Download or read book Ghosts on the Somme written by Alastair H. Fraser and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2009-04-19 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Battle of the Somme is one of the most famous, and earliest, films of war ever made. The film records the most disastrous day in the history of the British army—1 July 1916—and it had a huge impact when it was shown in Britain during the war. Since then images from it have been repeated so often in books and documentaries that it has profoundly influenced our view of the battle and of the Great War itself. Yet this book is the first in-depth study of this historic film, and it is the first to relate it to the surviving battleground of the Somme.The authors explore the film and its history in fascinating detail. They investigate how much of it was faked and consider how much credit for it should go to Geoffrey Malins and how much to John MacDowell. And they use modern photographs of the locations to give us a telling insight into the landscape of the battle and into the way in which this pioneering film was created.Their analysis of scenes in the film tells us so much about the way the British army operated in June and July 1916—how the troops were dressed and equipped, how they were armed and how their weapons were used. In some cases it is even possible to discover what they were saying. This painstaking exercise in historical reconstruction will be compelling reading for everyone who is interested in the Great War and the Battle of the Somme.

Download or read book The 1916 Battle of the Somme written by Peter Liddle and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not restricted to the view of the front-line infantryman, this text also describes the experiences of the gunner, sapper, airman, medical officer, and nursing sister. The author explains how the Somme became scorched into the nation's heritage and into its historical consciousness, but with a distortion produced by a literary legacy as regrettable as it is understandable.

Download or read book The Battles of the Somme Classic Reprint written by Philip Gibbs and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-10-13 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Battles of the Somme IN this book I have put together the articles which I have written day by day for more than three months, Since that first day of July 1916 when hundreds of thousands of British troops rose out of the ditches held against the enemy for nearly two years of trench warfare, advanced over open country upon the most formidable system of defences ever organized by great armies, and began a series of battles as fierce and bloody as anything the Old earth has seen on such a stretch of ground since the beginning of human strife. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Download or read book The Somme written by Robin Prior and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Despite superior air and artillery power, British soldiers died in catastrophic numbers at the Battle of Somme in 1916. What went wrong, and who was responsible? This book meticulously reconstructs the battle, assigns responsibility to military and political leaders, and changes forever the way we understand this encounter and the history of the Western Front"--Publisher description.

Download or read book The First Day on the Somme written by Martin Middlebrook and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2006-05-25 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A history of the British Army’s experience at the Battle of the Somme in France during World War I. After an immense but useless bombardment, at 7:30 AM on July 1, 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, July 1, 1916, was the blackest day in the history of the British Army. But, more than that, as Lloyd George recognized, 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. 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 that it was for front-line soldiers. Praise for The First Day on the Somme “The soldiers receive the best service a historian can provide: their story is told in their own words.” —The Guardian (UK)

Download or read book The Battle of the Somme written by Alan Axelrod and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-10-03 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fought during 1916, the Battle of the Somme was conceived by the French and British as a great offensive to be waged against Germany even as France poured incredible numbers of men into the slaughterhouse that was the desperate defense of Verdun. The French general-in-chief, Joseph “Papa” Joffre, was especially anxious to go on the offensive. For the French high command cherished the belief, born in the era of Napoleon, that the success of French arms depended on attack and that defense was anathema to what the nationalistic philosopher Henri Bergson called the “élan vital” of the French people, a quality, he argued, that set the Gallic race apart from the rest of the world. After more than five months, the British eked out a penetration of some six miles into German territory. The cost had been 420,000 Britons killed or wounded (70,000 men per mile gained)—and most of these were from “Kitchener’s Army,” so-called Pals Battalions, working- and middle-class volunteers promised that they could fight alongside their friends, co-workers, and neighbors. This meant that the Somme, more than any other battle before or since, devastated the young male population of entire British towns, villages, and neighborhoods. French losses were just under 200,000. The Germans lost at least 650,000. Just as the French refused to give up ground at Verdun, the Germans held on stubbornly at the Somme—so stubbornly that General Ludendorff actually complained that his men “fought too doggedly, clinging too resolutely to the mere holding of ground, with the result that the losses were heavy.” The only thing “conclusive” about the Somme was the ineluctable fact of death. No battle ever fought in any conflict provided a stronger incentive for all sides to reach a negotiated peace—the “peace without victory” that Woodrow Wilson, still standing on the sidelines, urged the combatants to agree upon. Instead, the Kaiser, appalled both by Verdun and the Somme, relieved Falkenhayn and replaced him with Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who had achieved great success on the Eastern Front. The new commanders created two new defensive lines, both well behind the Somme front. On the one hand, it was a retreat. On the other, it was a commitment to draw the French and British farther east and invite them to sacrifice more of their soldiery. The modest advance the British made was but the prelude to additional slaughter.

