the battle in a logical and orderly manner. The book starts by giving the reasons why Douglas Haig was forced into fighting on the chalk downlands of the Somme. Once the political reasons for the battle are covered he moves smoothly to the tumultuous first day. This starts at Gommecourt and steadily moves southwards along the battleline to Maricourt on the banks of the river Somme. All through the text one sees an educated analysis of the opening day's events, which are greatly aided by new facsimiles of the Official Histories maps.

Upon the conclusion of the first day the reader is then taken through the further battles that comprise the Battle of the Somme. All the time there is logical analysis of the Generals actions. In many parts one is made aware of unforgivable errors made by Haig, Rawlinson and others which lead to the death of many thousands of men. But one is also made aware of incidents that will hopefully lay down the myth of Lions led by Donkeys! The analysis of the battles is clear and concise, sticking to known facts. All too often we are served up myth and legend, in what are frankly pseudo histories of this conflict.

Throughout the book Peter Hart makes extensive use of personal accounts from those who we there. He has not been tempted to colour the reader's judgement of the overall battle by the misrepresentation of these most personal reminiscences. They add greatly to the understanding of how individual soldiers felt about their own localised situation within the tumult of the battle.

In conclusion I would recommend this book whole heartedly; this is a classic work that joins the ever increasing list of revisionist histories on the Great War. With the passing of time we are able to make reasoned judgements on the conflict. Peter Hart should be congratulated for producing this fine body of work. I would suggest that those who have accused him of being an apologist for Douglas Haig should question their own historical integrity and stop following the all too easy path of misinformed and some what bigoted comment on this tragic battle.

The one abiding conclusion to be drawn from this book is that War is awful, it is not and never has been glorious to those who are caught up in it. Peter Hart leaves one in no doubt of this fact.

Exceptionally moving and well written
This is an exceptional book. Very well written, and particularly moving because it is full of accounts of men who were there. The only downside is that it doesn't have sufficient maps and photographs. So if you combine this book with the outstanding one by Peter Barton with it's stunning photographs you really have everything you could want. An excellent piece of work, and easy to read. I bought it after I had read a library copy!