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The Somme, 1916: A Personal Account
On 1 July 1916, after a week-long bombardment from heavy artillery, British and French forces advanced towards German trenches on a fifteen mile front north of the Somme.
Allied generals were confident that the artillery barrage would have decimated German defenses, but they were wrong. Barbed wire remained intact in many areas and German trench networks had many underground positions meaning that men and weaponry were ready to face the advancing troops.
By the end of the first day over 19,000 British soldiers had been killed and more than double this had been wounded. This battle would drag on for a further five months, with Allied forces penetrating around six miles into German lines at a cost of over 600,000 casualties.
Norman Gladden served as a private in the British Army during the First World War. He had signed up for the Army in May 1916 and after a brief period of training was sent into the muddy quagmire that the front line had become. As a new recruit he learned to adapt quickly to his environment and served in the third stage of the Somme Offensive as Allied generals attempted to break the deadlock. During this time he kept a diary, recording his personal experiences of this monumental conflict which provides the basis for this remarkable and unique insight into life on the Western Front seen through the eyes of an ordinary soldier.
The Somme, 1916 should be essential reading for all interested in the history of the First World War and seeing one its most ferocious battles from the viewpoint of an infantry soldier. This book is the first part of Norman Gladden’s World War One trilogy, Full Pack — A Private’s War, followed by Ypres, 1917 and Across the Piave. A portion of the revenue from every sale of each book in this trilogy goes to The National Trust.
Allied generals were confident that the artillery barrage would have decimated German defenses, but they were wrong. Barbed wire remained intact in many areas and German trench networks had many underground positions meaning that men and weaponry were ready to face the advancing troops.
By the end of the first day over 19,000 British soldiers had been killed and more than double this had been wounded. This battle would drag on for a further five months, with Allied forces penetrating around six miles into German lines at a cost of over 600,000 casualties.
Norman Gladden served as a private in the British Army during the First World War. He had signed up for the Army in May 1916 and after a brief period of training was sent into the muddy quagmire that the front line had become. As a new recruit he learned to adapt quickly to his environment and served in the third stage of the Somme Offensive as Allied generals attempted to break the deadlock. During this time he kept a diary, recording his personal experiences of this monumental conflict which provides the basis for this remarkable and unique insight into life on the Western Front seen through the eyes of an ordinary soldier.
The Somme, 1916 should be essential reading for all interested in the history of the First World War and seeing one its most ferocious battles from the viewpoint of an infantry soldier. This book is the first part of Norman Gladden’s World War One trilogy, Full Pack — A Private’s War, followed by Ypres, 1917 and Across the Piave. A portion of the revenue from every sale of each book in this trilogy goes to The National Trust.
242 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 18, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 25, 2023
The most thorough depiction of life at the Front
Gladden’s gradual initiation to war on the Western Front. The narrative takes the reader by stages to the complete and utter misery of the last weeks of the Somme offensive.
Gladden’s gradual initiation to war on the Western Front. The narrative takes the reader by stages to the complete and utter misery of the last weeks of the Somme offensive.
December 31, 2022
Norman Gladden's The Somme, 1916 recounts the author's personal journey through the British Army in the First World War, towards the end of the Battle of the Somme. Across eight sections, Gladden details his experience from the mundanities of training, the horrors of combat and the process of recuperation.
Detailing both the start of war and his working life, Gladden sets the scene with a history of the outbreak of the war and the British response. He was a young man in his late teens, just starting his working life as a boy clerk in a Post Office Savings Bank. He then details his journey through joining the army and his training, before making his way to the European theater. Gladden's narrative is based on a diary he kept while in service, but was expanded following the end of the war. The author then went back through adding historical notes and rewriting it before it eventual publication in the 1970s.
What this has left us with it a compelling account of service in the British Army on the First World War's Western European Front. It includes the author's deeper feelings and thoughts of his experience of the war. However, as a primary source of world war I service it has lost some of its immediacy and power.
Written around fifty years after his experience, the reader is left with the older Gladden's recounting of his war service. I was frequently left to wonder what the post war diary contained. Was the younger Gladden also critical of his officers and fellow soldiers? When did he begin to consider himself a coward? I wish this had had the original diary reproduced with Gladden annotating or otherwise expanding upon those initial writings.
Readers looking for some idea of world war I front line experiences would find some useful content here, but those looking to more generally for British male perspectives of World War I service should read the classics of Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon.
I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.
Detailing both the start of war and his working life, Gladden sets the scene with a history of the outbreak of the war and the British response. He was a young man in his late teens, just starting his working life as a boy clerk in a Post Office Savings Bank. He then details his journey through joining the army and his training, before making his way to the European theater. Gladden's narrative is based on a diary he kept while in service, but was expanded following the end of the war. The author then went back through adding historical notes and rewriting it before it eventual publication in the 1970s.
What this has left us with it a compelling account of service in the British Army on the First World War's Western European Front. It includes the author's deeper feelings and thoughts of his experience of the war. However, as a primary source of world war I service it has lost some of its immediacy and power.
Written around fifty years after his experience, the reader is left with the older Gladden's recounting of his war service. I was frequently left to wonder what the post war diary contained. Was the younger Gladden also critical of his officers and fellow soldiers? When did he begin to consider himself a coward? I wish this had had the original diary reproduced with Gladden annotating or otherwise expanding upon those initial writings.
Readers looking for some idea of world war I front line experiences would find some useful content here, but those looking to more generally for British male perspectives of World War I service should read the classics of Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon.
I received a free digital version of this book via NetGalley thanks to the publisher.
March 17, 2024
I really dig war memoirs and this was my first reading one from a man who was in WWI. This is the first in a trilogy of Norman Gladden’s experience. This first book being the Somme in 1916. The book gives you an interesting looking into the frontline experience and you get a real feel of what these men had to go through. The death of Jimmy really saddened me. Just goes to show how many young lives were wasted.
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May 23, 2025The Somme in 1916, mud and heart break all in one..
Gladden tells us the story of the Somme that only one that lived that hell could actually appreciate. Well written and personal from beginning to end.
Gladden tells us the story of the Somme that only one that lived that hell could actually appreciate. Well written and personal from beginning to end.
January 5, 2023
worth reading
What a complete shambles the British Army was during WW1. Mind you most of the European armies were. The despised colonials did much better as most were volunteers.
What a complete shambles the British Army was during WW1. Mind you most of the European armies were. The despised colonials did much better as most were volunteers.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews