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The Darkest Hour on the Western Front
by Peter Hart
On July 1, 1916, the British Army launched the "Big Push" that was supposed to bring an end to the horrific stalemate on the Western Front between British, French and German forces. What resulted was one of the greatest single human catastrophes in twentieth century warfare: scrambling out of trenches in the face of German machine guns and artillery fire, the British lost over twenty thousand soldiers during the first day. This "battle" would drag on for another four bloody months.
Expertly weaving together letters, diaries, and other first-person accounts, Peter Hart gives us a compelling narrative tribute to this infamous tragedy that epitomized the futility of "the war to end all wars."
"Starred Review. Comprehensive study of the battle of 1916 that would kill and wound a million combatants....an eye-opening study." - Kirkus Reviews.
"Starred Review. Direct quotations from participants establish 'the face of battle,' then combined with a narrative/analytical backdrop contextualizing the personal experiences." - Publishers Weekly.
"Hart's massive and absorbing book eschews simple explanations for the tragedy that was the World War I battle of the Somme." - Booklist.
"Libraries with Martin Gilbert's popular account of that fateful campaign may bypass this more in-depth book, but any library maintaining a solid World War I collection should have this masterful work as well. Military history at its best." - Library Journal.
"The traditional view of the battle as a blood-soaked catastrophe has been challenged in recent years by revisionist historians ... Hart’s aim is to occupy the no-man’s-land between those entrenched positions ... As oral historian at the Imperial War Museum, Hart had unparalleled access to the museum’s vast archives, and the first-person accounts he has unearthed are rich in vivid images ... " - The Times (UK).
"Peter Hart pays handsome tribut to the 'ordinary soldiers...' ... one could not wish for a more appropriate testimony to that generation for which the Somme was much more than a topic for academic research or a source of poignant reflection." - Literary Review.
"A monumental feat of research, his book is also a memorial of the most compelling kind to the hundreds of individuals whose diaries, letters and recollections are presented so vividly here." - The Scotsman.
This information about The Somme was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Peter Hart is a prolific author on both world wars. His books on the Great War include Defeat at Gallipoli, Tumult in the Clouds, Passchendaele, the Sacrificial Ground, Jutland 1916 (all co-authored with his colleague Nigel Steel) and Somme Success: The RFC and the Somme. Bloody April: Slaughter in the Skies over Arras, 1917 and The Somme were published in 2005.
Peter Hart is one of the country's leading oral historians. As the Imperial War Museum's Oral Historian, he works frequently with war veterans recording their wartime experiences and to continue to expand the magnificent collections of the Imperial War Museum Sound Archive.
Visit Peter at http://www.peterhartmilitary.com/
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