The memories of those heart-breaking days will last forever. The name Serre and the date July 1st is engraved deep in our hearts, along with the faces of our "Pals", a grand crowd of chaps. We were two years in the making and ten minutes in the destroying' Pte A. V. Pearson, Leeds Pals

July 1, 1916, 7.30 am. An eerie silence hung over the battlefield, suddenly shattered by the blowing of whistles and shouts of command. The battle of the Somme had begun. A continuous stream of British soldiers climbed out of their trenches and advanced towards German defences they were confident had been destroyed. But German soldiers were in place and ready: their reactions swift, their machine-guns finding easy targets. By the end of the day, 60,000 men from Kitchener's volunteer army - civilians who had cheerfully enlisted in the wave of patriotic fervour that swept the country in the first months of the war - had been killed or wounded. British Commander-in-Chief Sir Douglas Haig had optimistically launched the offensive, believing it would result in a decisive breakthrough. But the bloodbath of the opening day gave way to months of brutal stalemate as the Allies strove without success to seize more ground until the battle finally fizzled out in the chill November mud.

Commissioned by The Folio Society to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the battle of the Somme, this magnificent and moving book relives the most terrible military campaign in British history through the accounts of participants from both sides, from the generals at headquarters to the ordinary soldiers in the trenches. Their experiences of the horror and suffering in the battle that has come to represent all the futility and tragedy of World War I remain unforgettably vivid; yet their stories also glitter with heroism, humour, and a formidable spirit of resilience that stands out amidst the dreadful slaughter.