Download or read book The 1916 Battle of the Somme Reconsidered written by Peter Liddle and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-08-31 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-four years after the publication of his classic study of the Somme, Peter Liddle reconsiders the battle in the light of recent scholarship. The battle still gives rise to fierce debate and, with Passchendaele, it is often seen as the epitome of the tragic folly of the First World War. But is this a reasoned judgement? Peter Liddle, in this authoritative study, re-examines the concept and planning of the operation and follows the course of the action through the entire four and a half months of the fighting. His narrative is based on the graphic testimony of the men engaged in the struggle, not just concentrating on the front-line infantryman but also the gunner, sapper, medical man, airman and yes, the nurse, playing her crucial role behind the line of battle. The reader is privileged in getting a direct insight into how those who were there coped with the extraordinary, often prolonged, stress of the experience and maintained to a remarkable degree a level of morale adequate for what had to be endured.
Download or read book The 1916 Battle of the Somme written by Peter Liddle and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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 Somme Great War 100 Years written by Nigel Cave and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication, SOMME THE BATTLE 100 YEARS ON, has been published by Pen & Sword Books Ltd, with the purpose of creating an awareness and an interest in theSomme battles of 1916. For nearly thirty years, Pen & Sword Books Ltd has published numerous titles covering various Pals battalions formed for the Big Push. They have also been fore-runners in setting up the Battleground Series guides, which are packed with then and now illustrations, using battle maps from the time and road maps of the sites today. They are all specifically designed to take the tourer safely through these now historic sites. Many more books have been written and published by Pen & Sword on the other battles of the First World War. Only a small portion relating to 1 July 1916 has been taken from each book appearing in this publication. Much more information can been gleaned from reading about the events of the Somme battles and the awful aftermath of the day through reading the books mentioned at the end of each extract.These publications would not have been possible without the skill and dedication of our authors who have painstakingly researched and written about the subjects that bring to light these historic events.
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 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 Britain and Victory in the Great War written by Peter Liddle and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2018-06-30 with total page 729 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can we begin to make sense of the Great War now that over 100 years have passed since it ended with the defeat of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman empire and Bulgaria, and the collapse of Tsarist Russia? The conflict had such a profound influence on world history that is it difficult to reconcile the different perspectives and draw clear conclusions. That is why this thought-provoking collection of original essays on the outcome of the war and its aftermath is of such value.It completes the trilogy of ground-breaking volumes conceived and edited by Peter Liddle which presents the latest scholarly thinking about the Great War from an international perspective. The first two volumes Britain Goes to War and Britain and the Widening War made this stimulating new writing accessible to a broad readership and this final volume has the same aim.A group of over twenty expert contributors reconsider the military reasons for the outcome of the fighting and look at the consequences for the principal nations involved. They explore the way the war and the peace settlement shaped the twentieth century and had an enduring impact within Europe and beyond.
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 Passchendaele in Perspective written by Peter H. Liddle and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2017-01-30 with total page 737 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Passchendaele In Perspective explores the context and real nature of the participants experience, evaluates British and German High Command, the aerial and maritime dimensions of the battle, the politicians and manpower debates on the home front and it looks at the tactics employed, the weapons and equipment used, the experience of the British; German and indeed French soldiers. It looks thoroughly into the Commonwealth soldiers contribution and makes an unparalleled attempt to examine together in one volume specialist facets of the battle, the weather, field survey and cartography, discipline and morale, and the cultural and social legacy of the battle, in art, literature and commemoration. Each one of its thirty chapters presents a thought-provoking angle on the subject.They add up to an unique analysis of the battle from Commonwealth, American, German, French, Belgian and United Kingdom historians. This book will undoubtedly become a valued work of reference for all those with an interest in World War One.
Download or read book The Battle of the Somme written by Stewart Ross and published by Heinemann-Raintree Library. This book was released on 2004 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, which cost the Allies fifty-eight thousand troops on the first day of fighting; and provides a short account of the Second Battle of the Somme in 1918.
Download or read book The Battle of the Somme Classic Reprint written by John Masefield and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-10-27 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Battle of the Somme A moment before the whistles blew, in the morning of July 1, 1916, when the Battle of the Somme began, the No Man's Land, into which our men advanced, was a strip of earth without life, made smoky, dusty, and dim by explosions which came out of the air upon it, and left black, curling, slowly fading, dust and smoke-devils behind them. Into this smoke and dust and dimness, made intenser by the stillness of the blue summer morning, came suddenly the run of many thousands of men at the point of death. Not less than twenty thousand men clambered up the parapet at that instant. They tripped and tore through the wire, already in lanes, and went on to their fronts, into the darkness of death, cheering each other with cries that could be heard above the roaring and the crashing of the battle. On the instant, before all the men were out of the trenches. 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 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 At the Eleventh Hour written by Hugh Cecil and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 1998-08-12 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following on from the highly acclaimed Facing Armageddon and Passchendaele in Perspective, At the Eleventh Hour recognises that a world was ending in November 1918, and by international collaboration on the 80th Anniversary we learn through this book, what it was like to experience the transition from war to peace. Distinguished historians brilliantly convey a sense of immediacy as the Armistice is recreated and analysed. The reader will not just acquire new areas of information, he will have some of the existing knowledge which he thought was soundly held, strikingly challenged in the pages of this superbly illustrated book.
Download or read book The Battle Of The Somme The Second Phase Illustrated Edition written by Colonel John Buchan and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2012-04-12 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than any other battle of the First World War, the battle of the Somme remains as the abiding memory of the appalling conditions, suffering and death of British manhood in the public consciousness. As the guns stopped their bombardment on the 1st of July, the waves of Allied troops walked toward the often still intact German lines. More than a million men in total would be killed, wounded or captured on both sides before the fighting subsided in November. Colonel Buchan wrote his volume study of the battle from an enviable position as a high ranking intelligence officer, having access to much of the detail from the allied side of the offensive. One of the finest British authors of the age, he also wrote copious numbers of books on the First World War, of particular note the 24 volume ‘Nelson’s” history. Author — Colonel Buchan, John, (Later Lord Tweedsmuir) 1875-1940. Text taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in London, T. Nelson and sons, ltd. 1916. Original Page Count – 108 pages. Illustrations — numerous illustrations and plates.
Download or read book The Somme written by Gary Sheffield and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2015-10-08 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 1 July 1916, after a stupendous seven-day artillery preparation, the British Army finally launched its attack on the German line around the River Somme. Over the next four and half months they continued to attack, with little or no gain, and with horrendous losses to both sides. This book, written by the world's foremost expert in the subject, describes in chilling detail everything from the grand strategy to the experience of the men on the ground. Illustrated throughout, it is a stunning and absorbing depiction of the horror that was the Somme in 1916.
Download or read book Somme written by Hugh Sebag-Montefiore and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2017-12-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No conflict better encapsulates all that went wrong on the Western Front than the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The tragic loss of life and stoic endurance by troops who walked towards their death is an iconic image which will be hard to ignore during the centennial year. Despite this, this book shows the extent to which the Allied armies were in fact able repeatedly to break through the German front lines. By focusing on the first-hand experiences of both Allied and enemy soldiers, the author weaves a remarkable portrait of life at the Front.
