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Somme
2016 is the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme'There was hardly a household in the land', writes Lyn Macdonald, 'there was no trade, occupation, profession or community, which was not represented in the thousands of innocent enthusiasts who made up the ranks of Kitchener's Army before the Battle of the Somme...'The year 1916 was one of the great turning-points in British as the youthful hopes of a generation were crushed in a desperate struggle to survive, and traditional attitudes to authority were destroyed for ever. On paper, few battles have ever been so meticulously planned. Yet while there were good political reasons to launch a joint offensive with a French Army demoralized by huge casualties at Verdun, the raw troops on the ground knew nothing of that. A hundred and fifty thousand were killed in the punishing shellfire, the endless ordeal of attack and counter-attack; twice that number were left maimed or wounded. Here, almost for the first time, Lyn Macdonald lets the men who were there give their own testimony. Their stories are vivid, harrowing, sometimes terrifying - yet shot through with humour, immense courage and an astonishing spirit of resilience.'What the reader will longest remember are the words - heartbroken, blunt, angry - of the men who lived through the bloodbath...a worthy addition to the literature of the Great War...'Daily MailOver the past twenty years Lyn Macdonald has established a popular reputation as an author and historian of the First World War. Her books are based on the accounts of eyewitnesses and survivors, told in their own words, and cast a unique light on the First World War. Most are published by Penguin.
645 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 20, 1983
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About the author
Lyn Macdonald
17 books85 followersOver the course of her career Lyn Macdonald established a popular reputation as an author and historian of the First World War. Her books are They Called It Passchendaele, an account of the Passchendaele campaign in 1917; The Roses of No Man's Land,, a chronicle of the war from the neglected viewpoint of the casualties and the medical teams who struggled to save them; ,Somme, a history of the legendary and horrifying battle that has haunted the minds of succeeding generations; 1914, a vivid account of the first months of the war and winner of the 1987 Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Award; 1914-1918: Voices and Images of the Great War, an illuminating account of the many different aspects of the war; and 1915: The Death of Innocence, a brilliant evocation of the year that saw the terrible losses of Aubers Ridge, Loos, Neuve Chapelle, Ypres and Gallipoli.
Her superb chronicles of popular history were notable for their extensive use of eyewitness and survivor accounts, and she drew on oceans of contemporary letters and diaries as well as capturing the memories of a dwindling supply of veterans. In doing so, she cast a unique light on the experiences of the ordinary ‘Tommy’ in the wider context of the First World War, documenting the innocence of a lost generation and bringing to life the disillusionment, the questioning and the heroism of the men of the British Army. “My intention,” she said, “has been to tune in to the heartbeat of the experience of the people who lived through it.”
Her superb chronicles of popular history were notable for their extensive use of eyewitness and survivor accounts, and she drew on oceans of contemporary letters and diaries as well as capturing the memories of a dwindling supply of veterans. In doing so, she cast a unique light on the experiences of the ordinary ‘Tommy’ in the wider context of the First World War, documenting the innocence of a lost generation and bringing to life the disillusionment, the questioning and the heroism of the men of the British Army. “My intention,” she said, “has been to tune in to the heartbeat of the experience of the people who lived through it.”
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August 17, 2016
When I first read Lyn MacDonald a decade ago, I was less than impressed with her. The book seemed to be a disjointed series of first-hand accounts with very little added in her own hand.
That observation still prohibits a 5-star rating, alltough Peter Hart outdoes MacDonald in undercementing his tape transcripts, but provided you have a little knowledge about the campaign at hand, these pages breathe new life into the names set in the cold tombstones of the CWGC.
With the last Victorian generation has been erased by the passage of time, the centennial commemorations run a risk of distorting its idenitity. We focus on the senseless slaughter of a war that can't be painted in the moral black-and-white shades of WWII and draw parallels between the Belgian refugees trudging the cobblestones of 1914 and the Syrians that wash up on our coasts in 2014. The voices of veterans of the Somme, however, reveal a war in which the horrors of the frontline were alternated with the small leisures of the hinterland. Both personal motives and Realpolitik digested through propaganda lent meaning to the continued conflict. Also, as MacDonald points out in They Called It Passchendaele, theirs was a generation bred to accept , long removed from the spouse of a wounded British officer repatriated wounded from the Falklands who went on the BBC to complain that "her husband didn't join the army to get shot at". This mentality is not without inherent abuse, but it also explains why one survivor (1990) summed up what he had to endure as "I did what I had to do".
MacDonald gives them back their individual faces without turning them into supermen. They hug the earth in mortal fear, are secretly relieved to score a Blighty and more than anything else push through on peer pressure. Some of them are unpleasant men whose mean streak lends them a valuable agressiveness in battle. A few are old enough to have sons fighting alongside them, or to serve as surrogate fathers to their CO's, others are underage virgins. One on leave gets a good thrashing by Mum because he got a tattoo.
As far as MacDonald's contribution is concerned, I find her to be more invaluable than orthodox battle histories while Walking the Somme. She knows how to convey the century-old feeling of dread when you look up at the slopes beneath the Thiepval Memorial from a cornfield, where "the Germans had turned every village into a fortress".
That being said, the tales of the living can't completely lift the weight of the dead. Circling the Lochnagar minecrater there are the Plée brothers, killed in 1914, 1916 and 1918, respectively. Was there a fourth brother left to console their mother over the telegrammes in a real-life Saving Private Ryan avant la lettre ? Learning what the Royal Naval Division was doing there, doesn't distract from the Able Seaman buried at Londsdale at age 19 "by his loving mother" or the number of unknown soldiers that always seems to be out of proportion. A small Somme cemetery is able told everyone I care about in the world wiped out in 10 minutes, and walking those rows I can't help but wonder "how many artists, academics and potential children have we lost ?"
Read The Somme . Then eat your favorite food in the sun, have a cold drink and make love.
That observation still prohibits a 5-star rating, alltough Peter Hart outdoes MacDonald in undercementing his tape transcripts, but provided you have a little knowledge about the campaign at hand, these pages breathe new life into the names set in the cold tombstones of the CWGC.
With the last Victorian generation has been erased by the passage of time, the centennial commemorations run a risk of distorting its idenitity. We focus on the senseless slaughter of a war that can't be painted in the moral black-and-white shades of WWII and draw parallels between the Belgian refugees trudging the cobblestones of 1914 and the Syrians that wash up on our coasts in 2014. The voices of veterans of the Somme, however, reveal a war in which the horrors of the frontline were alternated with the small leisures of the hinterland. Both personal motives and Realpolitik digested through propaganda lent meaning to the continued conflict. Also, as MacDonald points out in They Called It Passchendaele, theirs was a generation bred to accept , long removed from the spouse of a wounded British officer repatriated wounded from the Falklands who went on the BBC to complain that "her husband didn't join the army to get shot at". This mentality is not without inherent abuse, but it also explains why one survivor (1990) summed up what he had to endure as "I did what I had to do".
MacDonald gives them back their individual faces without turning them into supermen. They hug the earth in mortal fear, are secretly relieved to score a Blighty and more than anything else push through on peer pressure. Some of them are unpleasant men whose mean streak lends them a valuable agressiveness in battle. A few are old enough to have sons fighting alongside them, or to serve as surrogate fathers to their CO's, others are underage virgins. One on leave gets a good thrashing by Mum because he got a tattoo.
