Battle of the Somme
By Liam McCann
()
About this ebook
Read more from Liam Mc Cann
HMS Victory Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrand Prix: Driver by Driver Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJFK Conspiracies Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNorth American Indian Wars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnigma and The Code Breakers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSnooker: Player by Player Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Consise History of WWII Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Mafia's Greatest Hits Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGrow Your Own Flowers for Kids Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGreatest Moments of the TT Races Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLand Speed Records Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBest of British Tractors Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret Lives of Secret Agents Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Concise History of Two World Wars Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDarts: Player by Player Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBritish and Irish Lions: Player by Player Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIrish Rugby - Top 50 Players: A Compilation of the Greatest Ever Irish Rugby Players Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsVegetables and Herbs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLet's Play Card Games Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBrazil: Player by Player Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIrish Comedy Greats Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Battle of the Somme
Related ebooks
The Clever Teens' Guide Bumper Edition: The Clever Teens’ Guides Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Clever Teens' Guide to World War One (The Clever Teens’ Guides) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Clever Teens' Guide to World War One: The Clever Teens’ Guides, #5 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWalter Irvin's Diary: World War I Pharmacist Mate Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Germans on the Somme Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Battle of Verdun: The Horror of Trench Warfare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Kaiser's First POWs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorld War I: Why They Fought Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorld War 1: The History of Causes, Deaths, Propaganda, and Consequences of WW1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow It Can Be Told (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMr. Punch's History of the Great War (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of the Great War, Volume 6 of 8 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Battle of the Somme Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5General Bramble (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Split History of World War I: A Perspectives Flip Book Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWith Those Who Wait (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPrivate Peat (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMy Four Years in Germany (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDiary of a Nursing Sister on the Western Front, 1914-1915 (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Short History of the 6th Division: Aug. 1914-March 1919 (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Day of Wrath: A Story of 1914 (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Story of the 6th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914-1919 (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSketches of the East Africa Campaign (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCarnage: The German Front in World War One Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Great War as I Saw It (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Winston Groom's A Storm in Flanders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsL.P.M.: The End of The Great War (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFanny Goes to War (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) (WWI Centenary Series) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Wars & Military For You
Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Making of the Atomic Bomb Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wager Disaster: Mayem, Mutiny and Murder in the South Seas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant: Volumes One and Two Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Battle of the Somme
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Battle of the Somme - Liam McCann
Chapter 1
The Trigger for War
When Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by Bosnian-Serb gunman Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, few would have predicted how quickly international relations would deteriorate. Indeed, reaction in Vienna and across Austria was muted. In Sarajevo, on the other hand, Austrian authorities encouraged anti-Serbian riots. They then imprisoned nearly 6,000 influential Serbs, of whom 500 were sentenced to death.
illustrationFranz Ferdinand and wife Sophie leave the Sarajevo Guildhall on June 28, 1914. They were assassinated minutes later
illustrationItalian newspapers run the story of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination by Gavrilo Princip
Within days, Austria-Hungary, then one of the most powerful states in central Europe, would issue Serbia an ultimatum, the contents of which stipulated that Serbia should suppress all publications denouncing the Austro-Hungarian Empire; dissolve the Serbian Nationalist Organization; bring to trial all the conspirators in the assassination; and cease trafficking arms across the border.
The Serbian government viewed compliance with the ultimatum as impossible for a nation with the ‘slightest regard for its dignity’ but, with a lack of support from Britain, France and Russia, none of whom had any desire for war, they were forced to accept the terms. Winston Churchill, then the First Lord of the Admiralty, realised that the incident could trigger a general war because of the complex alliances between nations across Europe, but he insisted that Britain would remain neutral. He and Foreign Secretary Edward Grey tried to convince Germany to force Austria-Hungary to give the Serbs leeway, while also asking the Russians to mediate on their behalf.
By the end of July, however, war between Austria and Serbia seemed inevitable. The Serbs had largely rejected their demands, while the Austrians clearly wanted control of the Balkans. Emperor Franz Joseph then ordered his army mobilised for action on July 28. Grey continued trying to mediate but Karl Max, Prince Lichnowsky, the German ambassador to Britain, ignored his threat that Britain would side with Russia and France against Germany and Austria-Hungary if Austrian aggression led to war.
illustrationThere were anti-Serb riots in Sarajevo the following day
Not even the intervention of King George V could prevent the inevitable and Austria declared war on Serbia on the morning of July 28. The first shots were fired the following day when Serbian sappers blew up the railway bridge over the River Sava and the monitor SMS Bodrog retaliated by bombarding Belgrade. Each country now fell back on its treaties, which left Britain and the Commonwealth, Russia and France lining up against Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary. (Italy eventually reneged on the Triple Alliance with Germany and Austria, and in May 1915 they joined the Allies.)
The Russians mobilised on July 30, which forced the Germans to do likewise. The Schlieffen Plan – a first-strike scenario that targeted Belgium and France – was instantly put into operation, although Kaiser Wilhelm tried to deflect responsibility by claiming that Britain, France and Russia had initiated the war to break up the mighty German Empire.
The British saw things differently and even offered to guarantee French neutrality, which would limit proceedings to a localised war in the east. Wilhelm