Published to coincide with the commemoration of the centenary of the battle of the Somme, this new study comprises twelve separate articles written by some of the foremost military historians, each of which looks at a specific aspect of the battle. Focusing on key aspects of the British, French, and German forces, overall strategic and tactical impacts of the battle and with an introduction by renowned World War I scholar Professor Sir Hew Strachan, The Battle of the Somme is a timely collection of the latest research and analysis of the battle.
The terrors of the Somme have largely come to embody trench warfare on the Western Front in modern imagination, but this new book looks beyond the horrendous conditions and staggering casualty rates to provide new, insightful research on one of the most pivotal battles of the war.
Hew Strachan is Chichele Professor of the History of War at the University of Oxford, UK
Dr Matthias Strohn FRHistS was educated at the universities of Münster (Germany) and Oxford. He has lectured at Oxford University and the German Staff College (Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr).
From 2006 until 2016 he worked as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of War Studies at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is currently on secondment to the British Army's think tank, the Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research in Camberley. In addition, he is a Reader at the Humanities Research Centre at the University of Buckingham where he works in the areas of Military History and War Studies. He holds a commission in the German Army and is a member of the military attaché reserve, having served on the defence attaché staffs in London, Paris, and Madrid. He has published widely on 20th-century German and European military history and is an expert on the German Army in World War I and the inter-war period. He has advised British and German government bodies on the World War I centenary commemorations.