1 July 1916 is a date that will be forever associated with the most bloody of battles to take place in the Great War: Somme. Almost 20,000 men had lost their lives by nightfall with twice that number wounded or missing. Newspapers printed calls to arms in 1914 and in the rush to join up there developed many Pals battalions, men who had grown up together, attended the same school, played in the same teams, worked in the same factories. Encouraged to stick together, they were fresh recruits who joined up at the start of war and so every man who stood on the battlefield on that infamous day in 1916 had volunteered to do so.

This book delves into the Cornish experience of the Great War, specifically the road to the Somme and events on that terrible day. Nick Thornicroft has gathered information on the soldiers of Cornwall, a far more remote county than the typical industrial northern counties histories usually focus on. The book follows the Old Contemptibles through training and up to the catastrophic Somme Offensive. The book concludes with a look at the long-term consequences of 1 July 1916, and throughout uses contemporary newspaper reports to describe local views mixed with the histories of the soldiers.