As far as MacDonald's contribution is concerned, I find her to be more invaluable than orthodox battle histories while Walking the Somme. She knows how to convey the century-old feeling of dread when you look up at the slopes beneath the Thiepval Memorial from a cornfield, where "the Germans had turned every village into a fortress".
That being said, the tales of the living can't completely lift the weight of the dead. Circling the Lochnagar minecrater there are the Plée brothers, killed in 1914, 1916 and 1918, respectively. Was there a fourth brother left to console their mother over the telegrammes in a real-life Saving Private Ryan avant la lettre ? Learning what the Royal Naval Division was doing there, doesn't distract from the Able Seaman buried at Londsdale at age 19 "by his loving mother" or the number of unknown soldiers that always seems to be out of proportion. A small Somme cemetery is able told everyone I care about in the world wiped out in 10 minutes, and walking those rows I can't help but wonder "how many artists, academics and potential children have we lost ?"
Read The Somme . Then eat your favorite food in the sun, have a cold drink and make love.
July 23, 2016
This book ranged from 2 to 5 Stars for me. Two stars because I expected a history of the Somme battle. This is not a history of the Somme campaign, it is a haphazard account of days, conditions, participants, events large and small over a period from July 1, 2016 to November 2016. While roughly chronological, you will get an idea of what happened but I wanted a true battle history.
The book gets five stars for what she brings to you, accounts mostly in the original words of the soldiers who fought, the generals, politicians, civilians, etc. I search for original sources in my history pursuits and she gives it in spades. I marvel at how the basic infantryman, artilleryman, cavalryman, etc survived (or mostly not) and fought in the most horrible conditions imaginable. Macdonald will leave you stunned with what WWI was really like at the front. Or what impact the terrible killing had in unexpected places…
At Abbeville, many miles from the front, the lock gates on the River Somme refused to open and divers sent down to investigate found that they were jammed by the bloated bodies of French soldiers carried along by the current of the river as it flowed through to sea. They had been dead for many weeks.
There are some humorous accounts as soldiers will act up before pending doom. I loved the account of how the homefront thought the boys were singing patriotic, morally uplifting songs on their way to battle. What they were really singing:
If you want to learn about the Somme battle, there are better histories. If you want to get an inkling of what it was like and who fought there, this is your book! 4 Stars
The book gets five stars for what she brings to you, accounts mostly in the original words of the soldiers who fought, the generals, politicians, civilians, etc. I search for original sources in my history pursuits and she gives it in spades. I marvel at how the basic infantryman, artilleryman, cavalryman, etc survived (or mostly not) and fought in the most horrible conditions imaginable. Macdonald will leave you stunned with what WWI was really like at the front. Or what impact the terrible killing had in unexpected places…
At Abbeville, many miles from the front, the lock gates on the River Somme refused to open and divers sent down to investigate found that they were jammed by the bloated bodies of French soldiers carried along by the current of the river as it flowed through to sea. They had been dead for many weeks.
There are some humorous accounts as soldiers will act up before pending doom. I loved the account of how the homefront thought the boys were singing patriotic, morally uplifting songs on their way to battle. What they were really singing:
If you want to learn about the Somme battle, there are better histories. If you want to get an inkling of what it was like and who fought there, this is your book! 4 Stars
May 29, 2011
As an amatuer military historian I spent years ignoring World War One. In retrospect that was foolish on my part. But like many others I had the war pegged to a few cliches and sterotypes and didn't feel the need to investigate any further. In the fall of 1999 I had a few months left in the U.S. Army. I was preparing to go into the field to assist on a field problem. I knew that there would be long hours of radio watches and manning gates. I found a copy of The Somme in the post (base for those who aren't Army vets) library. I decided to give a chance and checked it out.
At first I was doubtful. It's primarily an oral history, but after the first few pages the book came alive for me. I realized that I had never actually read any first hand accounts from World War One. I was hooked.
Now the book isn't all first hand accounts. Macdonald does a good job of mixing in details of what was going on during the Somme Offensive. Tactical, strategic, political and the Home Front. Which I like. It puts things in perspective.
Lyn Macdonald worked for many years for the BBC as a journalist and a documentarian. Her books have that good solid down to Earth approach that I have come to expect from the BBC. Nothing controversial or radical. Just intelligent and approachable history. Unlike other World War One historians Ms. Macdonald does not have an ideological/politcal ax to grind. There is no anger in her writing. She lets the veterans speak for themselves and leaves it up to the reader to decide for themselves.
If you are curious about World War One, especially the British experience, give one of her books a try. You might be pleasently surprised.
At first I was doubtful. It's primarily an oral history, but after the first few pages the book came alive for me. I realized that I had never actually read any first hand accounts from World War One. I was hooked.
Now the book isn't all first hand accounts. Macdonald does a good job of mixing in details of what was going on during the Somme Offensive. Tactical, strategic, political and the Home Front. Which I like. It puts things in perspective.
Lyn Macdonald worked for many years for the BBC as a journalist and a documentarian. Her books have that good solid down to Earth approach that I have come to expect from the BBC. Nothing controversial or radical. Just intelligent and approachable history. Unlike other World War One historians Ms. Macdonald does not have an ideological/politcal ax to grind. There is no anger in her writing. She lets the veterans speak for themselves and leaves it up to the reader to decide for themselves.
If you are curious about World War One, especially the British experience, give one of her books a try. You might be pleasently surprised.
August 30, 2016
A lengthy, chilling history of the Battle of the Somme, told mainly through the eyes of British officers, NCOs, and soldiers, many of them interviewed by MacDonald herself. As the author puts it. the book is more about “the experience of war” than any “political conclusions.” As such, the book is heavy on such topics as life in the trenches and the experience of battle, and MacDonald tells this story with compassion, and does a fine job bringing to life the era (“those days before instant communication and responsible journalism”).
Fittingly, the book has a lot of firsthand recollections, many of them quite lengthy. While this may annoy some, they do help the reader get a more vivid picture of the whole battle. She also covers such topics as the “Pal’s Battalions” and the general level of training and experience of the troops on the Somme, although she largely refrains from adopting the overly sentimental style that histories of the Somme sometimes conveys (the “widely held emotional view of the war in which every Tommy wears a halo and every officer above the rank of captain a pair of horns”).
Accordingly, the book has little in the way of analysis, or even any general conclusions, and, of course, there is nothing on the German experience. Still, a readable and vivid history.
Fittingly, the book has a lot of firsthand recollections, many of them quite lengthy. While this may annoy some, they do help the reader get a more vivid picture of the whole battle. She also covers such topics as the “Pal’s Battalions” and the general level of training and experience of the troops on the Somme, although she largely refrains from adopting the overly sentimental style that histories of the Somme sometimes conveys (the “widely held emotional view of the war in which every Tommy wears a halo and every officer above the rank of captain a pair of horns”).
Accordingly, the book has little in the way of analysis, or even any general conclusions, and, of course, there is nothing on the German experience. Still, a readable and vivid history.
June 22, 2013
This is an excellent book covering the Battle of Somme in 1916. The one drawback, as with all of Macdonald's work, is that the book only deals with the role of the UK and Commonwealth countries in the Battle.
The book is very readable, with excellent maps, and a good description of the horrors of the battle(s). I liked the eyewitness accounts of various aspects of the battles, life in the trenches, training camps, visiting home an leave, life back in the UK, etc. I really also enjoyed he multiple descriptions of marching songs from period. Some arestill popular!!
