'The Somme' has become synonymous with the appalling casualties inflicted on theblackest day in British miltary history, 1 July 1916. The valley of the Somme, however, winding from its source north-east of St Quentin through Peronne and Amiens to the sea, was the scene of a yet wider and more moving story. Here there was of little military importance except the enemy; no vital resources, nokey communications. It became the arena for a straightforward war of attrition in which hundreds of thousands lost their lives and which is remembered in innumerable other countries worldwide. 80 yearsafter the event this book uses old photographs and maps combined with modern colour photos to tell the story in human terms. While this account concentrates on the events of 1 July and the four-and-a-half months' conflict that followed, it also sets them in the larger context of the western from as a whole and the victories,first German then AllieA