Produced with the assistance of

HRH The Prince of Wales

The British Embassy Paris

The Army Benevolent Fund

Imperial War Museum London

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

and the Royal British Legion

The Special Boxed Collector’s Edition of

The Somme, Ninety Years On – A Visual History

BY DUNCAN YOUEL AND DAVID EDGELL

HISTORICAL CONSULTANT: MICHAEL STEDMAN

World War One, 1 July 1916. The Battle of the Somme begins in error ten minutes’ early at Hawthorn Ridge, with the detonation of the first of several huge mines planted under the German Army’s frontline redoubts. The defining conflict of The Great War, the Somme campaign was originally seen as part of the Allies’ Big Push against Germany, and was a joint Anglo-French offensive designed to break the German line and put an end to the stalemate of the trenches.

The British Army’s commander, General Sir Douglas Haig, and his Fourth Army commander, General Sir Henry Rawlinson, had devised a major assault across a battlefront which extended eighteen miles, from Gommecourt in the north, to Montauban in the south, taking in the other German-held fortified villages of Serre, Beaumont Hamel, Thiepval, Ovillers, La Boisselle, Fricourt and Mametz. Almost 120,000 men took part in the attack. South of Montauban the French attacked on a Front which extended south down to the River Somme at Peronne. Central to the dreadful story of the Somme is the role played by the many Pals Battalions. The legacy of Britain’s “Citizen Army” can be seen today in the many battlefield cemeteries and memorials along the Old Frontline of July 1st, in particular at Sheffield Memorial Park, Newfoundland Memorial Park, the massive Lochnagar Crater at La Boisselle and, of course, at Thiepval.

SOMME90 commemorates the 90th Anniversary of this key battle of the First World War. As well as a complete, in-depth account of the four and a half month campaign, SOMME90 visits the battlefields today, taking in Lutyens’ massive Memorial to the Missing and the newly-opened Thiepval Visitor Centre nearby, the infamous Schwaben Redoubt and the Ulster Tower, down to Beaucourt by the Ancre. From Blighty Valley across Mouquet Farm to Pozieres, site of the 1st Australian Division Memorial and location of the well-known Le Tommy Bar. From High Wood to Mash Valley, SOMME90 looks at the landscape and tragic history of the Somme. The book and DVD also contain a section on genealogy and the building of the memorials at home, Fabian Ware and the establishment of the Imperial War Graves Commission, and the parts played today by the Army Benevolent Fund and the Royal British Legion.

"I write to congratulate you on

an outstanding book, beautifully designed and written, with superb photographs – a really sensitive tribute. I have quite a number

of books on the 1914/18 War

but none has moved me

as much as yours..."

Mr B Marchant, East Grinstead