I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading history.
The book is very readable, with excellent maps, and a good description of the horrors of the battle(s). I liked the eyewitness accounts of various aspects of the battles, life in the trenches, training camps, visiting home an leave, life back in the UK, etc. I really also enjoyed he multiple descriptions of marching songs from period. Some arestill popular!!
I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading history.
January 13, 2021
The bloody consequences of incompetent and vacillating leadership were readily evident in the so-called Battle of the Somme (considering the geography and the give-and-take, perhaps it should be “Battles” of the Somme). In Lyn MacDonald’s Somme, I found a more detailed and personalized (because of the interviews and diary entries which fill the book) recounting of the same kinds of horrors I had discovered in Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August. True to life, there are some humorous anecdotes tucked between the horrors of battle and descriptions of gore.
I had no idea that Herman’s Hermits’ famous “’’Enery the 8th” song dated to World War I (p. 31). The story of the golden Virgin figure at the top of Albert’s Cathedral was somewhat amusing in that, early in the war, a stray German bullet had hit the tower of the cathedral such that the virgin statue ended up hanging horizontally (and precariously) over the main street of Albert. I was intrigued that first the French and then, the British, had a superstition that if the Virgin were ever to fall, the war would end with a German victory (pp. 105-106). Another time, a soldier stole a dog dish to use as a saucepan (p. 107). It might also just be me, but I was also amused when a young English farmer had been sent to the line. He was standing sentry when an officer asked him if he saw anything. The farmer-soldier answered, “’I see a bloody good field of hay going to waste.” (p. 273).
I also never thought about those WWI “barrels,” “land-ships,” “tanks” not having any lights such that they needed the moonlight to move at night (p. 265). One of my favorite anecdotes may have been the one about the wounded soldier in the base hospital who had been unable to urinate but had begged for the nurses to hold off the catheter for an hour. During that hour, a newspaper reached the soldier about two zeppelins being shot down. Reading about the victories must have relieved something inside because his bladder let go and wet pajamas, sheets, and bed. But the nurses were so pleased that he was progressing that they quickly cleaned up the mess without complaining. However, from then on, they said the magic words, “Two zeppelins downed!” whenever they handed him a urinal or bedpan (p. 303).
The truth, though, is that are certainly more gasps at the waste of human lives and the way they were killed than there were chuckles. One veteran described “…a sound that chilled the blood; a nerve-scraping noise like ‘enormous wet fingers screeching across a pane of glass.’ It was coming from the wounded lying out in No Man’s Land. Some screaming, some muttering, some weeping with fear, some calling for help, shouting in delirium, groaning with pain, the sounds of their distress had synthesized into one unearthly wail. (p. 65) Another anecdote is stranger than fiction in a first-person account of a wounded soldier hunkered down in a crater pretending to be dead as German soldiers passed over and even poked him with a bayonet (p. 100). A corporal remembered, “…wondering if the Germans had machine-guns up in the trees because, as we were getting back, I remember the bullets hitting the ground, just like heavy raindrops.” (p. 148) I also wonder if there is anything more macabre than a survivor’s lottery (p. 326).
But one of the scariest images for me was the realization that the locks on the Somme at Abbeville became completely blocked by bloated bodies of French soldiers that floated down the Somme over weeks (p. 180). Further, as fascinating as the idea of introducing tanks is, discovering that one of the first tanks deployed on the Somme actually strafed a trench of British soldiers instead of Germans (p. 276). On another occasion, German corpses were so thick on a trench floor that there was no way to cross without stepping on even their faces. When a soldier hesitated and stated that he didn’t want to have to step on their faces, the officer yelled, “Never mind their bloody faces. MOVE!” (p. 286)
MacDonald does a marvelous job of showing the friction of combat, the follies of arrogance, the futility of war, the courage in humanity, the resilience of comrades-at-arms, and the obfuscation of politics, all within the confines of the campaign along the Somme. Somme is fast and fascinating reading at times, but one has to put it down fairly often just to absorb the enormity of the waste and injustice experienced by the youth of that generation. Somme is authentic enough that one cannot imagine any of it being sugar-coated.
I had no idea that Herman’s Hermits’ famous “’’Enery the 8th” song dated to World War I (p. 31). The story of the golden Virgin figure at the top of Albert’s Cathedral was somewhat amusing in that, early in the war, a stray German bullet had hit the tower of the cathedral such that the virgin statue ended up hanging horizontally (and precariously) over the main street of Albert. I was intrigued that first the French and then, the British, had a superstition that if the Virgin were ever to fall, the war would end with a German victory (pp. 105-106). Another time, a soldier stole a dog dish to use as a saucepan (p. 107). It might also just be me, but I was also amused when a young English farmer had been sent to the line. He was standing sentry when an officer asked him if he saw anything. The farmer-soldier answered, “’I see a bloody good field of hay going to waste.” (p. 273).
I also never thought about those WWI “barrels,” “land-ships,” “tanks” not having any lights such that they needed the moonlight to move at night (p. 265). One of my favorite anecdotes may have been the one about the wounded soldier in the base hospital who had been unable to urinate but had begged for the nurses to hold off the catheter for an hour. During that hour, a newspaper reached the soldier about two zeppelins being shot down. Reading about the victories must have relieved something inside because his bladder let go and wet pajamas, sheets, and bed. But the nurses were so pleased that he was progressing that they quickly cleaned up the mess without complaining. However, from then on, they said the magic words, “Two zeppelins downed!” whenever they handed him a urinal or bedpan (p. 303).
The truth, though, is that are certainly more gasps at the waste of human lives and the way they were killed than there were chuckles. One veteran described “…a sound that chilled the blood; a nerve-scraping noise like ‘enormous wet fingers screeching across a pane of glass.’ It was coming from the wounded lying out in No Man’s Land. Some screaming, some muttering, some weeping with fear, some calling for help, shouting in delirium, groaning with pain, the sounds of their distress had synthesized into one unearthly wail. (p. 65) Another anecdote is stranger than fiction in a first-person account of a wounded soldier hunkered down in a crater pretending to be dead as German soldiers passed over and even poked him with a bayonet (p. 100). A corporal remembered, “…wondering if the Germans had machine-guns up in the trees because, as we were getting back, I remember the bullets hitting the ground, just like heavy raindrops.” (p. 148) I also wonder if there is anything more macabre than a survivor’s lottery (p. 326).
But one of the scariest images for me was the realization that the locks on the Somme at Abbeville became completely blocked by bloated bodies of French soldiers that floated down the Somme over weeks (p. 180). Further, as fascinating as the idea of introducing tanks is, discovering that one of the first tanks deployed on the Somme actually strafed a trench of British soldiers instead of Germans (p. 276). On another occasion, German corpses were so thick on a trench floor that there was no way to cross without stepping on even their faces. When a soldier hesitated and stated that he didn’t want to have to step on their faces, the officer yelled, “Never mind their bloody faces. MOVE!” (p. 286)
MacDonald does a marvelous job of showing the friction of combat, the follies of arrogance, the futility of war, the courage in humanity, the resilience of comrades-at-arms, and the obfuscation of politics, all within the confines of the campaign along the Somme. Somme is fast and fascinating reading at times, but one has to put it down fairly often just to absorb the enormity of the waste and injustice experienced by the youth of that generation. Somme is authentic enough that one cannot imagine any of it being sugar-coated.
