Shadows of the Somme

Shadows of the Somme PDF Author: Paul Coffey
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781517066772
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
'He looked up at the sky, crystal blue and cloudless ... he closed his eyes, put the whistle to his lips and blew.' The first of July 1916 and in the French countryside tens of thousands of doomed British soldiers are being killed and wounded as the bloody Battle of the Somme begins. Captain Edward Harris, vainly encouraging his men over the top and headlong into the murderous German machine guns, is badly wounded. Crawling to a shell hole for cover, he lies helpless as the carnage continues around him. October 2015 and Tom Harris has no interest in the First World War. For him it's a conflict from another age. But during a visit to the battlefields he becomes fascinated by a headstone in a British war cemetery showing his namesake. Desperate to learn more Tom begins to delve into the past where he discovers ordinary men consumed by extraordinary times. And in doing so he unearths a remarkable and moving story of loss, despair, hope and redemption.

Shadows of the Somme

Shadows of the Somme PDF Author: Paul Coffey
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781517066772
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Get Book

Book Description
'He looked up at the sky, crystal blue and cloudless ... he closed his eyes, put the whistle to his lips and blew.' The first of July 1916 and in the French countryside tens of thousands of doomed British soldiers are being killed and wounded as the bloody Battle of the Somme begins. Captain Edward Harris, vainly encouraging his men over the top and headlong into the murderous German machine guns, is badly wounded. Crawling to a shell hole for cover, he lies helpless as the carnage continues around him. October 2015 and Tom Harris has no interest in the First World War. For him it's a conflict from another age. But during a visit to the battlefields he becomes fascinated by a headstone in a British war cemetery showing his namesake. Desperate to learn more Tom begins to delve into the past where he discovers ordinary men consumed by extraordinary times. And in doing so he unearths a remarkable and moving story of loss, despair, hope and redemption.

The Missing of the Somme

The Missing of the Somme PDF Author: Geoff Dyer
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307742970
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
The Missing of the Somme is part travelogue, part meditation on remembrance—and completely, unabashedly, unlike any other book about the First World War. Through visits to battlefields and memorials, Geoff Dyer examines the way that photographs and film, poetry and prose determined—sometimes in advance of the events described—the way we would think about and remember the war. With his characteristic originality and insight, Dyer untangles and reconstructs the network of myth and memory that illuminates our understanding of, and relationship to, the Great War.

The Battle of the Somme

The Battle of the Somme PDF Author: Matthias Strohn
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472815572
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Published to coincide with the centenary commemoration of the battle of the Somme, this new study comprises 12 separate articles written by some of the foremost military historians, each of whom looks at a specific aspect of the battle. Focusing on key aspects of the British, French and German forces, overall strategic and tactical impacts of the battle and with an introduction by renowned World War I scholar Professor Sir Hew Strachan, The Battle of the Somme is a timely collection of the latest research and analysis of the battle. The terrors of the Somme have largely come to embody trench warfare on the Western Front in the modern imagination, but this new book looks beyond the horrendous conditions and staggering casualty rates to provide new, insightful research on one of the most pivotal battles of the war.

Ghosts on the Somme

Ghosts on the Somme PDF Author: Alastair H. Fraser
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1844682706
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
The Battle of the Somme is one of the most famous, and earliest, films of war ever made. The film records the most disastrous day in the history of the British army—1 July 1916—and it had a huge impact when it was shown in Britain during the war. Since then images from it have been repeated so often in books and documentaries that it has profoundly influenced our view of the battle and of the Great War itself. Yet this book is the first in-depth study of this historic film, and it is the first to relate it to the surviving battleground of the Somme.The authors explore the film and its history in fascinating detail. They investigate how much of it was faked and consider how much credit for it should go to Geoffrey Malins and how much to John MacDowell. And they use modern photographs of the locations to give us a telling insight into the landscape of the battle and into the way in which this pioneering film was created.Their analysis of scenes in the film tells us so much about the way the British army operated in June and July 1916—how the troops were dressed and equipped, how they were armed and how their weapons were used. In some cases it is even possible to discover what they were saying. This painstaking exercise in historical reconstruction will be compelling reading for everyone who is interested in the Great War and the Battle of the Somme.

