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.
The Somme (Cassell Military Paperbacks)
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'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 ) --Smith
'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 ) --Smith
About the Author
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.
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.
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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
52 of 53 people found the following review helpful
By J. Grundy
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
42 of 43 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
'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.
... Read more ›6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By David Webb
Format:Paperback
I saw a review of this book the New York Times ( extract below) and totally agree with Max Boot's take on it...is a great piece of work.
"The Monstrous Anger of the Guns. By MAX BOOT. Published: January 2, 2009. For most of us today, the bloodlettings of World War I are refracted through the despairing work of Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and other soldier-writers. As Peter Hart notes, the contemporary view of the Somme "can be brutally summarized in just five words: `the pity of it all.' Politicians are portrayed as Machiavellian, but simultaneously weak, generals are stupid, soldiers are brave helpless victims and war poets -- war poets are the latter-day saints made flesh."
Hart, the oral historian at the Imperial War Museum in London, offers a different perspective in "The Somme." While not flinching from the horrors of trench warfare, he argues that the carnage was hardly senseless. In his view, attempts by Winston Churchill and other strategists to find a shortcut to winning the war were fundamentally flawed. The soldiers dispatched to Gallipoli, Salonika and Mesopotamia would have been better employed, he believes, in battering German defenses on the Western Front -- the only place where the kaiser could have been defeated.
Even more daringly, he comes to the defense of Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force, who has usually been depicted as an unimaginative, uncaring idiot who sent the flower of British youth to an early grave for no good reason. Hart argues that even though Haig made plenty of tactical mistakes, "the broad thrust of Haig's strategy in 1916 was probably correct. . . . Haig's way was excruciatingly painful, but it was the only realistic way at the time.... Read more ›
"The Monstrous Anger of the Guns. By MAX BOOT. Published: January 2, 2009. For most of us today, the bloodlettings of World War I are refracted through the despairing work of Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and other soldier-writers. As Peter Hart notes, the contemporary view of the Somme "can be brutally summarized in just five words: `the pity of it all.' Politicians are portrayed as Machiavellian, but simultaneously weak, generals are stupid, soldiers are brave helpless victims and war poets -- war poets are the latter-day saints made flesh."
Hart, the oral historian at the Imperial War Museum in London, offers a different perspective in "The Somme." While not flinching from the horrors of trench warfare, he argues that the carnage was hardly senseless. In his view, attempts by Winston Churchill and other strategists to find a shortcut to winning the war were fundamentally flawed. The soldiers dispatched to Gallipoli, Salonika and Mesopotamia would have been better employed, he believes, in battering German defenses on the Western Front -- the only place where the kaiser could have been defeated.
Even more daringly, he comes to the defense of Douglas Haig, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force, who has usually been depicted as an unimaginative, uncaring idiot who sent the flower of British youth to an early grave for no good reason. Hart argues that even though Haig made plenty of tactical mistakes, "the broad thrust of Haig's strategy in 1916 was probably correct. . . . Haig's way was excruciatingly painful, but it was the only realistic way at the time.... Read more ›
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The best book on this battle i have ever read,my great uncle was wounded on the Somme living in pain for the rest of his life, Peter Harts book is like Richard Houghs book on the R.N.during world war two, read and weep. The brave French soldiers are included,brutal acts not brushed over. Explained for me at least is how the high command tried to break the deadlock in near impossible conditions against one tough enemy and after the war poor old Haig having to contend with all those articulate types like Lloyd George writing memoirs in the nothing to do with me guv style. A truly brilliant book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lest we forget
I have read quite a few accounts of the First World War and the Somme and this must be one of the best. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Mr Stephen Southwell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Read
As described, paperback, easy to read, very interesting,informative and extremely moving accounts, pictures of quality, would definitely recommend this book.
Published 11 months ago by A. J. Greenfield
5.0 out of 5 stars
A masterly evocation via real voices from the past
The size of Peter Hart's book may be off-putting for some, but once opened, it becomes an intimate companion. I felt so close to those at first uncomprehending, soldiers. Read more
Published on 14 Nov 2008 by James A. Hicken
5.0 out of 5 stars
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. Read more
Published on 3 Oct 2008 by Bookworm
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