Send us a text In our latest episode, it's a real pleasure to sit down with the CEO and Trustee of the Western Front Way project, Rory Forsyth. The project is a charitable foundation dedicated to installing a walking and cycling path that follows the line of the Western Front, from Nieuport on the Belgian coast to Pfetterhouse on the Swiss border; the 1000km path is a joint collaboration between the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and Germany. We talk about the remarkable discovery of a letter ...
Apr 25, 2021•47 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Send us a text On the 6th July 1915, hundreds of British soldiers left their trenches near the small Belgian village of Boesinghe in an attack against the German lines. Men from the Hampshire Regiment were tasked with the unenviable task of attacking a German strongpoint called Fortin 17. Over 600 men were killed that day, and thousands wounded. Almost 100 years later a team of amateur Belgian archaeologists unearthed a teaspoon that belonged to a man who was killed that afternoon. In this episo...
Apr 18, 2021•38 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Send us a text Shortly after the first German gas attack at Ypres in April 1915, rumours began circulating among the troops that the body of a Canadian soldier had been found crucified on the door of a barn, his body pierced by eight German bayonets. The crucified soldier remains one of the great legends of the Great War. Did it really happen, who was he, did his family know? In this episode we analyse the story of the crucified soldier, study German atrocities in Belgium in 1914, hear the story...
Mar 30, 2021•36 min•Season 1Ep. 25
Send us a text On the 31st July 1917, the third battle of Ypres, or the Battle of Passchendaele as it is more commonly known began. Near the small village of Boesinghe, men of the Welsh division went into action at 3.50 am with the objective of capturing the hamlet ofPilckem. As they ran the gauntlet of machine guns from Wood 15 and Artillery Wood, they fought up the ridge and by 9.30 am had captured Pilckem and were close to the Steenbeke stream beyond the village. While largely a successful op...
Mar 23, 2021•32 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Send us a text In this episode we hear the remarkable stories of two exceptional men, neither of whom fired a shot in anger during the Great War, but through selflessness, humility and bravery have entered into history. We meet the Reverend Geoffrey Studdart Kennedy, better known by his nickname of Woodbine Willie, a man whose sermons were so legendary he was forced to hold up to 10 services on a Sunday, so many soldiers wanted to hear him preach. As famous for his spicy language, as his burlap ...
Mar 16, 2021•53 min•Season 1Ep. 23
Send us a text On the evening of the 15th May 1915, men from the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers left their trenches and crawled into No Mans Land in preparation for a massive attack against the Germans, just to the east of the tiny village of Festubert. As the men lay in No Mans Land surrounded by the bodies of the dead who had been killed in a fighting a week earlier, they waited for zero hour. The great uncle of Irish historian, Michael Nugent, was killed that day at the age of 17, and it was th...
Mar 09, 2021•51 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Send us a text In this episode, we walk the battlefield of Gommecourt, the scene of a diversionary attack on the first day of the Somme battle which saw almost 6000 men become casualties. Untried and untested the men of the 46th and 56th Divisions found themselves attacking one of the most heavily defended strongpoints on the entire Western Front, a mass of machine guns, barbed wire, and dugouts. We hear the tragic tale of an 18-year-old 2nd Lieutenant who lost his life that day, the idiosyncras...
Mar 02, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Send us a text Just to the south of Messines, lies a patch of woodland that packs in more military history in a small space than perhaps any other location on the Western Front. Ploegsteert Wood (or Plugstreet as it was known to the British) saw action in every year of the War. It saw the creation of the most iconic cartoon characters to come out of the War and the death of one of the greatest rugby players to ever pull on the white jersey of England. The turnip field in front of the wood was th...
