Subaltern on the Somme

Max Plowman joined the 10th Battalion, the West Yorkshire Regiment shortly after it suffered heavy casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme - its casualty rate exceeded that of any other British unit on that day, with seventy per cent killed or wounded.Throughout the rest of 1916, Max Plowman served as a young officer with the Battalion on the Somme.

Subaltern on the Somme is a record of his daily life, and ranges across different aspects of his war in the trenches - including fear, shellfire, drunkenness, mud, frustration and his views about his fellow officers and British army commanders.

Subaltern on the Somme is for anybody who wonders what trench warfare was like for a junior officer.