February 2, 2016
I've given this book three stars as a reflection of my personal difficulties in reading this. If I was trying to be objective, 4 stars would be fairer.
Although I am interested in histories of both the World Wars I am not interested in military history. You can immediately see the obvious contradiction. So, for example, Lyn Macdonald's The Roses of No Man's Land was ideal for me, containing rich descriptions of the impact of war. Clearly, any book about an actual battle is going to be structured differently.
I have considerably difficulty in working out Army ranks. I have some sense that a Major is more senior to a sergeant, say. But I don't really know the difference between officer ranks and NCOs, and don't even want to get into the class-based distinctions at recruitment. I suppose I could learn these, or at least have them in a handy notebook to refer to.
But I have even greater difficulty understanding platoons, brigades, companies and divisions. I can remember a name, such as Kings Own Rifle Regiment or Sherwood Foresters, but when they're simply 21st this or 8th that, I just glaze over.
I read this book on Kindle, a fairly basic touch kindle (no backlighting etc). This makes it difficult to understand, or even see, the maps. I could have course have opened the maps in the Kindle app on my PC, but not when I'm in bed. In any case, I'm not great at looking at a map and visualising a physical space.
All these were barriers to my appreciation, but mustn't be seen as criticism of the writer - to have done this differently, to accommodate my difficulties, would have been a disservice to most readers.
I sped through the first half or so of the book, as much fascinated by the logistical preparations as anything. I hadn't actually previously thought such a Battle would be haphazard and spontaneous, but I certainly hadn't given much thought to the months of preparation - recruitment and training, rations and ammunition, timetables, even arrangements for greatcoats and kits to be left behind lines.
I suppose I read this book mainly to find out what happened on 1 July and why. They why was a bit of a guess work, I'm not sure whether there was ever any formal investigation, or just an aggregation of the wisdom of hindsight. I knew that the Battle of the Somme was more than just 1 July, but I hadn't realised it had gone on until 18 November, not i had stopped to think why it hadn't gone on longer (winter, basically).
The strength lay in the numerous details: how one battalion (or do I mean Brigade?) would attack, and wait for the next wave behind them. How there was constant changing between the troops in the frontline and those in reserve - by the way, soldiers didn't spend months living in trenches, it was a few days at a time. Not to diminish the awfulness of that but a lot of fiction writers portray it as such. It gave me insight into the host of ancillary troops, who weren't necessarily in the front line. My maternal great-grandfather was a farrier (in civilian life and as a conscript) and my paternal grandfather was some sort of engineer, a bit odd for a career bureaucrat! Both survived the Western front (wouldn't have been at the Somme), though hundreds of thousands didn't. There is a serviette ring somewhere from Albert: I think my grandfather picked up such souvenirs for his father, Albert!
What I found lacking - no fault of the writer - was insight. It was great that most of the people quoted - from letters or diaries, or being interviewed by the writer - were 'ordinary' people, working class or the lower parts of the middle class, rather than solely being the public school educated officer class. But they weren't brought up in a culture of self-awareness or psychological reflection. There was a culture of not talking about it, and many of them learnt that it was impossible anyway to discuss it with people who hadn't experienced it.
I still don't understand the mentality of the soldiers who went over the top. I appreciate that there are matters of discipline, of team solidarity, you'd be shot if you didn't do it etc. But I still don't understand how you can walk into a situation that is effectively suicide, it seems to go against the human instinct for survival at all costs.
I don't get any understanding of how this affected the surviving men in later years. The book was published in 1983, so she was conducting interviews sixty years or more afterwards. We understand PTSD much better now, we understand about flashbacks and the affect of trauma, but the emotional tone is somewhat equivalent to people who've been delayed by snow for several hours on their homeward commute.
I don't suppose I'll ever get a sense of the colossal losses. 1 July saw 58,000 British casualties, 20k of those dead. Total British Casualties over 350k, total British and Empire killed and missing 96k. Wembley holds 90k. Mass casualty events in my lifetime have been in the tens, at most a few hundred. So I cannot start to understand the impact of that many deaths and seriously injured across the population. If you didn't lose a close relative, lover or friend, I would imagine you had a sort of survivor's guilt because so many of your friends will have done. And even if you didn't lose someone close, you will have lost long standing acquaintances, and be reading the casualty list in dread of reading about that old schoolmate or your friend's sometime boyfriend, or the young man from the next street. I don't suppose anyone can properly describe that, nor will I ever get to grips with the what the numbers actually mean.
I wouldn't recommend this book to the general reader but it's definitely worth reading for someone who already knows something of WW1 and wants to read more about the Somme in 2016. But I would beware it is partly military history and does include quite a lot on tactics and operations.
Although I am interested in histories of both the World Wars I am not interested in military history. You can immediately see the obvious contradiction. So, for example, Lyn Macdonald's The Roses of No Man's Land was ideal for me, containing rich descriptions of the impact of war. Clearly, any book about an actual battle is going to be structured differently.
I have considerably difficulty in working out Army ranks. I have some sense that a Major is more senior to a sergeant, say. But I don't really know the difference between officer ranks and NCOs, and don't even want to get into the class-based distinctions at recruitment. I suppose I could learn these, or at least have them in a handy notebook to refer to.
But I have even greater difficulty understanding platoons, brigades, companies and divisions. I can remember a name, such as Kings Own Rifle Regiment or Sherwood Foresters, but when they're simply 21st this or 8th that, I just glaze over.
I read this book on Kindle, a fairly basic touch kindle (no backlighting etc). This makes it difficult to understand, or even see, the maps. I could have course have opened the maps in the Kindle app on my PC, but not when I'm in bed. In any case, I'm not great at looking at a map and visualising a physical space.
All these were barriers to my appreciation, but mustn't be seen as criticism of the writer - to have done this differently, to accommodate my difficulties, would have been a disservice to most readers.
I sped through the first half or so of the book, as much fascinated by the logistical preparations as anything. I hadn't actually previously thought such a Battle would be haphazard and spontaneous, but I certainly hadn't given much thought to the months of preparation - recruitment and training, rations and ammunition, timetables, even arrangements for greatcoats and kits to be left behind lines.
I suppose I read this book mainly to find out what happened on 1 July and why. They why was a bit of a guess work, I'm not sure whether there was ever any formal investigation, or just an aggregation of the wisdom of hindsight. I knew that the Battle of the Somme was more than just 1 July, but I hadn't realised it had gone on until 18 November, not i had stopped to think why it hadn't gone on longer (winter, basically).
The strength lay in the numerous details: how one battalion (or do I mean Brigade?) would attack, and wait for the next wave behind them. How there was constant changing between the troops in the frontline and those in reserve - by the way, soldiers didn't spend months living in trenches, it was a few days at a time. Not to diminish the awfulness of that but a lot of fiction writers portray it as such. It gave me insight into the host of ancillary troops, who weren't necessarily in the front line. My maternal great-grandfather was a farrier (in civilian life and as a conscript) and my paternal grandfather was some sort of engineer, a bit odd for a career bureaucrat! Both survived the Western front (wouldn't have been at the Somme), though hundreds of thousands didn't. There is a serviette ring somewhere from Albert: I think my grandfather picked up such souvenirs for his father, Albert!
