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Richard Van Emden
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The Somme: The Epic Battle in the Soldiers' own Words and Photographs Kindle Edition

by Richard van Emden (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.7 out of 5 stars 229 ratings

The epic and brutal WWI battle is vividly recounted through the words and photos of the soldiers who lived through it.

One of the most famous battles of the Great War, the offensive on the Somme took place in 1916, from July and November. It was there that Kitcheners famous Pals Battalions were first sent into action en masse. It was a battlefield where many of the dreams and aspirations of a nation, hopeful of victory, were agonizingly dashed.

Because of its legendary status, the Battle of the Somme has been the subject of many books. Yet this volume is the first of its kind, in which the soldiers’ own stories and photographs are used to illustrate both the campaign's extraordinary comradeship and its carnage.

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  1. Print length
    493 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Pen & Sword Military
  4. Publication date
    March 31, 2016
  5. File size
    13.5 MB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Richard Van Emden has delivered another excellent book on World War I that magically portrays this segment in time. The rare photographs are aligned with the timeline and add to the text greatly."
IPMS/USA

About the Author

Richard van Emden interviewed 270 veterans of the Great War, has written extensively about the soldiers' lives, and has worked on many television documentaries, always concentrating on the human aspects of war, its challenge and its cost to the millions of men involved. Richard van Emden’s books have sold over 660,000 copies and have appeared in The Times’ bestseller chart on a number of occasions.

He has also worked on more than a dozen television programmes on the Great War, including the award-winning Roses of No Man’s Land, Britain’s Boy Soldiers, A Poem for Harry, War Horse: the Real Story, Teenage Tommies with Fergal Keane and most recently, Hidden Histories: WW1’s Forgotten Photographs. He lives in London.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01C8BN4D8
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pen & Sword Military (March 31, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 31, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 13.5 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 493 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 out of 5 stars 229 ratings

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Richard Van Emden

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4.7 out of 5 stars
229 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • J. Niven
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book
    Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2025
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    Good book about a very sad war!
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  • E Bay Z1
    5.0 out of 5 stars A great book on a personal view of a battle that ...
    Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    A great book on a personal view of a battle that is celebrating its 100 anniversary in England for those who fought and died there. There are other good books on this battle and of WW1, but personal letters of those who were there gives insight in how life was in the trenches and back behind the front lines for rest before going back up when it was their turn back in the front line. Just started reading it, but the letter of a twenty year old infantry man who was tasked to show the commanding general of their company the trenches they were in, got the grand tour. The general came back muddy and filthy as those who were there and thanked the person who took him around. The last line of the letter was how often could a twenty year man do something like that to his superior and get away with it. Can't wait to get back to read the rest of this book.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • N. Holland
    5.0 out of 5 stars Accounts By Real People
    Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2020
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    History is fascinating but never more than when it is written by people who don't write history for a living. This is not something written by scholars. It is written by the people who lived it. Theirs is a perspective like no other. It is what Ken Burns learned years ago. Great job.
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  • atoz72
    5.0 out of 5 stars How men suffered
    Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2019
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    It shows and tells the pure hell those men went through
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  • Kathy Nash U.K.
    5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully written
    Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2016
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    This a wonderfully written book. The subject has been handled with the upmost care, accuracy and sensitivity. If you are interested in the subject don't miss it.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Timothy Murphy
    3.0 out of 5 stars Book shipped US Mail and it was bend and the book was damaged
    Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    Good price. Shipped ASAP. Got to my house two days early. Paperback book and damaged in shipping by US Mail.
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Marc
    5.0 out of 5 stars the terrible story of the war, by the men who lived really this ordeal
    Reviewed in France on August 8, 2018
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    i've read this book , with respect and humility
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  • Kindle Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
    Reviewed in Australia on July 22, 2022
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    One of the best compilations of eyewitness accounts to be published for many years. Perfect and succinct chronological historical notes to put said accounts into context. Bravo
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Intensely personal
    Reviewed in Canada on February 2, 2020
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    Loved the book was entirely composed of front line soldiers experiences. You realize how little information the men had of strategy and day to day events around them.
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  • Corderoy Joan Ann
    5.0 out of 5 stars Totally absorbing, harrowing - and splendid
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 22, 2017
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    There are passages in this book when you will have to put it down and pause. There is hardly a page in which one is not confronted with descriptions of the utter horror of war which men would face on a daily basis. Is it no wonder then that many of the soldiers , even if they might have survived physically, did not survive mentally. They had been pushed to their limits and beyond, until their brains could no longer absorb and rationalize what they were going through. A last mental boundary had been crossed after which they fell into madness. Many of them, on returning home, would spend the rest of their shattered lives in mental institutions.

