The Battle of the Somme was one of the most tragic battles of the First World War. The number of lives lost on both sides was enormous and historians around the world agree that this battle was one of the bloodiest battles fought. With over a million victims, it is not surprising that the Somme is often referred to as a “bloodbath”. Historian Martin Gilbert explores the severity of the battle in his book; The Somme: heroism and horror during the First World War. In his book, he attempts to pay tribute to the soldiers who fought and fell in battle. To do this, he uses excerpts from diaries, letters and poetry written by soldiers on the front lines to give the reader a first-hand account of what the soldiers thought and felt during the fighting. Gilbert is able to effectively portray the horror of the Somme and reduce the anonymity of the dead by sharing stories from the soldier's personal writings. However, his book would have been more effective if it had a clear and well-structured argument. book, Gilbert explains how: “each book on the Somme contributes in its own way to perpetuating the memory of those who fought and those who fell. This book seeks to make its contribution to this act of memory” (Gilbert, XXII). To do this, he begins to explain what happened before the battle. It gives some information on the size of the British Army at the start of the war in 1914 and discusses who was eligible to fight and the formation of battalions. An example of how battalions were created was when General Sir Henry Rawlinson “suggested that men would be more willing to enlist if they knew they would be serving with those they knew: friends, neighbors. .. middle of paper... ...compared to the number of men who fought and lost their lives, very few stories are told. In conclusion, Gilbert was able to effectively share some of the soldiers' stories, but due to lack of argument, the strength of his writing weakened considerably.Bibliography “Beaumont-Hamel Remembered”. Toronto Star, July 2, 2013, A6.Gilbert, Martin. The Somme: heroism and horror during the First World War. (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2006)Larocci, Andrew. Review of The Battle of the Somme: The Heroism and Horror of War by Martin Gilbert. The Canadian Historical Review vol.88 (December 2007): 657-658. Terraine, John. “The texture of the Somme, 1916.” History Today, September 1, 1976: 559-568 Willmott, HP First World War. New York: DK Publishing, 2009. Wilson, Trevor and Robin Prior. “Summarizing the Somme,” History Today, November 1, 1991: 37-43.