Download or read book The Battle of the Somme written by John Masefield and published by Legare Street Press. This book was released on 2022-10-27 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Download or read book The Battle of the Somme Classic Reprint written by John Masefield and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-06 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Battle of the Somme I have been asked to write a few words of preface to this little book While I was in France, in the late summer and autumn of 1916, it was suggested that I should write a History of the Battle of the Somme, then in its second stage or act. In discussing the plan of the book, it was decided that I should begin with some account of the attacks upon Verdun (which the Battle of the Somme ended), and end with the taking of Bapaume, then hoped for, but not expected to happen at once. In order that I might write with full knowledge, some arrangements were planned, by which I could go again to Verdun, to visit some positions which I had not seen. It was made possible for me to go to the Somme, certain introductions were given to me, and I was formally requested to write the History. After some delay, I was permitted to go again to the Somme battlefield, and to live on or near it for those months of 1917 when our Armies were advancing in all that area. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Download or read book The Somme written by Peter Barton and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents the story of the Somme, showing in panoramas how the Allied high command miscalculated the opening move, and the untold story of the unused saps. This book records the machine gun emplacements in the German lines, guns optimistically meant to have been taken out by an earlier creeping barrage of artillery fire.

Download or read book The Somme written by Peter Barton and published by Constable. This book was released on 2011-02-24 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Barton's landmark volume presents over 50 original panoramas of the battlegrounds of the Somme. They show what no other photographs can: the view from the trench parapet, and a great deal more. This revised edition also includes stunning new details of the use and misuse of an extraordinary network of 'Russian Saps' installed during the two months prior to battle. These tunnels beneath no man's land often brought the British - unseen - to within 10 metres of the German trenches, yet over-secrecy and poor communication led to most being left unexploited. In the sectors where they were employed, success was dramatic. Plus a host of previously unpublished personal testimony, and a fresh look at several unseen and forgotten aspects of the battle such as the Royal Engineers' Push Pipes, Bored Mines and huge Livens Flame Projectors. Here is the Somme as you have never seen it before. Praise for The Battlefields of the First World War: 'An extraordinary set of panoramic photographs that reveal the battlefields of the Western Front as never before.' The Times 'Astonishing ... made my heart sigh.' Independent 'Without doubt the best publication on the Great War in many years ... a superb piece of work.' Western Front Association

Download or read book The Missing of the Somme written by Geoff Dyer and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-08-09 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Missing of the Somme is part travelogue, part meditation on remembrance—and completely, unabashedly, unlike any other book about the First World War. Through visits to battlefields and memorials, Geoff Dyer examines the way that photographs and film, poetry and prose determined—sometimes in advance of the events described—the way we would think about and remember the war. With his characteristic originality and insight, Dyer untangles and reconstructs the network of myth and memory that illuminates our understanding of, and relationship to, the Great War.

Download or read book Three Armies on the Somme written by William Philpott and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-10-05 with total page 657 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, the Battle of the Somme has exemplified the horrors and futility of trench warfare. Yet in Three Armies on the Somme, William Philpott makes a convincing argument that the battle ultimately gave the British and French forces on the Western Front the knowledge and experience to bring World War I to a victorious end. It was the most brutal fight in a war that scarred generations. Infantrymen lined up opposite massed artillery and machine guns. Chlorine gas filled the air. The dead and dying littered the shattered earth of no man’s land. Survivors were rattled with shell-shock. We remember the shedding of so much young blood and condemn the generals who sent their men to their deaths. Ever since, the Somme has been seen as a waste: even as the war continued, respected leaders—Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George among them—judged the battle a pointless one. While previous histories have documented the missteps of British command, no account has fully recognized the fact that allied generals were witnessing the spontaneous evolution of warfare even as they sent their troops “over the top.” With his keen insight and vast knowledge of military strategy, Philpott shows that twentieth-century war as we know it simply didn’t exist before the Battle of the Somme: new technologies like the armored tank made their battlefield debut, while developments in communications lagged behind commanders’ needs. Attrition emerged as the only means of defeating industrialized belligerents that were mobilizing all their resources for war. At the Somme, the allied armies acquired the necessary lessons of modern warfare, without which they could never have prevailed. An exciting, indispensable work of military history that challenges our received ideas about the Battle of the Somme, and about the very nature of war.

