Rawson - The Somme campaign

First published in Great Britain by
PEN AND SWORD MILITARY
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Pen and Sword Books Ltd
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Copyright Andrew Rawson 2014

ISBN 978 1 78303 051 4

eISBN 9781473838406

The right of Andrew Rawson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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Another book on the 1916 Somme campaign I hear you say as you pick a copy off the shelf or browse the internet. Surely there are enough out there already? What does this one tell me that the others do not? Well, some concentrate on the politics, some on just the opening day, some on the German view and some on the personal experiences of the men who fought and died. This one concentrates on the British Armys experience during the five and a half month long campaign.

In my experience books on the Somme campaign follow a similar structure. The first third of the narrative concentrates on the build up to the campaign, covering the politics and raising of the divisions, particularly the New Army divisions. The second third focuses on the disastrous first day on 1 July when the British Army suffered over 57,000 casualties; the highest number in one day in the Armys history. The final third of the book covers the remaining 141 days of the campaign and a fair amount of that is devoted to the arrival of the tank on the battlefield on 15 September. So the narratives have an unequal balance which focuses on gallant failures rather than some of the heroic successes which came later.