Book
Zero Hour
First published 2019
Late June 1916. After months of preparation, the British bombardment on the Somme announces an offensive whose scale is obvious to the German defenders even if its exact timing is not. General Franz von Soden watches the preparations from the German side while British soldiers wait in trenches that have become temporary homes before the order to cross no man’s land.
The approach to 1 July is seen through real participants whose work records as well as shapes the battle: cameraman Geoffrey Malins prepares his cinematograph, William Noel Hodgson writes poetry, Siegfried Sassoon observes the war around him and Douglas Haig directs the offensive from headquarters. By bringing command, art, documentation and private anticipation together, the novel reconstructs the hours before the most destructive day in British military history.
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