Feb 23, 2021•40 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Send us a text Our next episode takes in one of the most iconic and poignant spots anywhere on the Western Front, Devonshire Cemetery on the Somme. Containing 161 men of the 8th and 9th Devons who died on the opening day of the Somme, the cemetery contains the graves of two men who foresaw their own deaths - Captain Duncan Martin and Lieutenant Noel Hodgson. The story of Captain Martin's plasticine model has become the stuff of legend, but were the men of the Devonshire Regiment really cut down ...
Feb 18, 2021•35 min•Season 1Ep. 19
Send us a text In this podcast episode, I have the absolute privilege of talking to England rugby player, 2003 Rugby World Cup winner, and Great War fanatic Lewis Moody MBE. Lewis's interest in the Great War came from being given his Great Grandfather's 1914 Star as a youngster, a medal that travelled the world with him throughout his rugby career and became an integral part of his pre-match psychological preparations for playing at the highest level. As the RFU ambassador for the Great War cent...
Feb 01, 2021•48 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Send us a text In this episode, we head back to Belgium and walk the battlefield from Hellfire Corner up to the summit of Mount Sorrel on Hill 62. We look at Hellfire Corner "the most dangerous place on earth" and hear how a light-fingered Scot made off with what was considered to be the finest war souvenir ever seen. We visit Birr Cross Roads, and hear the story of Harold Ackroyd VC MC, before our walk takes us to Sanctuary Wood. We visit the preserved trenches and look at the first combat VC t...
Jan 26, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Send us a text In this episode we look at the sportsmen who laid down their lives for their countries during the Great War. Prompted by such eminent voices as Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, men from all sports rushed to enlist, with the campaign being so successful one battalion, the 17th Middlesex was known as the Footballers Battalion. We start with how cycling was used to restore public morale once the fighting was over, and how the Paris-Roubaix race earned its moniker of "The Hell of the North". W...
Jan 19, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Send us a text Our second visit to the battlefield looks at the events of the 25/26 September 1915, where 75,000 men of the BEF advanced behind a curtain of poison gas in an attempt to break the German line once and for all. In the town of Loos itself, men of the Scottish division made incredible progress and found themselves on the top of Hill 70 overlooking the open plains towards Lens. Sadly the lack of reserves in this sector didn't allow this to be exploited. The rest of the battlefield was...
Jan 11, 2021•33 min•Season 1Ep. 15
Send us a text In September 1915, the British launched their largest offensive of the war to date and their fourth offensive against the Germans in Artois. The location was the grim mining town of Loos, a pancake-flat barren landscape of fortified villages, mine workings, chimneys, and slag heaps. To make up for a critical lack of artillery shells, the British would use poison gas for the first time, but unsettlingly this was an offensive, that they didn't really want. Under pressure politically...
Jan 03, 2021•31 min•Season 1Ep. 14
Send us a text It became very apparent that the war wouldn't be over by Christmas 1914 as many had hoped for, and in this special episode, we look at how soldiers in the front celebrated Christmas, and how many charitable organizations ensured that home comforts were supplied to the men at war. From container ships of Christmas puddings to brass tins of spices, we examine what Christmas was like for men serving in and behind the lines. We also look at Christmas on the home front, and how the sad...
Dec 20, 2020•39 min•Season 1Ep. 13
Send us a text On the edge of a small field near Fromelles, in northern France stands one of the most poignant and emblematic monuments anywhere on the Western Front. Called "Cobbers" the statue depicts an Australian soldier carrying a wounded comrade on his back, and stands on the top of what was a German blockhouse. How did this memorial come about, and why does the village of Fromelles hold such significance to Australian military history? We look at the events of the 19th July 1916, where th...
Dec 13, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Send us a text In this episode, our journey through the footsteps of the fallen examines the remarkable vision and perseverance of a 45-year-old Red Cross Ambulance driver by the name of Fabien Ware, whose dismay at the state of war graves, led him to become the founding father of what is now known as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. We examine the creation of the organization, the challenges faced, and why the cemeteries of the Great War look the way they do, as well as reflecting on 30 ...
