Attack on the Somme

by Richard Woodman Book 3 in the Campaign Chronicles series.

First published 2006

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3.7(21)

The Battle of the Somme is examined through the experience of the British forces that attacked from July 1916 and then fought for months over a relatively narrow stretch of the Western Front. Rather than treating the campaign only as a symbol of futile slaughter, the book considers what the army was trying to achieve and how its methods changed during the fighting.

Eyewitness testimony is combined with analysis of weapons, tactics and battlefield organisation to reassess familiar assumptions about the offensive. Particular attention is given to the relationship between artillery, infantry and new technologies, and to the lessons the British Army drew from the enormous casualties and limited territorial gains of 1916.