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The Somme

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The Somme

By: Peter Hart, Nigel Steel
Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith
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On 1 July 1916, Dauglas Haig's army launched the 'Big Push' that was supposed finally to bring the end to the stalemate on the Western Front. What happened next was a human catastrophe: scrambling over the top into the face of the German machine guns and artillery fire, almost 20,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed that day alone, and twice as many wounded - the greatest loss in a single day ever sustained by the British Army. The battle did not stop there, however. It dragged on for another 4 months, leaving the battlefield strewn with literally hundreds of thousands of bodies.

The Somme has remained a byword for the futility of war ever since. In this major new history, Peter Hart describes how the battle looked from the point of view of those who fought it. Using never-before-seen eyewitness testimonies, he shows us this epic conflict from all angles. We see what it was like for those who stayed behind in the trenches - the padres, the artillerymen, the doctors. We also see what the battle looked like from the air, as the RFC battled to keep control of the skies above the battlefield.

Read by Tim Pigott-Smith

(p) 2005 Orion Publishing Group©2005 Peter Hart Military War United Kingdom
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Great listen. The storyline was expertly told by the narrator, and the accounts retold by the survivors were placed exactly where they were most useful, and therefore added greatly to the performance and delivery of the narration. The Somme is a sad tragedy, but all the more we should know about it and understand why it happened and learn about the people involved. Highly recommend for anyone wanting to get more involved in WWI history.

Harrowing Story, Told Compellingly

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Brilliantly researched and well balanced account of this ghastly period of history. Well read and very easy to listen to.


Excellent

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