Dec 03, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 11
Send us a text Our 10th episode takes us back to Northern France, where we visit the battlefield of the British offensive against the Aubers Ridge. What was supposed to be a gentle stroll across the Artois countryside, turned into an offensive that was abandoned after only 15 hours. By the time night fell, over 11,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing, and the German lines remained staunchly in German hands. The tiny Sussex village of Wadhurst paid a heavy price that day, and their memory of ...
Nov 22, 2020•32 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Send us a text This special episode to coincide with Remembrance Day takes us to Mons in Belgium, where the first actions of the Great War between the British and Germans took place. We visit the first and last shot memorials, and the grave of the first VC winner of the Great War. We hear about the first and last British soldiers to die, and the death of the last Commonwealth soldier to die, shot dead by a German sniper just two minutes before the Armistice. We end with the poignant story of a S...
Nov 10, 2020•29 min•Season 1Ep. 9
Send us a text In this episode, we walk the battlefield of Delville Wood, the scene of the first engagement of the South African Infantry on the Western Front. In a period of six days, they suffered almost 100% casualties and were subjected to German artillery bombardments of a ferocity unprecedented even by Great War standards. We hear of the heroic struggle to hold the wood and the story of how a bag of 400-year-old Huguenot acorns was used to replant the wood in the aftermath of the War....
Nov 04, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 8
Send us a text In this episode, we walk the battlefield of the first German gas attack in April 1915. We begin by surveying the battlefield from a German observation post at the Totemuhle or "Death Mill" and then visiting Vancouver Corner, the site of the magnificent Brooding Soldier Memorial. We hear the story of two women caught up in the gas attack and how a gardening chemist discovered that a common garden pest was, in fact, nature's greatest anti-gas device. Our visit to the vast cemetery a...
Oct 24, 2020•37 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Send us a text In this episode, we look at the lives of two soldiers from New Zealand, whose exceptional acts of bravery on the Somme saw them awarded the Victoria Cross. The exploits of one of these men, Dick Travis, in No Mans Land made him a legend amongst the officers and men of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, and earned him the sobriquet "The King of No Mans Land".
Oct 11, 2020•33 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Send us a text In our 5th episode, we have come back to Belgium and walk through Essex Farm cemetery near Ypres. It's a cemetery full of stories, including the division that withstood the first use of a terrifying new weapon of war; a Black Country man who joined the Army to escape poverty and single-handedly saved the lives of his entire company, winning a VC in the process. We hear about a disastrous excursion into No Mans Land; one of, if not the youngest soldier to die in combat, and how the...
Oct 05, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Send us a text In this episode, we take our first trip to the Gallipoli peninsula where we hear about an unlikely hero whose exploits have entered into Australian folklore. The immigrant son of a Tyneside seaman, John Simpson Kirkpatrick was an immensely popular figure amongst the Australian troops, and his courage and bravery under fire became the stuff of legend. In just 24 days, the man with the donkey entered into the annals of Australian history, where he remains revered to this day....
Sep 28, 2020•30 min•Season 1Ep. 4
Send us a text For a period of two months between July and September 1916, the British and Germans fought bitterly for control of High Wood, which dominated the Bazentin ridge on the Somme. Described as being 75 acres of hell by an officer who served there, the wood claimed thousands of lives, and the career of one Corps Commander sacked for wanton waste of life.
Sep 20, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 3
Send us a text In this second episode, we head into France and look at the first British offensive of the Great War, the battle of Neuve Chapelle. A story of initial success, tempered by a lack of artillery ammunition and poor communications, the three-day offensive cost 12,000 lives for little material gain.
Sep 03, 2020•32 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Send us a text In this first episode, we visit Oxford Road cemetery near Ypres and hear about Clement Robinson, the first man from the tank corps to be awarded the VC and a man whose passing was described as being the greatest loss to English cricket since the death of WG Grace.
Aug 22, 2020•26 min•Season 1Ep. 1
