Walking the Somme

Walking the Somme PDF Author: Paul Reed
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1848844735
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This new edition of Paul Reed's classic book Walking the Somme is an essential traveling companion for anyone visiting the Somme battlefields of 1916. His book, first published over ten years ago, is the result of a lifetime's research into the battle and the landscape over which it was fought. From Gommecourt, Serre, Beaumont-Hamel and Thiepval to Montauban, High Wood, Delville Wood and Flers, he guides the walker across the major sites associated with the fighting. These are now features of the peaceful Somme countryside. In total there are 16 walks, including a new one tracing the operations around Mametz Wood, and all the original walks have been fully revised and brought up to date. Walking the Somme brings the visitor not only to the places where the armies clashed but to the landscape of monuments, cemeteries and villages that make the Somme battlefield so moving to explore.

Walking the Somme

Walking the Somme PDF Author: Paul Reed
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1848844735
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book Here

Book Description
This new edition of Paul Reed's classic book Walking the Somme is an essential traveling companion for anyone visiting the Somme battlefields of 1916. His book, first published over ten years ago, is the result of a lifetime's research into the battle and the landscape over which it was fought. From Gommecourt, Serre, Beaumont-Hamel and Thiepval to Montauban, High Wood, Delville Wood and Flers, he guides the walker across the major sites associated with the fighting. These are now features of the peaceful Somme countryside. In total there are 16 walks, including a new one tracing the operations around Mametz Wood, and all the original walks have been fully revised and brought up to date. Walking the Somme brings the visitor not only to the places where the armies clashed but to the landscape of monuments, cemeteries and villages that make the Somme battlefield so moving to explore.

The First Day on the Somme

The First Day on the Somme PDF Author: Martin Middlebrook
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473814243
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
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)

The Missing of the Somme

The Missing of the Somme PDF Author: Geoff Dyer
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307743233
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
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.

The Middlebrook Guide to the Somme Battlefields

The Middlebrook Guide to the Somme Battlefields PDF Author: Martin Middlebrook
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1783460490
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 623

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Book Description
While best known as being the scene of the most terrible carnage in the WW1 the French department of the Somme has seen many other battles from Roman times to 1944. William the Conqueror launched his invasion from there; the French and English fought at Crecy in 1346; Henry Vs army marched through on their way to Agincourt in 1415; the Prussians came in 1870.The Great War saw three great battles and approximately half of the 400,000 who died on the Somme were British a terrible harvest, marked by 242 British cemeteries and over 50,000 lie in unmarked graves. These statistics explain in part why the area is visited year-on-year by ever increasing numbers of British and Commonwealth citizens. This evocative book written by the authors of the iconic First Day on the Somme is a thorough guide to the cemeteries, memorials and battlefields of the area, with the emphasis on the fighting of 1916 and 1918, with fascinating descriptions and anecdotes.

Shadows of the Somme

Shadows of the Somme PDF Author: Paul Coffey
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781517066772
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
'He looked up at the sky, crystal blue and cloudless ... he closed his eyes, put the whistle to his lips and blew.' The first of July 1916 and in the French countryside tens of thousands of doomed British soldiers are being killed and wounded as the bloody Battle of the Somme begins. Captain Edward Harris, vainly encouraging his men over the top and headlong into the murderous German machine guns, is badly wounded. Crawling to a shell hole for cover, he lies helpless as the carnage continues around him. October 2015 and Tom Harris has no interest in the First World War. For him it's a conflict from another age. But during a visit to the battlefields he becomes fascinated by a headstone in a British war cemetery showing his namesake. Desperate to learn more Tom begins to delve into the past where he discovers ordinary men consumed by extraordinary times. And in doing so he unearths a remarkable and moving story of loss, despair, hope and redemption.

Somme

Somme PDF Author: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674545192
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 680

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Book Description
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.

The Somme

The Somme PDF Author: Robin Prior
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300220286
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
"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.

The Somme

The Somme PDF Author: Richard van Emden
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1473855225
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
The epic and brutal WWI battle is vividly recounted through the words and photos of the soldiers who lived through it. One of the most famous battles of the Great War, the offensive on the Somme took place in 1916, from July and November. It was there that Kitcheners famous Pals Battalions were first sent into action en masse. It was a battlefield where many of the dreams and aspirations of a nation, hopeful of victory, were agonizingly dashed. Because of its legendary status, the Battle of the Somme has been the subject of many books. Yet this volume is the first of its kind, in which the soldiers’ own stories and photographs are used to illustrate both the campaign's extraordinary comradeship and its carnage.

Walking Gallipoli

Walking Gallipoli PDF Author: Stephen Chambers
Publisher: Battleground Gallipoli
ISBN: 9781473825642
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Gallipoli was a First World War tragedy, a side show that had ambitious hopes to end the war early. Despite the immense gallantry displayed by those fighting, from the beginning, this grand scale 1915 operation was plagued with mismanagement; failure in high places that betrayed the heroism in the field. Though a noble disaster with casualties of over half a million, those who visit Gallipoli today owe it to those who served and died a conscious effort to see beyond the heartbreak and futility, to appreciate the what, the how and the why. There is no better way to do this today other than walking the battlefields with this invaluable guide. From the beaches and fields of Helles, to the precipitous heights of Anzac and to the plains of Suvla, this book guides the walker to the key points of the campaign. Infamous names that are synonymous with the fighting are covered; Sedd-el Bahr, Krithia, Achi Baba, The Vineyard, Gully Ravine, Kereviz Dere, Lone Pine, The Nek, Chunuk Bair, Lala Baba, Chocolate Hill, Kidney Hill and Kiretch Tepe. All of these features are set in a haunting scene of beauty and tragedy that still pervades this eastern Mediterranean peninsula. In total there are ten walks, some challenging, others not, with a narrative that helps make sense of it all.

The Somme

The Somme PDF Author: Peter Barton
Publisher: Constable
ISBN: 9781849017190
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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