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Herosim and Horror in the First World War
Henry Holt
July 2006
On Sale: July 1, 2006
352 pages ISBN: 0805081275 EAN: 9780805081275 Hardcover
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Historical
From one of our most distinguished historians, an
authoritative and vivid account of the devastating World War
I 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 fifteen-mile-long territory along the river
would erupt into the epicenter of the Great War. The Somme
would mark a turning point in both the war and military
history, as soldiers saw the first appearance of tanks on
the battlefield, the emergence of the air war as a
devastating and decisive factor in battle, and more than one
million casualties (among them a young Adolf Hitler, who
took a fragment in the leg). In just 138 days, 310,000 men died. In this vivid, deeply researched account of one history's
most destructive battles, historian Martin Gilbert tracks
the Battle of the Somme through the experiences of
footsoldiers (known to the British as the PBI, for Poor
Bloody Infantry), generals, and everyone in between.
Interwoven with photographs, journal entries, original maps,
and documents from every stage and level of planning, THE
SOMME is the most authoritative and affecting account of
this bloody turning point in the Great War.
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