Walk the battlefields of the First World War with Military Historian, Paul Reed. In these podcasts, Paul brings together over 40 years of studying the Great War, from the stories of veterans he interviewed, to when he spent more than a decade living on the Old Front Line in the heart of the Somme battlefields.
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 a text 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 a text 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? Send us a text Support the show
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 a text 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 a text 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 a text Support the show...
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 a text 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 a text 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 a text 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 a text 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 a text 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 a text 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 a text 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 a text 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? Send us a text Support the show...
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 remaining veterans. Send us a text Support the show...
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 a text Support the show...
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 on an executed soldier's grave - 'Shot At Dawn' - remains as powerful as when his father chose it in the 1920s....
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, and a young man who had traveled the world. Send us a text Support the show...
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. Send us a text Support the show
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. Send us a text Support the show...
In this episode we walk the Somme from Ovillers to Mouquet Farm; 'Moo-Cow Farm' or 'Mucky Farm' as the soldiers called it. Here we examine the attacks by Australian, Canadian and finally British units, discovering just how costly this corner of the Somme battlefields was in 1916. Send us a text Support the show
On 31st July 1917 the Third Battle of Ypres - or the Battle of Passchendaele as it is often called - began with an attack on a forteen mile front near the city of Ypres. In this Anniversary episode we look at the first day of Third Ypres; who attacked, what happened and what were the casualties? Send us a text Support the show
the heart of the Loos Battlefield. Here we look at the fighting in this part of the Western Front, the background to the Missing, and examine some stories of those commemorated here: from a Major-General to the son of Rudyard Kipling, to the men from Sussex, many of whom died at Richebourg. Send us a text Support the show
As the Battle of the Somme continued, it took the British Army into the 'Horseshoe of Woods' that characterised the next phase of the fighting here in July 1916. As the 105th Anniversary of the Somme continues, we look at how the battle progressed. Send us a text Support the show
The Great War went from a mobile war in 1914 to a static conflict with hundreds of miles of trenches across France and Flanders. How did trench warfare come about, what were the trenches that crisscrossed the battlefield and what were the differences between Allied and German trenches? Send us a text Support the show
In this episode, we look at how the Northumbrian Territorials were thrown into battle at Ypres in April 1915, look at Wieltje as a front line village, and walk the ground where the opening phase of the Third Battle of Ypres took place following the men from the medical services as they struggled to save the wounded, including Captain Noel Chavasse VC & Bar. Send us a text Support the show...
Today is the 105th Anniversary of the First Day of the Battle of the Somme. The battle began on this day at 7.30 am, when the British soldiers went Over The Top on a perfect summer's morning. On this anniversary we look at the background to 1st July 1916, visit the Thiepval Memorial, and discuss what the First Day of the Somme means to me, reflecting on the experience of the veterans I interviewed. Send us a text Support the show...
High Wood was one of the most fought-over corners of the Somme battlefields in 1916. We take a walk from Caterpillar Valley Cemetery via Longueval, to stand beneath the dark trees of the wood. We learn about New Zealand's Unknown Warrior, Indian Cavalry, and a father and son who were both awarded the Victoria Cross. Send us a text Support the show
South of the city of Ypres in Belgium, a large area of woodland was swallowed up in the fighting of 1914. For the next four years, the British and Commonwealth forces held the line in and around Ploegsteert Wood - "Plugstreet Wood" to the British Tommy. Send us a text Support the show
