A significant new account of the most infamous battle of World War I, as described by the men who fought in it. On July 1, 1916, Douglas Haig's army launched the "Great Push" aimed at finally breaking the deadlock on the Western Front. What followed was a humanitarian disaster: nearly 20,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed that day, and double that number were wounded - the largest loss in a single day in the history of the British Army. The battle did not stop there. It continued for another four months, leaving the battlefield strewn with hundreds of thousands of corpses. The Somme has remained synonymous with the futility of war to this day. In this new important account, Peter Hart describes what the battle looked like from the perspective of those who fought in it. Using previously unseen testimonies, he shows us this epic conflict from all angles, including what it was like to crawl over No Man's Land and face German fire, as well as what it meant to stay behind in the trenches – the chaplains, the snipers, the medics. We also see how the battle looked from the air as the RFC fought to maintain control of the skies over the battlefield. All of this is set against the backdrop of the battle's history and Haig's overall strategy for the Western Front, making it the most comprehensive account of the battle since Lyn MacDonald's bestseller over 20 years ago.