The Somme

One of our most distinguished historians delivers an authoritative and vivid account of the devastating WWI battle that claimed more than 300000 lives.At 7:30 am on July 1 1916 the first Allied soldiers climbed out of their trenches along the Somme River in France and charged out into no-man''s-land toward the barbed wire and machine guns at the German front lines.By the end of this first day of the Allied attack the British army alone would lose 20000 men; in the coming months the fifteen-mile-long territory along the river would erupt into the epicenter of the Great War. The Somme would mark a turning point in both the war and military history as soldiers saw the first appearance of tanks on the battlefield the emergence of the air war as a devastating and decisive factor in battle and more than one million casualties (among them a young Adolf Hitler who took a fragment in the leg). In just 138 days 310000 men died this vivid deeply researched account of one history''s most destructive battles historian Martin Gilbert tracks the Battle of the Somme through the experiences of footsoldiers (known to the British as the PBI for Poor Bloody Infantry) generals and everyone in between. Interwoven with photographs journal entries original maps and documents from every stage and level of planning The Somme is the most authoritative and affecting account of this bloody turning point in the Great War.A steadily astonishing piece of work that acts as a worthy remembrance. —New York PostHis superbly written absorbing re-creations of innumerable small life-and-death struggles make this book a fitting commemoration of the tragedy. —Publishers Weekly (starred review)