The Somme: The Darkest Hour on the Western Front

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Somme (Cassette - Abridged) Pub. Date: 6/2/2005 Publisher: Gardners Books

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Overview

On July 1, 1916, the British Army launched the “Big Push” that was supposed to bring an end to the horrific stalemate on the Western Front between British, French, and German forces. What resulted was one of the greatest single human catastrophes in twentieth century warfare. Scrambling out of trenches in the face of German machine guns and artillery fire, the Allied Powers lost over twenty thousand soldiers that first day. This “battle” would drag on for another four bloody months, resulting in over one million causalities among the three powers.

As the oral historian at the Imperial War Museum in London, Peter Hart has brought to light new material never before seen or heard. The Somme is an unparalleled evocation of World War I’s iconic contest—the definitive account of one of the major tragedies of the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

Max Boot

Hart superbly depicts these months of brutal combat in all their complexity.
—The New York Times

Robert Bateman

The book brings to life the men who fought at the Somme in an accurate and precisely detailed history of one of the most gut-wrenchingly obscene desecrations of humanity our species ever perpetrated upon itself…As director and oral historian of the British Imperial War Museum in London, Hart is uniquely positioned to do justice to the British participants in the battle. A talented historian, he succeeds in that most important element of history, storytelling.
—The Washington Post

More Reviews (3) Fewer Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Hart is the current master of an approach to military history developed by Martin Middlebrook and Lyn Macdonald. Direct quotations from participants establish "the face of battle," then combined with a narrative/analytical backdrop contextualizing the personal experiences. As oral historian of Britain's Imperial War Museum, Hart has unrivaled access to relevant sources. This book, published in Britain in 2005, is a masterful synthesis of the human and the operational aspects of a campaign that increasingly defines the British experience in the Great War. Hart vividly presents the runup to the "Big Push" expected to end the war; the disaster of July 1, 1916, when the British army suffered nearly 60,000 casualties; and the numbing months of attrition as British troops bled against the German defenses. Hart describes the horror as reflecting not the stupidity of individual generals and politicians but the determination of nations to resolve their differences by a war fought to the finish. The British army learned how to fight battles like the Somme, built around fire power. But its learning curve was slippery with blood. Hart honors the men who paid the price. Photos, maps. (Jan. 7)

Library Journal

From the oral historian at the Imperial War Museum, London, this is an exceptional account of the Somme offensive. Hart (Bloody April) has mined the museum's Somme veteran interviews to evoke the horrors of combat on the western front, skillfully blending these personal accounts with strategic considerations of a battle that slaughtered nearly a million French, German, and British soldiers. On July 1, 1916, British Field Marshal Douglas Haig hurled 400,000 ill-prepared troops into a German meat grinder that devoured 15,270 soldiers before the sun set. For the next four months, Haig continued to pound against the German trench line. Repeatedly, British assault troops were pinned down by German machinegun fire, hammered by artillery barrages, and pounced upon by German counterattacks. While the British tried such tactical innovations as the creeping artillery barrage, aerial observation, tanks, and underground mines, they have been justifiably condemned for continually launching doomed frontal assaults. Hart maintains that Haig had little choice. His French allies insisted that the British become more involved in western front operations and relieve pressure on the Verdun front, where the French were suffering horrendous losses. Although the British offensive did provide some relief for the hard-pressed French, the butcher's bill was staggering: 419,634 British casualties and the war was to go on for nearly two more bloody years. Libraries with Martin Gilbert's popular account of that fateful campaign may bypass this more in-depth book, but any library maintaining a solid World War I collection should have this masterful work as well. Military history at its best.
—JimDoyle

Kirkus Reviews

Comprehensive study of the battle of 1916 that would kill and wound a million combatants. Since the 1960s, writes Hart, director and oral historian of London's Imperial War Museum, the Battle of the Somme has solidified in the popular imagination as a byword for senseless trench warfare commanded by generals who thought nothing of sacrificing soldiers by the battalion. There is truth in that view, but a "more sympathetic perspective" allows that the British commanders, particularly Sir Douglas Haig, believed that war by attrition was the only way they could wear down the huge German army on the Western Front. That soldiers were arrayed in trenches thousands of miles long was an outgrowth, Hart observes, of the British government's abandonment of a strategy that many imperial servants would have preferred, namely to keep to the high seas and prey on German shipping and German colonies, avoiding at any cost a continental land war. Couple that with Haig's view that any decision was better than no decision and any action better than inaction, as well as his recognition that defeating Germany was a matter of steadily improving the Allied position, and carnage was bound to ensue. It certainly did. On the first day of the battle, Haig's forces suffered 54,470 casualties, "the worst disaster ever to have befallen the British Army in its entire history." The battle saw numerous innovations, including the first-albeit ineffective-use of tanks and a regime of walking artillery fire that left the fields of France full of metal that is still grinding plows today. Remarked a British soldier of one particularly savage corner of the fighting, "I wonder what the people at home who say, ‘We will fight toour last drop of blood!' would think if they were taken up that trench. For 500 yards it is paved with English dead." Yet the war would continue for almost two more years, with millions of dead to follow. An eye-opening study, in keeping with the best of John Keegan, S.L.A. Marshall and B.H. Liddell Hart.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781605980164
Publisher: Pegasus
Publication date: 1/5/2009
Pages: 624
Sales rank: 524,972
Product dimensions: 6.30 (w) x 9.10 (h) x 1.80 (d)

Meet the Author

Peter Hart studied at Liverpool University before becoming a director at the Imperial War Museum in London. As the museum's Oral Historian, he works frequently with war veterans recording their wartime experiences.

Preface 11

1 The Rocky Road 15

2 Armies and Weapons 38

3 Moving On Up 57

4 1 July 1916 109

5 The Morning After 211

6 Creeping Forward 222

7 Stumbling to Disaster 283

8 From Bad to Worse 323

9 You are not Alone 346

10 When Push Comes to Shove 361

11 Hammering On 408

12 October Attrition 443

13 Last Shake on the Ancre 483

14 Assessment 528

Acknowledgements 535

Appendix A Life in the Trenches 538

Appendix B British Orders of Battle 549

Appendix C German Orders of Battle 561

Notes to the Text 564

Index 576

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Anonymous

Posted May 7, 2012

Hart's style of writing Military History is well paced and conci

Hart's style of writing Military History is well paced and concise. Not at all a dull read as some Historical books can be. I intend to buy another of his books when I complete "The Somme".
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Anonymous

Posted September 4, 2009

Different take on the Somme

Generally a good read with a different approach to the battle. I would have preferred some additional background to the events discussed but this clearly was not the intent of the book. My only major complaint would be the maps: Some maps show the front at various stages in different shades of grey which was unreadable in my copy. The text was also frequently refers to skimishes and events at various named locations but the names are rarely included on the maps.
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OrionIFT

Posted July 18, 2009

more from this reviewer

I Also Recommend:

A MUST Read for ALL military historians (armchair or otherwise)

This book took me a Cold War veteran and veteran of both Gulf I and Gulf II into the treanches. I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. HArt's use of personal interviews and documents from the Imperial War Museum to let those who were there tell the tale. This gives a flavor that many other historians miss.
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Anonymous

Posted November 10, 2011

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Posted April 11, 2009

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