Programme of events, 2016

2nd July

We Dusted Them Off Good:

The German Army on the Somme 1914-1916

Alastair Fraser is Early Printed Book Librarian in Durham University Library’s Archives and Special Collections. He has been researching the Great War for many years and is particularly interested in the British and German Armies at the tactical level as well as the archaeology of the conflict. He is a founder member of No-mans’-Land: the International Group for Great War Archaeology and is currently Project Director of their Heritage Lottery Funded Cocken Hall project which is looking at 18 Durham Light Infantry in Britain and France through excavation and research.

Most narratives of 1st July 1916 present the day as a British failure. Using German archival sources and the recently discovered Somme paintings of Albert Heim, the lecture tells the story from the viewpoint of the Wurttembergers of 26 Reserve Division who achieved a crushing victory that day at Beaumont Hamel against enormous odds.