Attack on the Somme: Haig's Offensive 1916 by Martin Pegler

Attack on the Somme: Haig's Offensive 1916 by Martin Pegler

The Battle of the Somme is fixed in the country's collective memory as a disaster - probably the most bloody episode in the catalogue of futile offensives launched by the British on the Western Front. Over five months of desperate fighting in 1916 the British wrestled with the Germans for control of a narrow strip of innocuous French countryside. When the fighting petered out the British had barely pushed back the Germans from their original positions for a combined casualty figure of over a million men. But after 80 years this notorious episode in western military history deserves to be reassessed. Previously unpublished eyewitness accounts are used to give a fascinating first-hand view of the immediate experience of the fighting. As Martin Pegler shows, a revision in our assessment of the Somme, in particular of the tactics and the weaponry employed by the combatants, is overdue, and he challenges the traditional assumptions about the course of the battle and its future impact on the development of warfare.

Martin Pegler has a BA Hons in Medieval and Modern History and an MA in Museum Studies, both from University College, London, and was for many years the Senior Curator of Firearms at the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds. He now lives in the Somme, France, where he and his wife run a small bed and breakfast, which is situated on top of the old German front line! Martin has established The Somme Historical Centre (www.martinpegler.com), where visitors can see the technology used in the 1914-18 trench warfare. Martin enjoys shooting historic firearms, and has participated in many shooting competitions. He is currently an author and firearms consultant and he also lectures at local Great War museums. In his spare time Martin runs motorcycle tours of the battlefield. He is the author of a number of books including The Military Sniper since 1914 (Osprey, 2001), Firearms in the American West 1700-1900 (The Crowood Press, 2002), and the highly acclaimed Out of Nowhere: A History of the Military Sniper (Osprey, 2004), and he has also contributed to a number of magazines. In the 1980s he had the privilege of interviewing many World War I veterans about their wartime experiences, and the recordings are now part of the sound archives of the Imperial War Museum, London The author lives in France.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781844153978
ISBN 10	1844153975
Title	Attack on the Somme: Haig's Offensive 1916
Author	Martin Pegler
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Year published	2006-02-08
Number of pages	208
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable