The Old Front Line

In this episode we return to the Arras battlefields in Northern France and walk to the village of Gavrelle where the men of the Royal Naval Division fought in 1917, and discover the fields where the Royal Marines lost more men in a single days fighting than on any other in their entire history.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this episode for Armistice Day we look at those who survived the Great War and came home to write about in a series of memoirs which were published from the 1920s until more recent times as that generation faded away. We look at Officer's Memoirs and ask why there are fewer memoirs by ordinary soldiers?  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this latest Trench Chat we are joined by author and historian Richard Van Emden to discuss his new book 'Volunteers' about the men who enlisted as volunteers in the British Army during the early years of the Great War in 1914/15. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

After moving house, and nearly three hundred miles with the Old Front Line archives and library, we return from a new location, new ideas for the podcast and shifting hundreds of Great War books has prompted some thoughts from the past, from authors to Great War veterans. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this special Trench Chat we bring together four Great War Podcasters: I was so very happy and honoured to be joined by Mike Cunha, Matt Dixon and Terry Whenham. We discuss what podcasting is all about and what we think the subject brings to this medium, and go off on plenty of tangents too!  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this latest Trench Chat we speak to Professor Peter Doyle about his current research on the mine craters of the Somme battlefields. We learn how were these craters formed, what their wartime story was, and what do they mean in relation to the landscape of the Western Front today? Send us Fan Mail Support the show

On a hill above the village of Hénin, close to Arras, stood a wooden cross remembering soldiers of the 64th Brigade who fell there in 1917. Preserved at Beverley Minster in Yorkshire, what happened to this memorial, and what can we find of the men who fought here at Hénin Hill in 1917?  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

Charley's War was a comic strip published in the late 1970s and early 1980s telling the story of Charley Bourne, a 16 year old Tommy on the front line of the Great War. What does it tell us about the conflict, and what impact does it have on our understanding of the subject?  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this episode we look back over Season 5, discuss some of the subjects we have spoken about during the past few months, explain how the podcast is planned and made, and look ahead to Season 6. Along the way we also have a few Great War stories. The podcast returns for the next Season in September.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

For the final episode of Season 5 we are back on the Somme. At Contalmaison we discover the story of how the history of Great War football weaves through that village, how a pioneering eye surgeon from Liverpool came to be killed there, and later we uncover the story of the 'Nine Brave Men' at Bazentin. We look at Private Memorials and how Bazentin Wood almost broke the proud volunteers...

In this special Trench Chat, we meet historian, re-enactor and professional musician Beverley Palin, and discover the story of two original WW1 instruments she has restored and now plays, and discuss the importance of music to the generation of the Great War.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In the latest of our series of Battlefields in a Day, we travel to Eastern France and look at the Battlefields around Verdun. Verdun was the longest single battle of the Great War, lasting some 300 days and 300 nights, fought between February and December 1916. More than 770,000 French and German soldiers became casualties in what the Poilus called 'the mincing machine'.  Sign up for the...

Concrete bunkers - pillboxes - are an iconic symbol of the Great War, and in this episode we look at the book 'The Pillboxes of Flanders' published in the 1930s, examine their history and use, and then visit some of the surviving examples of bunkers around Ypres.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this latest Trench Chat we speak to historian and writer Caitlin DeAngelis who has just finished a fascinating new book 'The Caretakers: War Graves Gardeners and the Secret Battle to Rescue Allied Airman in World War II'. We discuss her research for the book, look at the community of War Graves gardeners that existed on the battlefields in the late 1930s and what happened to them when...

In this episode we look at how British soldiers joined the army, either before the war or when the New Army of volunteers was created in 1914, what their training and preparation for war consisted of, and what their route to the trenches was.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

On the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, we take a virtual walk along all eighteen miles of the Somme front from Gommecourt to Montauban, connecting to the landscape and discovering the stories of those who fought and fell on 1st July 1916: the First Day of the Somme. We also examine the casualties that day and ask where they are buried and commemorated. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In 1986 the BBC Drama 'The Monocled Mutineer' was released, starring Paul McGann who plays Percy Toplis. In this episode, we look at the series and ask what is the truth behind Toplis and the claim that he dressed as an officer and took part in the Etaples Mutiny? We also ask how realistic the series was in depicting various aspects of the Great War. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this episode we look at a weapon that came to symbolise the First World War - Poison Gas. We look at the history behind its use, the story of the 'Birth of Chemical Warfare' at Ypres in April 1915 and what measures were made to protect soldiers against the gas, as well seeing what can be found of this history on the battlefield today. Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old...

In this episode recorded in Ypres, we look at the renovations at the Menin Gate Memorial, discuss what Memorials to the Missing mean to us, and then walk to Ypres Town Cemetery following the stories of English Lords, members of the Royal Family, and seeing how the graves themselves are witnesses to the Great War.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In another episode recorded on the battlefields, we walk the crest of the Hawthorn Ridge near Beaumont-Hamel on the Somme, visiting Hawthorn No 1 Cemetery, across to the Hawthorn Mine Crater, and down to the famous Sunken Lane and Beaumont-Hamel British Cemetery.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

A massive engineering project has been announced for Northern France which will create a new 'super canal' linking in with the existing Canal du Nord, the scene of heavy fighting during the Great War, especially in 1917/18. In this episode we will look at the history of the canal, the fighting there and how this project may change the landscape of the Western Front in this region, and wh...

Recorded on the battlefields, in this episode we walk the ground where poets Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon served with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers at Bois Français near Fricourt and end at the Devonshire Cemetery near Mametz.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this latest Trench Chat, we are joined by Stephen Bourne, author of Black Poppies. His important book, now in its third edition with a children's version, tells the often-neglected contribution of Black soldiers in the British and Commonwealth forces in the Great War. Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front Line Bulletin . You can order Old Front Line Merch via The Old Fron...

In the summer of 1916 men of the South African Brigade marched into Delville Wood. After six days of fighting, less than a third of them returned from among the shattered trees of "Devil's Wood". Who were the Springboks of the South African Brigade and what can we find of them on the Somme today? Send us Fan Mail Support the show

More than twenty years after the BBC made a film about the work of 'The Diggers' called 'Forgotten Battlefield', in this special edition of the podcast we bring together three of us connected to the film - Aurel Sercu from the Diggers, BBC Producer John Hayes Fisher and me, Military Historian Paul Reed. We look back on the work the group did, the making of the film in 2001, and...