What I found lacking - no fault of the writer - was insight. It was great that most of the people quoted - from letters or diaries, or being interviewed by the writer - were 'ordinary' people, working class or the lower parts of the middle class, rather than solely being the public school educated officer class. But they weren't brought up in a culture of self-awareness or psychological reflection. There was a culture of not talking about it, and many of them learnt that it was impossible anyway to discuss it with people who hadn't experienced it.
I still don't understand the mentality of the soldiers who went over the top. I appreciate that there are matters of discipline, of team solidarity, you'd be shot if you didn't do it etc. But I still don't understand how you can walk into a situation that is effectively suicide, it seems to go against the human instinct for survival at all costs.
I don't get any understanding of how this affected the surviving men in later years. The book was published in 1983, so she was conducting interviews sixty years or more afterwards. We understand PTSD much better now, we understand about flashbacks and the affect of trauma, but the emotional tone is somewhat equivalent to people who've been delayed by snow for several hours on their homeward commute.
I don't suppose I'll ever get a sense of the colossal losses. 1 July saw 58,000 British casualties, 20k of those dead. Total British Casualties over 350k, total British and Empire killed and missing 96k. Wembley holds 90k. Mass casualty events in my lifetime have been in the tens, at most a few hundred. So I cannot start to understand the impact of that many deaths and seriously injured across the population. If you didn't lose a close relative, lover or friend, I would imagine you had a sort of survivor's guilt because so many of your friends will have done. And even if you didn't lose someone close, you will have lost long standing acquaintances, and be reading the casualty list in dread of reading about that old schoolmate or your friend's sometime boyfriend, or the young man from the next street. I don't suppose anyone can properly describe that, nor will I ever get to grips with the what the numbers actually mean.
I wouldn't recommend this book to the general reader but it's definitely worth reading for someone who already knows something of WW1 and wants to read more about the Somme in 2016. But I would beware it is partly military history and does include quite a lot on tactics and operations.
December 12, 2025
Simply had to read a book about the Somme after reading Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong and this was on my shelf.
Easily the best part of the book is the extensive, superbly curated diary entries from the men who actually experienced the misery and often needless slaughter on the Somme. Macdonald follows the lowest of soldiers as well as Lieutenants, Captains and Colonels and lesser known combatants like artillery men, road repairers, telephone wire layers, Chinese labourers, and salvage squads whose job it was to salvage rifles/ammunition etc from the thousands of corpses that littered the battle scene. This is the book’s strength- to convey the many human experiences of this awful battle. It is not for those seeking a wider strategic importance of the Somme in WW1, its effects on the German war machine etc.
At the heart of this book is the experience of Kitchener’s Army, scores of young lads who signed up in droves in Pals Battalions and were killed in droves just to inch the British line forward in France. As someone more interested in 1939-1945, there is something profoundly depressing and pointless about WW1 missing from the second war.
Easily the best part of the book is the extensive, superbly curated diary entries from the men who actually experienced the misery and often needless slaughter on the Somme. Macdonald follows the lowest of soldiers as well as Lieutenants, Captains and Colonels and lesser known combatants like artillery men, road repairers, telephone wire layers, Chinese labourers, and salvage squads whose job it was to salvage rifles/ammunition etc from the thousands of corpses that littered the battle scene. This is the book’s strength- to convey the many human experiences of this awful battle. It is not for those seeking a wider strategic importance of the Somme in WW1, its effects on the German war machine etc.
At the heart of this book is the experience of Kitchener’s Army, scores of young lads who signed up in droves in Pals Battalions and were killed in droves just to inch the British line forward in France. As someone more interested in 1939-1945, there is something profoundly depressing and pointless about WW1 missing from the second war.
January 16, 2014
Wat de boeken van Lyn Macdonald over de Eerste Wereldoorlog zo prettig maakt, is dat ze precies de goed mix hebben tussen feitelijke weergave van de gebeurtenissen en ooggetuigenverslagen. De slag bij de Somme was een hel, een gevolg van verkeerde inschattingen, koppigheid van de generale staf van de Britten en onbegrijpelijke opofferingsgezindheid. Macdonald schrijft met distantie en neemt een objectief standpunt in. Ze geeft ons de waarnemingen door, zonder hinderlijk oordeel. Wij mogen als lezer onze eigen conclusies trekken. De verhalen nemen ons mee dat slagveld op. Lees en huiver!
November 7, 2012
This is one of the earliest books I can remember borrowing from the local library. I read it more than once, or at least tried to.
I've always had an uneasy fascination with war and what soldiers endured in battle conditions.
Reading the personal encounters of soldiers who fought and died in this major military blunder is very poignant. Little would they know that their scribbled notes to wives and sweethearts would be preserved for all to read.
I've always had an uneasy fascination with war and what soldiers endured in battle conditions.
Reading the personal encounters of soldiers who fought and died in this major military blunder is very poignant. Little would they know that their scribbled notes to wives and sweethearts would be preserved for all to read.
May 3, 2015
The more I read about WW1 the more I am fascinated by it. History is stranger than fiction, nobody could make this up.
The british Somme offensive in 1916 was one of the most attritious battles of WW1. Lyn Macrdonald brings it vividly to life with very readable prose interlaced with hundreds of personal accounts of the combatants. The amount of research which has gone into this book is mind staggering.
The other books of Lyn Macdonald about WW1 are already ordered, cant wait.
The british Somme offensive in 1916 was one of the most attritious battles of WW1. Lyn Macrdonald brings it vividly to life with very readable prose interlaced with hundreds of personal accounts of the combatants. The amount of research which has gone into this book is mind staggering.
The other books of Lyn Macdonald about WW1 are already ordered, cant wait.
July 27, 2018
Lyn Macdonald is a former BBC radio producer who left her job to devote herself to World War I studies. Somme is one of a number of books she has written that makes extensive use of veteran recollections to give a detailed, brutal account of the fighting from July to November 1916.
As she notes in the introduction, an appropriate sub-title to the book could be “Whatever happened to Kitchener’s Army? The Somme happened to it.” The Army formed in the wake of the great volunteer wave after the beginning of the war in 1914, would be shattered against the German trench lines in places like Flers, Pozieres, and Thiepval.
This book is not a straight military history of the battle, for that a reader should look to Malcolm Brown’s or Robin Prior books on the battle. Macdonald “does not set out to draw political conclusions and, although it is the story of the battle, it is more concerned with the experience of war than with the war itself.”
The book begins with the gathering of the men of Kitchener’s Army in the Somme Valley as the campaign begins. On July 1, the men went over the top to attack the Germans, strongly fortified and hardly damaged by the bombardment that preceded the assault. The disaster of that day was remembered by the survivors sixty years later. Captain Arthur Agius remembered, “The whole of the valley was being swept with machine-gun fire and hammered with shells. We got the men organised as best we could –those of us who were left. So many gone, and we’d never even got past our own front-line trench!” Private Tom Easton recalled the list of men and officers who were killed while he “couldn’t do nothing but pray for mother to protect us.”
As the fighting continued, the British forces pushed forward yard by yard, trading thousands of casualties for little in the way of real estate. An attack by the 7th Dragoon Guards cavalry on entrenched Germans later that month was, as one soldier described it, “an absolute rout. A magnificent sight. Tragic.”
