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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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Wonderfully written, marvellously read, my 4 stars reflect the difficulty of following this in audio, a written version, or, even better, a video presenation, could have superimposed maps.
Today, General Blair apologises for Iraq, plus ca change.........

Grim reminder of War's barbarity

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What a brilliant book, the accounts from those who fought and those who died are brilliantly used to illustrate the points made. Highly highly recommended.

Fantastic account.

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Combines deep research with a balanced respect for all combatants. Not only uses appropriate voice actors for regional/international participants but recordings of veterans interviews. Poignant and effective

Utterly Brilliant

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well presented and structured. with the voices of the veterans it really brings it home..

Somme. Peter Hart

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This facinating account of the Battle of the Somme had me totally absorbed from the first moment. Although Tim Piggott-Smith is an inspired choice as narrator it is, as both Jason and Jonathan point out in their reviews, hearing the actual voices of those who took part in the conflict that makes this a 5 Star recommendation.

Although, as Jonathan also points out, accounts of the numerous battles can lead to some confusion, I found that an internet search for a map of the Somme battlefield helped me greatly understand the (painfully) slow advance the British and Commonwealth forces achieved during the four month campaign. Highly recommended.

The Somme

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