1983 The Crisis of shell shock on the Somme 1916

Paralysis; stuttering; the 'shakes'; inability to stand or walk; temporary blindness or deafness. When strange symptoms like these started to appear in men at Casualty Clearing Stations in 1915, a debate began in army and medical circles as to what it was, what had caused it and what could be done to cure it. But the numbers were never large. Then in July 1916 with the start of the Battle of the Somme the incidence of shell shock rocketed. The high command of the British army began to panic. An increasingly large number of men seemed to have simply lost the will to fight. As entire battalions had to be withdrawn from the front, commanders and military doctors desperately tried to come up with explanations as to what was going wrong. 'Shell shock' - what we would now refer to as battle trauma - was sweeping the Western Front.

Re-assessing the official casualty figures, Taylor Downing for the first time comes up with an accurate estimate of the total numbers who were taken out of action by psychological wounds. It is a shocking figure.

Breakdown follows single individuals and whole units from signing up to the Pals Battalions of 1914, through to the horrors of their experiences on the Somme which led to the shell shock that, unrelated to weakness or cowardice, left the men unable to continue fighting. He shines a light on the official - and brutal - response to the epidemic, even against those officers and doctors who looked on it sympathetically. It was, they believed, a form of hysteria. It was contagious. And it had to be stopped.

Breakdown brings an entirely new perspective to bear on one of the iconic battles of the First World War.

‘This excellent book…often deeply moving…anyone who wishes to understand the Battle of the Somme and its terrible consequences should buy Breakdown.’ The Times