Download or read book Somme 1916 written by Paul Kendall and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2016-06-28 with total page 720 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What really happened on the first day of the Somme? Much controversy has surrounded the Somme offensive relating to its justification and its impact upon the course of the war. General Sir Douglas Haig's policies have been the subject of considerable debate about whether the heavy losses sustained were worth the small gains that were achieved which appeared to have little strategic value. That was certainly the case on many sectors on 1 July 1916, where British soldiers were unable to cross No Man's Land and failed to reach, or penetrate into, the German trenches. In other sectors, however, breaches were made in the German lines culminating in the capture that day of Leipzig Redoubt, Mametz and Montauban. This book aims to highlight the failures and successes on that day and for the first time evaluate those factors that caused some divisions to succeed in capturing their objectives whilst others failed. An important new study, this book is certain to answer these questions as well as challenging the many myths and misconceptions surrounding the battle that have been propagated for the last 100 years. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Download or read book Somme written by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-15 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of battles as the irreducible building blocks of war demands a single verdict of each campaign—victory, defeat, stalemate. But this kind of accounting leaves no room to record the nuances and twists of actual conflict. In Somme: Into the Breach, the noted military historian Hugh Sebag-Montefiore shows that by turning our focus to stories of the front line—to acts of heroism and moments of both terror and triumph—we can counter, and even change, familiar narratives. Planned as a decisive strike but fought as a bloody battle of attrition, the Battle of the Somme claimed over a million dead or wounded in months of fighting that have long epitomized the tragedy and folly of World War I. Yet by focusing on the first-hand experiences and personal stories of both Allied and enemy soldiers, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore defies the customary framing of incompetent generals and senseless slaughter. In its place, eyewitness accounts relive scenes of extraordinary courage and sacrifice, as soldiers ordered “over the top” ventured into No Man’s Land and enemy trenches, where they met a hail of machine-gun fire, thickets of barbed wire, and exploding shells. Rescuing from history the many forgotten heroes whose bravery has been overlooked, and giving voice to their bereaved relatives at home, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore reveals the Somme campaign in all its glory as well as its misery, helping us to realize that there are many meaningful ways to define a battle when seen through the eyes of those who lived it.

Download or read book Shell Shocked Britain written by Suzie Grogan and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2014-10-31 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We know that millions of soldiers were scarred by their experiences in the First World War trenches, but what happened after they returned home? ??Suzie Grogan reveals the First World War's disturbing legacy for soldiers and their families. How did a nation of broken men, and 'spare' women cope? ??In 1922 the British Parliament published a report into the situation of thousands of 'service patients', or mentally ill ex-soldiers still in hospital. What happened to these men? Were they cured? What treatments were on offer? And what was the reception from their families and society? ??Drawing on a huge mass of original sources, Suzie Grogan answers all those questions, combining individual case studies with a narrative on wider events. Unpublished material from the archives shows the true extent of the trauma experienced by the survivors. This is a fresh perspective on the history of the post-war period, and the plight of a traumatised nation.

Download or read book Testament of Youth written by Vera Brittain and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1994 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An autobiographical account of a young nurse's involvement in World War I

Download or read book Soldier from the Wars Returning written by Charles Carrington and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Soldier from the Wars Returning is one of the truest, most profound and readable personal accounts of the Great War. The author waited nearly fifty years before writing it, and the perspective of history enhances its value. He writes only of the battles in which he participated (including the Somme and Passchendaele), though his comments on affairs beyond his knowledge at the time, through later study and reflection, are pungent and stimulating. Among other topics, he describes the politicians, the generals, Kitchener's Army, Hore-Belisha, German gas attacks, Picardy, dug-outs, tanks, the sex-life of the soldier, scrounging. trench kits and the censoring of letters. The author saw the First World War from below, as a fighting soldier in a line regiment. In the Second World War he served as a staff officer liaising between the Army and the RAF; serving two tours at RAF Bomber Command HQ at High Wycombe. This equipped him to draw forthright comparisons between the conduct of the two wars.