A joint operation between Britain and France in 1916, the Battle of the
Somme was an attempt to gain territory and dent Germany's military
strength. By the end of the action, very little ground had been won: the
Allied Forces had made just 12 km. For this slight gain, more than a
million lives were lost.
There were more than 400,000 British, 200,000 French, and 500,000 German
casualties during the fighting. Twelve Days on the Somme is a memoir
of the last spell of frontline duty performed by the 2nd Battalion of
the West Yorkshire Regiment.
Written by Sidney Rogerson, a young officer in B Company, it gives an
extraordinarily frank and often moving account of what it was really
like to fight through one of the most notorious battles of the First
World War.
Its special message, however, is that, contrary to received assumptions
and the popular works of writers like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried
Sassoon, men could face up to the terrible ordeal such a battle
presented with resilience, good humor and without loss of morale.
This is a classic work whose reprinting is long overdue. This edition
includes a new introduction by Malcolm Brown and a Foreword by
Rogerson's son Commander Jeremy Rogerson.