A century ago, the combined casualties of Britain and her dominions, France and Germany during the conflict on the Somme topped a million men killed, wounded, taken prisoner or missing, which ordinarily meant that the man in question was gone. Despite everything that Haig and his generals could fashion in an attempt to settle the war on the Western Front, the Germans doggedly held their ground. Setting aside the wounded, who sometimes faced a lifetime of pain and hardship owing to their part in the battle, we had to choose just 141 of them in an attempt to breathe life and colour back into sepia-toned portraits and black-and-white photographs in order to help people remember the loss suffered in all corners of the globe. We purposely avoided a book full of celebrities in honour of those hundreds of thousands of ordinary men and women who fought in or contributed to a battle that played its part in shaping the history of the twentieth century.
Even those who survived it all have left us now, but the name ‘Somme’ resonates still throughout Britain and her former territories, and rightly so. A watchword for a type of savagery that modern warfare means we will never see the likes of again, as the centenary approaches we hope that this collection of stories will remind the reader of the human face beyond the terror, the pain and the suffering inflicted by the Battle of the Somme and perhaps take a moment to remember all of those who fought in it.
Map showing the locations of some of the final resting places of those commemorated in 141 Days, 141 Lives.