First Day on the Somme - Hardcover

Middlebrook, Martin

4.3

1,149 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0850529433 ISBN 13: 9780850529432

Publisher: Pen and Sword, 2003

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After an immense but useless bombardment, at 7.30 am. On 1 July 1916 the British Army went over the top and attacked the German trenches. It was the first day of the battle of the Somme, and on that day the British suffered nearly 60,000 casualties, two for every yard of their front. With more than fifty times the daily losses at El Alamein and fifteen times the British casualties on D-day, 1 July 1916 was the blackest day in the history of the British Army. But, more than that, it was a watershed in the history of the First World War. The Army that attacked on that day was the volunteer Army that had answered Kitchener's call. It had gone into action confident of a decisive victory. But by sunset on the first day on the Somme, no one could any longer think of a war that might be won. After that it was a struggle that had simply to be endured.

Martin Middlebrook's research has covered not just official and regimental histories and tours of the battlefields, but interviews with hundreds of survivors, both British and German. As to the action itself, he conveys the overall strategic view and the terrifying reality of an new kind of war for front-line soldiers.

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From the Publisher:

On the morning of July 1, 1916, a continuous line of British soldiers climbed out of their trenches and began to walk slowly towards the German lines. Many of them believed that the enemy positions had already been destroyed in the previous artillery bombardment. By the end of the day, the British had suffered 60,000 casualties—one for every eighteen inches of the front. Eminent military historian Martin Middlebrook has drawn on official sources, local newspapers, autobiographies, novels, and poems to write this book and, above all, on the recollections of hundreds of survivors who contribute to a brilliant, horrifying, and intensely moving portrait of war on the front line.

About the Author:

Martin Middlebrook is a Lincoln shire farmer and lives in Boston. In 1967, while on a visit to France and Belgium, he was so impressed by the military cemeteries on the 1914-1918 battlefields that he decided to write a book about the soldiers of the First World War. This book, The First Day of the Somme, was published by Allen Lane in 1971 and was widely acclaimed both in this country and the United States. His second work the Nuremberg Raid, a disastrous nigh for the RAF Bomber Command, followed ad this was also published in Germany. Convoy, published in 1976, completed the trilogy on the theme of the part played by the ordinary men of the three armed services in two world wars.

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