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By John Buchan
Published just a year after the battle, John Buchan’s account of the first two phases of the Battle of the Somme, one of bloodiest battles of the Great War, jump off the page a century on.
Buchan goes beyond the first day of the Somme to provide a valued account of the extended battle and the strategy used.
He describes the manoeuvres and the generals who led thousands of troops, and also deliberates on the nature of war and the state of mind needed by the men facing such a terrible battle.
As a war correspondent in France for The Times from 1915 Buchan was well placed to comment on such events.
The Battle of the Somme is a classic contemporary account of the one of the key battles of the First World War by one of the finest writers of the era.