Somme: the Battle 90 Years On: The Battle Ninety Years On

by JonWilkinson (Editor)

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $3.29

  July 1st 1916 saw a campaign that devastated the lives of thousands of many young men, many under age, serving under the British Empire. It was a day chosen to begin what had been called the 'Big Push', a desperate attempt to overwhelm the German Front Line and bring an end to a two year long stalemate on the Western Front. It has become hard to believe that we have reached the ninetieth anniversary of the Somme battle. For many, accounts of that day would have been passed on to them by their fathers or grandfathers but as the years have moved on the veterans have faded and now their stories can only be told in written accounts. The Battle of the Somme has become tightly woven into the memory of the British nation and stands as a testimony to the conflict which took the lives of thousands of working class men. Towns, cities and even villages, bear some sort of memorial of remembrance to a sacrificed youth, drawn from it's own communities. A soldier on the battlefield, shrouded in fog and confusion, can only relate what happened in one corner of a very large picture, it may be a disjointed account of events, but it then takes a military historian to study the events and piece together using various sources from all sides to clarify the facts. This publication SOMME: THE BATTLEFIELD NINETY YEARS ON has been designed to ressurect an interest in the events leading up to the Somme battle and re-introduce old and current books covering this topic in depth. Various well known military authors have painstakingly researched the events and studied not only the politics of the day but also the young men who answered the call to join Kitchener's Army. Some have supplied detailed accounts taken from reports and have then constructed a tour which will take the reader onto the battlefields and help them retrace the movement of battle. Their books have been supported by photographs of the fields taken then and now and then backed up with maps and diagrams to take the reader step by step over the killing grounds, much of which have become tranquil farm land and meadows.