It took several million bullets and roughly an hour to effectively destroy General Sir Douglas Haig's grand plans for the first day of the Somme, 1 July 1916. By day's end, 19,240 British soldiers were dead, crumpled khaki bundles scattered across pasture studded with the scarlet of poppies and smouldering shell holes. A further 35,493 were wounded. This single sunny day remains Britain's worst-ever military disaster. Responsible were hundreds of German machine guns and scores of artillery batteries that had waited silently to deal death to the long-anticipated attack. Reviewing the day's events fully from, for the first time, both the British and German perspectives, Andrew Macdonald explains how and why this was a disaster waiting to happen. While laying the blame for the butchery squarely on widespread British command failure, he also shows that the outcome was a triumph of German discipline, planning and tactics, with German commanders mostly outclassing their opposite numbers.
| ISBN: | 9781775540403 |
| Publication date: | 1st April 2016 |
| Author: | Andrew Macdonald |
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Primary Genre | History |
| Other Genres: |
It took several million bullets and roughly an hour to effectively destroy General Sir Douglas Haig's grand plans for the first day of the Somme, 1 July 1916. By day's end, 19,240 British soldiers were dead, crumpled khaki bundles scattered across pasture studded with the scarlet of poppies and smouldering shell holes. A further 35,493 were wounded. This single sunny day remains Britain's worst-ever military disaster. Responsible were hundreds of German machine guns and scores of artillery batteries that had waited silently to deal death to the long-anticipated attack. Reviewing the day's events fully from, for the first time, both the British and German perspectives, Andrew Macdonald explains how and why this was a disaster waiting to happen. While laying the blame for the butchery squarely on widespread British command failure, he also shows that the outcome was a triumph of German discipline, planning and tactics, with German commanders mostly outclassing their opposite numbers.
First Day of the Somme The Complete Account of Britain's Worst-Ever Military Disaster features in the following genres: History, Biographies & Autobiographies, History and Archaeology, Biography, Literature and Literary studies
First Day of the Somme The Complete Account of Britain's Worst-Ever Military Disaster is available in Paperback
First Day of the Somme The Complete Account of Britain's Worst-Ever Military Disaster was written by Andrew Macdonald and published by HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand)
