2016 marks the centenary 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…’ In her landmark account, Macdonald gives those men back their voices — and the result is vivid, harrowing, courageous, and shot through with dark humour. ‘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 Mail. The year 1916 stands as one of the defining turning-points in British history. On paper, the joint offensive with a French Army already bled white at Verdun was meticulously planned; the political logic was sound. But the raw young soldiers going over the top knew nothing of that. A hundred and fifty thousand would be killed in the relentless shellfire and the punishing cycle of attack and counter-attack; twice that number were left wounded or maimed. The idealism of a generation was ground down into the mud, and with it went old certainties about authority that would never fully return. Over more than two decades, Lyn Macdonald built her reputation as one of the foremost popular historians of the First World War, constructing her books from the testimony of eyewitnesses and survivors and casting a uniquely human light on the conflict. Most of her works are published by Penguin.
ISBN 13: 9780241952382
Author: Lyn MacDonald
