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The Somme

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The Somme

By: Peter Hart
Narrated by: Tim Pigott-Smith
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About this listen

On 1 July 1916, Douglas Haig's army launched the "Big Push" that was supposed finally to bring an 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, 19,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed, 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 four months, leaving the battlefield strewn with the bodies of over a million men, and all for the sake of just a few miles of land.

The Somme has remained a byword for the futility of war ever since. In this major new history of the war, Peter Hart describes how the battle looked from the point of view of those who fought it. Using never-heard-before interviews taken from the Imperial War Museum oral archives this will be a unique audio full of passion, joy, and heart rending stories.

©2005 Peter Hart; (P)2005 Orion Publishing Group Ltd. Military War United Kingdom

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Critic reviews

"[Hart] has produced a remarkably even-handed account....and the first-person accounts he has unearthed are rich in vivid images." ( Sunday Times)
All stars
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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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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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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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