More about the book
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.
Book purchase
The Somme, Peter Hart
- Language
- Released
- 2005
- Binding
- (Hardcover)
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- Title
- The Somme
- Language
- English
- Authors
- Peter Hart
- Publisher
- Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd
- Released
- 2005
- Format
- Hardcover
- Pages
- 589
- ISBN10
- 0297847058
- ISBN13
- 9780297847052
- Series
- Tags
- Historical Themes, France, Military Fiction, Wars, World War II, Europe, Professional Literature, History of Europe, World War I (1914–1918), Western Europe, Battles
- 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.