By November the rain began to fall, turning the battlefield to a muddy wreck. Bodies from the July 1 fighting still lay unburied in some places. George Butler could still remember some of the sights from his time in the line. “Every time you put a foot forward you sank, and you were sinking into a mass of dead as well as mud, because there weren’t enough people to collect the bodies in.” By the time the fighting had ended, over 650,000 Allied soldiers, and close to 500,000 German s were killed, wounded or captured.
Macdonald has created a work that will take you into the trenches alongside the Tommies as they fight along the Somme. The reminiscences are tragic, at times funny, and full of detail that the men still recall decades after the fighting.
There are excellent maps included with the book, which can help with place names and the constant movement around the field. The narrative can jump from time period to time period, so if you are not familiar with the battle I would suggest reading a more military history work beforehand.
In the end, this is a great collection of recollections of the fighting (all of which are now available in the Imperial War Museum in London). A great source for material for historians, Macdonald is a superb writer and the book would be great for anyone who had an interest in the First World War.
As she notes in the introduction, an appropriate sub-title to the book could be “Whatever happened to Kitchener’s Army? The Somme happened to it.” The Army formed in the wake of the great volunteer wave after the beginning of the war in 1914, would be shattered against the German trench lines in places like Flers, Pozieres, and Thiepval.
This book is not a straight military history of the battle, for that a reader should look to Malcolm Brown’s or Robin Prior books on the battle. Macdonald “does not set out to draw political conclusions and, although it is the story of the battle, it is more concerned with the experience of war than with the war itself.”
The book begins with the gathering of the men of Kitchener’s Army in the Somme Valley as the campaign begins. On July 1, the men went over the top to attack the Germans, strongly fortified and hardly damaged by the bombardment that preceded the assault. The disaster of that day was remembered by the survivors sixty years later. Captain Arthur Agius remembered, “The whole of the valley was being swept with machine-gun fire and hammered with shells. We got the men organised as best we could –those of us who were left. So many gone, and we’d never even got past our own front-line trench!” Private Tom Easton recalled the list of men and officers who were killed while he “couldn’t do nothing but pray for mother to protect us.”
As the fighting continued, the British forces pushed forward yard by yard, trading thousands of casualties for little in the way of real estate. An attack by the 7th Dragoon Guards cavalry on entrenched Germans later that month was, as one soldier described it, “an absolute rout. A magnificent sight. Tragic.”
By November the rain began to fall, turning the battlefield to a muddy wreck. Bodies from the July 1 fighting still lay unburied in some places. George Butler could still remember some of the sights from his time in the line. “Every time you put a foot forward you sank, and you were sinking into a mass of dead as well as mud, because there weren’t enough people to collect the bodies in.” By the time the fighting had ended, over 650,000 Allied soldiers, and close to 500,000 German s were killed, wounded or captured.
Macdonald has created a work that will take you into the trenches alongside the Tommies as they fight along the Somme. The reminiscences are tragic, at times funny, and full of detail that the men still recall decades after the fighting.
There are excellent maps included with the book, which can help with place names and the constant movement around the field. The narrative can jump from time period to time period, so if you are not familiar with the battle I would suggest reading a more military history work beforehand.
In the end, this is a great collection of recollections of the fighting (all of which are now available in the Imperial War Museum in London). A great source for material for historians, Macdonald is a superb writer and the book would be great for anyone who had an interest in the First World War.
September 21, 2021
Here’s what makes this book worth reading: the first person accounts. Lyn Macdonald’s efforts to interview (British) survivors of the battle, who had served in a variety of posts, makes her work invaluable. Telling the story of WWI through first-person, non-officer, non-official narratives is (according to her obituaries—not a joke) characteristic of her books, and make them somewhat unique in the realm of WWI scholarship. This alone makes them worth reading, if you want to understand what being IN the “Great War” was like.
But there are problems. As with many books that need maps, the ones in Somme are never quite enough—they’ll have a lot marked on them, but Macdonald will also mention (e.g.) High Wood and High Wood won’t be on that particular map, etc. Also, Macdonald is scrupulous about describing battle plans, but even with one of those (thorough and yet always off somehow!) maps I never once figured out just what was supposed to happen. I have plenty of ideas for how to improve those maps, but I don’t think this book is still in print, Lyn Macdonald is dead, and (most importantly) not a single person has asked me for feedback, so I’ll skip that. (There are also some obvious typos, but: see previous sentence.)
Macdonald also wrote Somme with the expectation that her readers would have a working knowledge of some WWI artillery and slang—for example, that readers would know what a Lewis gun is and why maneuvering it is an issue, and what “Blighty” means. For this reason, I’d suggest having a copy of Trench Talk—a fairly short book I read and reviewed a couple weeks ago—nearby as a reference. Somme has no glossary, and Trench Talk will have exactly the (correct!) information you need.
Finally, Somme is focused on the BRITISH experience of the Battle of the Somme. Given how much work Macdonald put in to interviewing survivors of a battle that lasted four and a half months, I can’t fault her for that; I just say, remember that going in. (She does speak with a couple of ANZAC soldiers.) What I can fault her for, however, is her racism, which is nothing short of horrifying when she writes about the Chinese Labor Corps. I had no idea that anyone Chinese was anywhere near the Western Front, and I’m still not sure what this Labor Corps did; I do know that I wouldn’t ask Lyn Macdonald about it.
tl;dr An invaluable resource for first person British accounts of fighting in the Battle of the Somme. Has its flaws but if you’re looking for those accounts in particular, you probably can’t do better, and I was deeply moved.
But there are problems. As with many books that need maps, the ones in Somme are never quite enough—they’ll have a lot marked on them, but Macdonald will also mention (e.g.) High Wood and High Wood won’t be on that particular map, etc. Also, Macdonald is scrupulous about describing battle plans, but even with one of those (thorough and yet always off somehow!) maps I never once figured out just what was supposed to happen. I have plenty of ideas for how to improve those maps, but I don’t think this book is still in print, Lyn Macdonald is dead, and (most importantly) not a single person has asked me for feedback, so I’ll skip that. (There are also some obvious typos, but: see previous sentence.)
Macdonald also wrote Somme with the expectation that her readers would have a working knowledge of some WWI artillery and slang—for example, that readers would know what a Lewis gun is and why maneuvering it is an issue, and what “Blighty” means. For this reason, I’d suggest having a copy of Trench Talk—a fairly short book I read and reviewed a couple weeks ago—nearby as a reference. Somme has no glossary, and Trench Talk will have exactly the (correct!) information you need.
Finally, Somme is focused on the BRITISH experience of the Battle of the Somme. Given how much work Macdonald put in to interviewing survivors of a battle that lasted four and a half months, I can’t fault her for that; I just say, remember that going in. (She does speak with a couple of ANZAC soldiers.) What I can fault her for, however, is her racism, which is nothing short of horrifying when she writes about the Chinese Labor Corps. I had no idea that anyone Chinese was anywhere near the Western Front, and I’m still not sure what this Labor Corps did; I do know that I wouldn’t ask Lyn Macdonald about it.
tl;dr An invaluable resource for first person British accounts of fighting in the Battle of the Somme. Has its flaws but if you’re looking for those accounts in particular, you probably can’t do better, and I was deeply moved.
April 22, 2025
A weak 3, as the course of the battle was somewhat hard to follow amidst what I would say is an over reliance on first person descriptions from dozens of British soldiers.