Somme 1916

Somme 1916 PDF Author: Paul Kendall
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 151070874X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
What really happened on the first day of the Somme? Much controversy has surrounded the Somme offensive relating to its justification and its impact upon the course of the war. General Sir Douglas Haig's policies have been the subject of considerable debate about whether the heavy losses sustained were worth the small gains that were achieved which appeared to have little strategic value. That was certainly the case on many sectors on 1 July 1916, where British soldiers were unable to cross No Man's Land and failed to reach, or penetrate into, the German trenches. In other sectors, however, breaches were made in the German lines culminating in the capture that day of Leipzig Redoubt, Mametz and Montauban. This book aims to highlight the failures and successes on that day and for the first time evaluate those factors that caused some divisions to succeed in capturing their objectives whilst others failed. An important new study, this book is certain to answer these questions as well as challenging the many myths and misconceptions surrounding the battle that have been propagated for the last 100 years. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Somme

Somme PDF Author: Hugh Sebag-Montefiore
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674970039
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 650

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Book Description
Rescuing from history the heroes on the front line whose bravery has been overlooked, and giving voice to their bereaved relatives at home, Hugh Sebag-Montefiore reveals the Battle of the Somme in all its glory and misery, helping us to realize that there are many meaningful ways to define a battle when seen through the eyes of those who lived it.

The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century

The Long Shadow: The Legacies of the Great War in the Twentieth Century PDF Author: David Reynolds
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393244296
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
Winner of the 2014 PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for the Best Work of History. "If you only read one book about the First World War in this anniversary year, read The Long Shadow. David Reynolds writes superbly and his analysis is compelling and original." —Anne Chisolm, Chair of the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize Committee, and Chair of the Royal Society of Literature. One of the most violent conflicts in the history of civilization, World War I has been strangely forgotten in American culture. It has become a ghostly war fought in a haze of memory, often seen merely as a distant preamble to World War II. In The Long Shadow critically acclaimed historian David Reynolds seeks to broaden our vision by assessing the impact of the Great War across the twentieth century. He shows how events in that turbulent century—particularly World War II, the Cold War, and the collapse of Communism—shaped and reshaped attitudes to 1914–18. By exploring big themes such as democracy and empire, nationalism and capitalism, as well as art and poetry, The Long Shadow is stunningly broad in its historical perspective. Reynolds throws light on the vast expanse of the last century and explains why 1914–18 is a conflict that America is still struggling to comprehend. Forging connections between people, places, and ideas, The Long Shadow ventures across the traditional subcultures of historical scholarship to offer a rich and layered examination not only of politics, diplomacy, and security but also of economics, art, and literature. The result is a magisterial reinterpretation of the place of the Great War in modern history.

Beneath the Killing Fields

Beneath the Killing Fields PDF Author: Matthew Leonard
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 147388411X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
Beneath the Killing Fields of the Western Front still lies a hidden landscape of industrialised conflict virtually untouched since 1918. This subterranean world is an ambiguous environment filled with material culture that that objectifies the scope and depth of human interaction with the diverse conflict landscapes of modern war. Covering the military reasoning for taking the war underground, as well as exploring the way that human beings interacted with these extraordinary alien environments, this book provides a more all-encompassing overview of the Western Front. The underground war was intrinsic to trench warfare and involved far more than simply trying to destroy the enemys trenches from below. It also served as a home to thousands of men, protecting them from the metallic landscapes of the surface. With the aid of cutting edge fieldwork conducted by the author in these subterranean locales, this book combines military history, archaeology and anthropology together with primary data and unique imagery of British, French, German and American underground defences in order to explore the realities of subterranean warfare on the Western Front, and the effects on the human body and mind that living and fighting underground inevitably entailed.

Monty and Rommel

Monty and Rommel PDF Author: Peter Caddick-Adams
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1468309064
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
“An accessible, well-honed study of two fascinating characters” who famously fought each other in numerous battles during WWII, from Egypt to D-Day (Kirkus). Bernard Montgomery and Erwin Rommel faced one another in a series of extraordinary battles that established each man as one of the greatest generals in history. Born four years apart, their lives were remarkably similar. Each came from provincial roots, nearly died in WWI, yet emerged from that great conflict with glowing records. Through their many duels, including their legendary conflicts in North Africa and later at the Normandy D-Day invasion, Peter Caddick-Adams tracks and compares their military talents and personalities. Monty and Rommel explores how each general was raised to power by their war leaders, Churchill and Hitler, and how the innovative military strategy and thought of both permeate down to today's armies.

Fighting the Somme

Fighting the Somme PDF Author: Jack Sheldon
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781473881990
Category : Somme (France)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
* A thought-provoking study of the doctrine, particularly command and control, that the German army developed in fighting the defensive battle of the Somme 1916. * Insight into the development of German army doctrine and command and control. * Uses archival evidence and contemporary accounts to illustrate how the Germans put doctrine into pract