The First Day on the Somme :1 July 1916
The First Day on the Somme :1 July 1916
paperback
Published:
31 March, 2016
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Description
The soldiers receive the best service a historian can provide: their story is told in their own words - Guardian
'For some reason nothing seemed to happen to us at first; we strolled along as though walking in a park. Then, suddenly, we were in the midst of a storm of machine-gun bullets and I saw men beginning to twirl round and fall in all kinds of curious ways'
On 1 July 1916, a continous line of British soldiers climbed out from the trenches of the Somme into No Man's Land and began to walk towards dug-in German troops armed with machine-guns. By the end of the day there were more than 60,000 British casualties - a third of them fatal.
Martin Middlebrook's now-classic account of the blackest day in the history of the British army draws on official sources from the time, and on the words of hundreds of survivors: normal men, many of them volunteers, who found themselves thrown into a scene of unparalleled tragedy and horror.
More Details
| Type | Book |
|---|---|
| ISBN13 | 9780141981604 |
| ISBN10 | 0141981601 |
| Number Of Pages | 464 |
| Item Weight | 341 g |
| Product Dimensions | 131 x 199 x 27 mm |
| Publisher / Reseller | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Format | paperback |
Media Reviews
The soldiers receive the best service a historian can provide: their story is told in their own words * Guardian *
A particularly vivid and personal narrative * Times Literary Supplement *
Pioneering and hauntingly eloquent -- Peter Parker * Spectator *
GoodReads Reviews
Author's Bio
Martin Middlebrook is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the author of many important books on military history including The Kaiser's Battle and The Falklands War 1982.