- Lord Kitchener's army opened with a barrage on 24-Jun-1916 and a few months later 200K or more were dead, with twice that many wounded
- The British lost 90K, pushing the Germans back a couple of kilometers
- Utter insanity of this war - a Serbian nationalist shot an Austrian prince in Bosnia so guys from Australia and New Zealand get killed fighting the Germans in France
- Seems most long wars get decided in the middle year (US Civil War, Germany vs. USSR, WW1) and here it was what looks like Germany playing defense, defense, defense against the British at the Somme at the same time as against the French at Verdun
- Apparently tanks really turned the battle in favor of the British, as the Germans fled at their sight, though of course those same tanks wiped out some British troops too
- It was funny reading about the soldiers singing 'Do your balls hang low' as General Haig trotted past them from the rear. Plenty of mortified Tommies that day!
Overall had some decent content but was tough to get a full picture of the battle
- Lord Kitchener's army opened with a barrage on 24-Jun-1916 and a few months later 200K or more were dead, with twice that many wounded
- The British lost 90K, pushing the Germans back a couple of kilometers
- Utter insanity of this war - a Serbian nationalist shot an Austrian prince in Bosnia so guys from Australia and New Zealand get killed fighting the Germans in France
- Seems most long wars get decided in the middle year (US Civil War, Germany vs. USSR, WW1) and here it was what looks like Germany playing defense, defense, defense against the British at the Somme at the same time as against the French at Verdun
- Apparently tanks really turned the battle in favor of the British, as the Germans fled at their sight, though of course those same tanks wiped out some British troops too
- It was funny reading about the soldiers singing 'Do your balls hang low' as General Haig trotted past them from the rear. Plenty of mortified Tommies that day!
Overall had some decent content but was tough to get a full picture of the battle
Read
May 21, 2024There are business level books, which in this case would focus on the reasons, timeline and the battles that made up the campaign, and this is definitely not one of those; and there are humanistic books, that in this case cover the human experience of the said campaign, into which this falls. Your reaction to the book will perhaps be based on which of these approaches most appeals. Whichever, it is still a good read.
The campaign itself is given some context, but the point of the work is to retell the experiences of those that were there - a worthy endeavour in itself. Yes, the book is disjointed. Yes, its reliance on first hand accounts can make it both harrowing (that is the point) but distant in some ways as those looking for the experience of, say, the Staffords, will not get one as its accounts are mainly from the same regiments.
It did not surprise me that MacDonald had worked for the BBC, as this has - and maybe better suited to in some ways - a BBC documentary feel about it (using actors to add to the pathos, with creative writing interludes).
The campaign itself is given some context, but the point of the work is to retell the experiences of those that were there - a worthy endeavour in itself. Yes, the book is disjointed. Yes, its reliance on first hand accounts can make it both harrowing (that is the point) but distant in some ways as those looking for the experience of, say, the Staffords, will not get one as its accounts are mainly from the same regiments.
It did not surprise me that MacDonald had worked for the BBC, as this has - and maybe better suited to in some ways - a BBC documentary feel about it (using actors to add to the pathos, with creative writing interludes).
October 10, 2023
I listened to the audiobook
The Somme
An import book which exposes the horror of war, in this case the First World War, the Great War. Such a waste of life, young lives. Nothing great in that. A hell on earth…of course the old codgers who cause the wars in the first place visit the front lines briefly before tallyhoing back to Blighty. Lots of detail in this book which, if I’m truthful, lost me in some parts. I listened in chunks as I did become overwhelmed but I’m glad I listened. Well narrated.
The Somme
An import book which exposes the horror of war, in this case the First World War, the Great War. Such a waste of life, young lives. Nothing great in that. A hell on earth…of course the old codgers who cause the wars in the first place visit the front lines briefly before tallyhoing back to Blighty. Lots of detail in this book which, if I’m truthful, lost me in some parts. I listened in chunks as I did become overwhelmed but I’m glad I listened. Well narrated.
May 10, 2017
Superb. I don't normally read history books because I find them dry and boring. This one was different - the prose was relaxed and read more like a non-fiction book. The accounts from soldiers who actually fought were interspersed throughout the text. The book also focused on areas of a soldier's life other than fighting. The account wasn't sensational, but told the story of the battles in a sympathetic way. Highly recommended.
January 14, 2023
As I guess you would imagine a very heavy book this one...full of facts..so many it's not one I could read without regular breaks from hence for a shortish book it took me far longer to finish than I thought it would.
Nevertheless this was a book which drew on the experiences of those in the war the official record and recorded media at the time so it was a decent holistic study.
Enjoyed?...in a sense yes as I got a lot of info from it but needless to say subject matter is far from cheery.
Nevertheless this was a book which drew on the experiences of those in the war the official record and recorded media at the time so it was a decent holistic study.
Enjoyed?...in a sense yes as I got a lot of info from it but needless to say subject matter is far from cheery.
June 4, 2025
an excellent book breaking down the Battle of the Somme into its different parts and times - while most concentrate on the losses on the first day, this mentions the hard won successes as well as the carnage, mistakes and failure running from July to November 1916, amply served by eye witness accounts from the men on the front line, who actually did the fighting and dying. None of them are now still with us.
Read
October 11, 2019This book looks at the Battle of the Somme, which was planned as The Big Push that would at last break the long stalemate on the Western Front in World War I. However the 18 divisions that went over the top between Arras and St-Quentin on the morning of 1 July 1916, walked into a battle that has gone down in the annals of human conflict as the slaughterhouse of a generation.
May 29, 2020
This was a very well detailed book, perhaps too detailed in certain aspects for my own taste, accompanied by many first account recounts of the battle. It was somehow surreal to read them and I felt completely detached. I don't think that I have anything in real life to conjure up in order to help me understand even 0.1% of what these men and their families went through.
November 15, 2024
This is about the blokes who were in the mud, Generals are mentioned infrequently.
First person accounts are telling, at the time of writing, any diarist compiles thoughts as well as observations.
The author started out by joining survivors to the battlefields.
This is as close to enemy shell fire I want to see.
Wonderful book, highly recommended.
First person accounts are telling, at the time of writing, any diarist compiles thoughts as well as observations.
The author started out by joining survivors to the battlefields.
This is as close to enemy shell fire I want to see.
Wonderful book, highly recommended.
January 29, 2017
Another excellent book by Lyn. As good as any of her other WWI books, whatever she writes about, she is top notch at descriptive essential to understanding, while bringing such cataclysmic events down to an individual level required for empathy. Sublime writing, simply put.
February 21, 2019
I recalled reading this just now. I never finished, stopped by how depressing it was, just a hopelessly screwed up thing. How much of my assessment was from an oncoming episode of depressing is impossible to say.
May 4, 2023
Interesting, well written, gripping testimonials and manages to convey the brutality, and nonsense of it all. Shames it misses some sort of conclusion or analysis of the Somme overall, as well as lacks any German testimony and point of view.
April 19, 2020
The first hand accounts of trench warfare are absolutely terrifying, but shockingly matter of fact.
January 4, 2018
The accounts from the soldiers who were there are fascinating.
April 25, 2021
Few battles are as seared into the British historical consciousness as the battle of the Somme, the months-long offensive against the German trenches during the First World War. There the newly-trained divisions of "Kitchener's Army" suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties, all for advances that were often measured in yards. It was a baptism of blood, one that often depopulated villages back home of an entire generation of young men and left an indelible impression on the minds of its survivors.
