The Old Front Line

To commemorate one hundred episodes of the podcast we take a journey along the Western Front visiting four locations from Flanders to the Somme to Verdun to the Vosges. What does the landscape of the Great War mean to us? Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this episode we look at the writer Henry Williamson, best known for his nature writing and Tarka The Otter novel, but in the 1950s he began to publish 'A Chronicle of Ancient Sunlight', some fifteen novels, five of which cover the Great War. We look at his life, his war, and his work as a writer, a forgotten author of the First World War. The Henry Williamson Society website .  Send u...

We visit the small village of Soupir on the Aisne where men of the British Expeditionary Force, known as The Old Contemptibles, fought in September 1914. We visit the British graves here and walk the battlefield to the Aisne heights where some of the first trenches were dug in the Great War. Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front Line Bulletin . Got a question about this episode o...

From Bully Beef to Hardtack and Plum and Apple Jam... what did the British Tommy in the trenches of the Western Front eat? How was it supplied, how good was his food, how did it reach him, and having had a meal, how did he go to the toilet?  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

We return to the 'Forgotten Front' in Northern France where the British operations on the Western Front took place in 1915, and there were long periods of static trench warfare. Here we visit the site of the Cuinchy 'Brickstacks' - huge stacks of undelivered bricks that formed towers on the battlefield here.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this episode, we follow Great War poets Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon into the trenches near Fricourt at the 'Bois Français' during the months before the 1916 battle and learn about how the death of a much-beloved comrade affected them both. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

Christmas Day in 1914 - a day we more commonly associate with a Christmas Truce between the British and Germans. Who died and where, and how many?  Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front Line Bulletin . You can order Old Front Line Merch via The Old Front Line Shop . Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email...

In a special Trench Chat, we are joined by Matt Dixon, host of the Footsteps of the Fallen Podcast. We talk about Matt's interest in the Great War, what led him to produce the podcast and the books he is currently working on.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this episode, we go 'off the beaten track' at Vimy Ridge and look at two unusual cemeteries on the battlefield here - Lichfield and Zivy Crater Cemeteries - where the Canadians buried their dead in some old mine craters in April 1917.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this episode we are Behind the Lines on the Somme, starting in the small village of Heilly, and looking at how soldiers were billeted in places like this, we then walk down to the railway station and examine the use of railways on the Somme and establishment of medical facilities for the wounded. We end at Heilly Station Cemetery, a vast city of the dead from the Somme battles of 1916. Send us...

In this episode, we return to Flanders, and walk from the Lille Gate on the edge of the city of Ypres via 'Shrapnel Corner' to Bedford House Cemetery, one of the largest in this area and laid out in an unusual way. We end on the old Ypres-Comines Canal where the German Army was stopped south of Ypres in April 1918. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In the second of our episodes recorded while on a Leger Battlefield Tour , we travel to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Experience at Arras and then down to the Somme battlefields to see the Lochnagar Crater, the Ulster Tower, the trenches in the Newfoundland Park and end at 'Mighty Thiepval'. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In an episode released between Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday, we pause to Remember. We reflect on the veterans back in the 80s and 90s, and think about what visiting the battlefields of the Great War means to us more than a century later.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this episode after so many months away from The Old Front Line we return to Flanders with a Leger Battlefield Tour group on a trip along the Western Front. We visit Tyne Cot, walk the trenches at Sanctuary Wood and attend the Last Post at the Menin Gate.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this episode, we are behind the lines on the Somme, in the village of Englebelmer. We look at life behind the front on the Somme, discover what remains from 1916, and follow a journey many soldiers made towards the front line in this sector of the battlefields. Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this episode, we travel away from the Western Front to Gallipoli. Here there are thirty-one British and Commonwealth cemeteries on the Gallipoli Penninsula, and we visit some on the beaches and others in more isolated locations, along with the stories of the men buried there from the 1915 Campaign.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

In this episode we walk from the village of Wytschaete ('Whitesheet' to the soldiers), along part of the Messines Ridge, scene of fighting in 1917, and visit three small battlefield cemeteries, reflecting on how we connect with these comrade's burial grounds of the Great War.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

With the Great War battlefields still seeming far away, this week we travel to a picturesque church in Somerset to look at memorials to men bound together by family, sacrifice and duty, and in the churchyard discover the grave of one of the major Great War poets: Siegfried Sassoon.  Send us Fan Mail Support the show

After the Great War, more than half a million casualties had marked graves. A decision was made to mark them permanently with headstones and allow the families of the fallen a chance to add their own inscription; more than a century later what do they tell us about grief and loss, sacrifice and service, and the myriad faces of the Great War? Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front...

In this episode, we follow the story of the Southdowns Battalions of the Royal Sussex, "Lowther's Lambs"; often seen as the nearest Sussex had to Pals Battalions. We look at their story from their formation in September 1914 to their virtual destruction at Richebourg and Hamel in 1916. We also discuss the journey I made in the 1980s to follow their war and interview some of the last...

Continuing with our look at the 105th Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme, we examine the fighting on 15th September 1916, the Battle of Flers-Courcelette, when tanks were used for the first time in history. After an overview of the fighting that day, we also walk the battlefield near 'Bully' and 'Lousy' Wood where men from the London Regiment fought.  Send us Fan Mail Suppo...

More than 300 British and Commonwealth soldiers were executed 'for the sake of example' during the First World War, for crimes from desertion to striking a superior officer. In this episode, we look at the background to military discipline, the process of Field General Courts-Martial, and what was involved when a soldier was executed by firing squad. And we discover how the inscription o...

After the fighting at Mametz on 1st July 1916, the Devonshire Regiment buried their dead in an old disused trench among the trees of Mansel Copse. Here the 'Devonshires Held This Trench, The Devonshires Hold It Still'. In this episode, we walk the ground at Mametz and discover the stories of three men: a poet who loved the countryside, a former spy who made a model of the battlefield, an...

In the final episode of Season 2, we look back at this season's podcasts and ahead to the future of The Old Front Line, and then travel to Belgium, to examine some of the opening shots of the war at the village of Nimy, near Mons, where the men of the 4th Royal Fusiliers fought in August 1914.  Sign up for the free podcast newsletter here: Old Front Line Bulletin . Got a question about this e...

The 'Crimson Coast' extended along the Northern French coast where the British Base Hospitals were located during the Great War. Here men shattered by wounds were treated, in the massive Base Depots new soldiers were prepared for the front line and women worked in changing ways behind the front. In this episode, we visit Le Treport and Etaples, including the cemeteries in both locations....