    And was this at all surprising? When one reads, in this quite remarkable book, the accounts of the men and what they lived through, one wonders how it was possible for anyone to retain their sanity. Death surrounded them every day; one moment a man would be eating his rations, and maybe contemplating about what he would do when the war was over, and the next his body would have exploded under the impact of a shell, and his name would be end up by being engraved on a memorial dedicated to the missing (72,000 alone on the memorial at Theipval). How was it possible to keep one’s sanity when, walking along a communication trench, arms and legs of the dead could be seen sticking out of the trench walls, as it been cut through a field in which hundreds had died during an attack. Death eventually, would take on a ghastly banality. This is how one such death was described by Second Lieutenant Norman Collins of the 1/6th Seaforth Highlanders: “In the hours before the attack I spoke to fellow officers, lieutenants Smith and McLean. We chatted and joked and I remember Lieutenant Smith telling me one curious thing and that was that he was going to go sick but not until after the attack. He had developed a severe rupture and he wanted the hernia attended to in hospital, but he wouldn’t go sick beforehand as he had been nominated for the attack and his absence would seem cowardly. I thought that was very brave of him because he could have gone sick. In the event he was killed.”- Lieutenant Collins makes no further comment. Death was a daily, if not hourly, banality, as banal as dealing with trench foot or boots which had frozen stiff in the cold. This is not to mean that banality meant the soldiers felt nothing. But death had become a routine which had to be incorporated into their daily lives and the loss of a companion or “pal” was just something they had to cope with. even though they might have just wanted to find a quiet corner, sit down and cry.

    In his book Richard Van Emden has collated not only letters sent from the soldiers to their families and friends back home but he probably also took recordings from a few of the old soldiers whom he had been able to interview. The final veterans of that war had forgotten nothing and it was no mean feat of the author to have coaxed out of them the memories which they had often tried to hide so long, or, quite simply had never wanted to talk about. Thus there is sometimes quite extraordinary detail which gives first-hand accounts of what it was really like to fight in the WW1 battlefields. The pages are often illustrated with photos of the soldiers – either smiling, fearful or resigned, and over a 100 years on, they now stare back at us.

    This is a not only a “must read” book for anyone interested inWW1, and in particular, of course The Somme, but it is essential reading for anyone planning to visit there which I have just done. But this book is much more than accounts of the progress of the war in the Somme; it provides you with an insight about what it was really like to be a soldier finding in the trenches in WW1, and above all in their own words, and one can only feel massive admiration for the men who fought there, and whose eye-witness accounts have now come to light in this totally absorbing book.
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  • Sky watson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Van Emden is tried and trusted
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 19, 2016
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    Book review of sorts. A genuine contender for the "If you're only going to buy one book....." ( That is if you already have Peter Hart's, Lyn Macdonald's, Martin Middlebrook's books on the Somme) This was an eagerly awaited book. Richard Van E is, as it says on the tin, the bestselling World War One author. He is easy to read, doesn't come across as patronising, and he knows his stuff. "The Somme: The Epic Battle in the Soldier's Own Words and Photographs" follows "Tommy's War: The Western Front in Soldier's Words and Photographs"(2014) and "Gallipoli: The Dardanelles Disaster in Soldier's Words and Photographs"(2015 - with Stephen Chambers) in that the Vest Pocket Kodak is the main focus and the photos shown reflect as closely as possible the words that are spoken. It's a winning combination and hopefully not a trilogy. Van E's 'The Somme' is not just about the 1st July, or the ensuing four and a half months that the battle raged on over. There had been a British presence there prior, so the book covers the twenty months, that saw the British forces there. And unlike the Official War Photographs at the time, which were often staged and rarely would the subject be identified by name or regiment, the photos we see (again proper use of the term "never before seen") and the soldiers we see, are named. The faces shown are known to the photographer, and the expressions, from the smiles to the dazed and confused are real. The snappers risked a lot, as the VPK's and similar such cameras were banned, and the penalties for been caught with one were severe - enough that by 1916 there were nowhere near as many as in 1914. The ban was reissued in 1915. The author has been able to use nearly 170 images, and those coupled with diary entries ( the soldiers personal ones, not the Unit War Diaries) and interviews with survivors of the battle, many of which were given to the author whilst they were still alive make this a stand out book. Anyone familiar with Van Emden's books will know and appreciate his narrative style which lacks the blah-blah filler. But for me it's the photos. They capture pals together. Looking at them will make you smile. Some of them look like holiday snaps, which would be of interest only to those involved. But when you consider the backdrop.....many of the men would not survive - in some cases shortly after- and coupled with their words, it stops you in your tracks. It could make you weep. Some of the photos would be sent to families with " this was the last photo taken before he died" type words, and you feel almost like you are seeing something you were not meant to see. In his previous book 'Gallipoli' (with Stephen Chambers who has himself written some s*** hot books) it was a nondescript photo of a bunch of 156th Brigade boys on the deck of the RMS Empress of Britain, embarking at Liverpool for Gallipoli. My great uncle was on that boat. Probably not in the picture, but he was there. Anyone who had a relative who was at the Somme, will be able to see what the place was like. Not the few official staged photos that do the rounds, but the almost ordinariness and routine of the moments captured. Powerful stuff. And on a personal note, my grandad was at the Somme, though thankfully not for the battle. The 1RS were there after 2nd Ypres on their way to Salonika. And thanks to this book, the words of Captain Francis Smith of the 1st Royal Scots give me wee glimpses of what my grandad might have seen. A fantastic book. Well worth it.
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