The Somme: Herosim and Horror in the First World War

One of our most distinguished historians delivers an authoritative and vivid account of the devastating WWI battle that claimed more than 300,000 lives.

At 7:30 am on July 1, 1916, the first Allied soldiers climbed out of their trenches along the Somme River in France and charged out into no-man's-land toward the barbed wire and machine guns at the German front lines.

By the end of this first day of the Allied attack, the British army alone would lose 20,000 men; in the coming months, the f...