Lyn Macdonald's book is a chronicle of the battle from the viewpoint of the British soldier. She begins by describing how so many of the soldiers came to be on the Somme battlefield, through their recruitment into the ranks in the weeks and months that followed the outbreak of the war. Many of them joined in groups, retaining a collective identity from their civilian life even after they put on the uniform. From there she details the meticulous preparations for the offensive, the training and planning that went into preparing these soldiers for a battle that its planners believed would break through the German lines and pave the way for victory.
The confident expectations were little match for the horrors of trench warfare, however. Instead of a dramatic breakthrough the British "Tommys" faced unrelenting slaughter, struggling to even make modest gains on the battlefield. In the weeks that followed the initial assault, the British high command threw division after division into the battle, hoping to achieve progress. Throughout each of these efforts, Macdonald captures the experience of combat - the dusty marches, the gory advances, and the reaction of the survivors to their experience. Such struggles continue, over and over, until the offensive petered out in mid-November, with Kitchener's Army all but spent as a fighting force.
Throughout the book Macdonald writes of the battle in gripping prose, supplemented throughout by a generous use of quotes from interviews with veterans who survived the battle. Together it combines to recount the experience in a manner that grabs the reader's attention, focusing it on the experience of the ordinary soldier and never letting go. Oftentimes the engagements can blur together; while this can make it difficult to distinguish one battle from another, it conveys something of the grinding nature of warfare on the Western Front. The broader strategy is also subordinated, something that further reflects the perspective of the average Tommy, who was unable to look past the enemy trenches. A more glaring absence, however, is the German side. While largely excluding the views and experiences of German soldiers helps to define them as the nameless, faceless "Jerries" that many British soldiers viewed them to be, it deprives readers of a valuable perspective of the battle, with the ability to establish just how unique the British experience was.
These criticisms should not deter anyone seeking to understand the battle of the Somme. Macdonald's book is an engaging account of this seminal battle, one that sustains its reader throughout the months of struggle and slaughter chronicled within its pages. It is unlikely to be bettered for the drama of its narrative, or for its ability to relate the battle as how the thousands of Tommys fought it - a valuable perspective that gives identity to the soldiers who are often reduced to mere numbers in all too many accounts.
Lyn Macdonald's book is a chronicle of the battle from the viewpoint of the British soldier. She begins by describing how so many of the soldiers came to be on the Somme battlefield, through their recruitment into the ranks in the weeks and months that followed the outbreak of the war. Many of them joined in groups, retaining a collective identity from their civilian life even after they put on the uniform. From there she details the meticulous preparations for the offensive, the training and planning that went into preparing these soldiers for a battle that its planners believed would break through the German lines and pave the way for victory.
The confident expectations were little match for the horrors of trench warfare, however. Instead of a dramatic breakthrough the British "Tommys" faced unrelenting slaughter, struggling to even make modest gains on the battlefield. In the weeks that followed the initial assault, the British high command threw division after division into the battle, hoping to achieve progress. Throughout each of these efforts, Macdonald captures the experience of combat - the dusty marches, the gory advances, and the reaction of the survivors to their experience. Such struggles continue, over and over, until the offensive petered out in mid-November, with Kitchener's Army all but spent as a fighting force.
Throughout the book Macdonald writes of the battle in gripping prose, supplemented throughout by a generous use of quotes from interviews with veterans who survived the battle. Together it combines to recount the experience in a manner that grabs the reader's attention, focusing it on the experience of the ordinary soldier and never letting go. Oftentimes the engagements can blur together; while this can make it difficult to distinguish one battle from another, it conveys something of the grinding nature of warfare on the Western Front. The broader strategy is also subordinated, something that further reflects the perspective of the average Tommy, who was unable to look past the enemy trenches. A more glaring absence, however, is the German side. While largely excluding the views and experiences of German soldiers helps to define them as the nameless, faceless "Jerries" that many British soldiers viewed them to be, it deprives readers of a valuable perspective of the battle, with the ability to establish just how unique the British experience was.
These criticisms should not deter anyone seeking to understand the battle of the Somme. Macdonald's book is an engaging account of this seminal battle, one that sustains its reader throughout the months of struggle and slaughter chronicled within its pages. It is unlikely to be bettered for the drama of its narrative, or for its ability to relate the battle as how the thousands of Tommys fought it - a valuable perspective that gives identity to the soldiers who are often reduced to mere numbers in all too many accounts.
July 3, 2013
In the summer of the second year of the Great War, British and French troops mounted an offensive against the Hun along the Somme River in northern France. The Germans had been entrenched for the previous two years and were solidly fortified. Charge after charge by mostly British troops (many of the French were redirected to fighting at Verdun) amounted to no more than a few hundred yards of real estate after the first two months. With the remnants of practically an entire generation of Great Britain hanging in the balance, a last ditch effort was mounted to make a decisive break-through in the late summer, with a "secret weapon" up their sleeve - the tank (the name "tank" was used so to start the rumor that the metal monsters were merely water tanks). Though only four of the original forty to fifty sent into the field made it to the front lines, the result was smashing. The sight of these noisy contraptions scared the "dickens" out of the Germans who fled to their rear. The British advanced two miles through the German lines within a few hours, making more headway than the previous three months and with a small fraction of the usual number of casualties.
Being a history buff, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and was impressed at the skill of a woman writer in her detailing of the battle and events surrounding the offensive, including her relating of some of the male humor shared between soldiers. My knowledge of the "Great War" (which it was known until the Second World War broke out) is relatively light. This book has inspired me to do more research on the topic.
Being a history buff, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and was impressed at the skill of a woman writer in her detailing of the battle and events surrounding the offensive, including her relating of some of the male humor shared between soldiers. My knowledge of the "Great War" (which it was known until the Second World War broke out) is relatively light. This book has inspired me to do more research on the topic.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 1, 2014
It seems wrong to say that I enjoyed this book given it's subject matter, but the enjoyment comes from the enlightenment - this is an educational read but the author manages to mix personal testimony, fine detail and overall perspective so well that this felt far removed from a dry historical read. (It also helped that this book was the present my son brought back for me from a school WWI Battlefields tour, what better present for a book lover?)
A further strength of the book, for me, was that the author has written a book assuming her readers will be intelligent enough to follow the story of the battle in all its complexity and detail but without assuming much prior knowledge and this makes the book accessible and satisfying to read. I have just added to my Christmas Wish List two further books on WWI by Macdonald as I was so impressed with this book.
If I have one minor gripe it's that a few of the photos of battlefields taken years after the war ended were not that helpful - the features mentioned in the captions were not always obvious. I think I'm a very demanding reader in this respect as it's a criticism I make of many books, so in the interests of fairness I will add that there are several maps and diagrams in this book that I found very useful.
Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I find her other two WWI books under the Christmas Tree this year....
A further strength of the book, for me, was that the author has written a book assuming her readers will be intelligent enough to follow the story of the battle in all its complexity and detail but without assuming much prior knowledge and this makes the book accessible and satisfying to read. I have just added to my Christmas Wish List two further books on WWI by Macdonald as I was so impressed with this book.
If I have one minor gripe it's that a few of the photos of battlefields taken years after the war ended were not that helpful - the features mentioned in the captions were not always obvious. I think I'm a very demanding reader in this respect as it's a criticism I make of many books, so in the interests of fairness I will add that there are several maps and diagrams in this book that I found very useful.
Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that I find her other two WWI books under the Christmas Tree this year....
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