Hello, welcome to the history hit World Wars Podcast, a podcast dedicated to that turbulent period in history between 1914 and 1945.

I'm James Rogers, and in this episode we look at the Somme, the biggest and bloodiest battle in the history of the British Army.

In fact, one of the bloodiest battles to ever take place on earth.

It was preceded by a week of ferocious artillery barrage in which 1.5 million shells were fired.

And then on that fateful morning, July 1st, 1916, the infantry attacked. The whistles were blown and this rumbled on until November

1916. In this episode of the History Hit World Wars podcast, first recorded for Dan Snow's

history hit, Dan talks with Professor Peter Doyle,

co-author of Kitchener's Mob, the new army to the Somme.

Peter tells us about the makeup of the British Army, the people who fought in it,

how they were conscripted, how they were trained, and ultimately how they fought against a well-prepared and formidable German foe. And the Peter, thanks to carrying on history hit. You have just published a magnificent new book.

It is called Kitchener's Mob, together with Chris Foster, and it's the new army to the Somme.

I really want to talk to you in this week of all weeks, because of course it's the, we're building up to the

Centenary of the Somme. We're going to have a lot of talk about the casualties, the battlefield

action, the tactics of that day. I want to talk to you about the build-up, the

training, who are these men, how are they recruited? What was the army that

marched the Somme like? And the person to talk to is clearly you.

So start, if you will, by reminding us all, Britain didn't have a mass, even despite being

this massive imperial superpower in 1914 1914 didn't have a big mass army did it?

No, that's right.

Britain really relied upon its Navy.

The Navy was the strength of the nation,

the nation knew that it couldn't in any way be invaded

...