The Old Front Line

In December 1920 a large concrete shelter financed by an American millionaire marked the spot where French soldiers had fallen in one of the many small actions around Verdun in 1916. The story of the…

In this episode we ask: what was The Hindenburg Line? A system of German defences built in Northern and Eastern France, it was the largest single engineering project of the Great War on the Western F…

In this episode we look at the four years of the Great War in Flanders and the battles around the city of Ypres, in what became known as the 'Immortal Salient'. What was the Ypres Salient, what was i…

In this Trench Chat, we are joined by Roger Steward who works as a Battlefield Guide in Flanders, and is the author of an excellent book on Langemarck German Cemetery and a new one 'Reclaiming the Sa…

In this episode, we look at the birds which flew above and lived across the battlefields of the Western Front during the First World War, and what they meant to the men who served in the trenches of …

In a Trench Chat special we are joined by Professor Mark Connelly of the University of Kent to discuss the post-war Pilgrimages to the Great War Battlefields, and his new work on the postcards, ephem…

In this episode we look at the men of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) who fought in Flanders, from Ypres to the Scheldt River, in 1918. What were American troops doing in Belgium away from the…

What can War Art and the work of Official War Artists tell us about the experience of the Great War and the landscape of the Western Front? We examine this through the work of three war artists: John…

We look at three winters on the Somme front: from 1914 to 1916. We discuss Christmas Truces involving the French and Germans, and later when the British arrive, discuss the terrible sub-zero conditio…

Who was Harry Moseley? In this episode we ask: can one man's life be more important than another? Our journey takes us from the Helles Memorial, and the Missing of the Gallipoli Campaign, up to the h…

In this episode we explore five little-known memorials along the Western Front battlefields in France and Flanders, looking at how different nations commemorated the battles of the Great War, and wha…

This weekend marks History Writers Day, a new venture from Simon at History Book Chat on Twitter. As part of my contribution to the event, in this episode I talk about how I came to write my trilogy …

In this latest Trench Chat we are joined by Mike Cunha of the Battles of the First World War Podcast to talk about his interest in the Great War and the wider aspect of American involvement in the co…

In this episode we travel along The Old Front Line in France and Flanders to visit five lesser-known war cemeteries from different nations where the dead of the Great War lie, some with only a handfu…

We are joined by Renny Richardson, author of a trilogy of books about the men of Crawley in West Sussex who fought in the Great War. Renny chats with Paul Reed, who was born in Crawley, about the tow…

Following the purchase of a Great War book owned by author and veteran Henry Williamson, we explore something of Williamson's life, the Writing Hut where he crafted his work and look at what the book…

Thanks to Netflix, I've been able to watch a preview of the new film All Quiet on the Western Front. In this episode we look at the film, the story behind the book that gives it its name, and I share…

In this episode, we feature another Battlefield In A Day and visit the area around the Northern French coal-mining village of Loos-en-Gohelle where the Battle of Loos was fought in September-October …

Following a battlefield tour looking at the early work of the Imperial War Graves Commission and the establishment of the permanent cemeteries across Belgium and France, we examine some keys sites co…

In this episode we look at how the criss-cross paths of two Great Wars collide on the old battlefields of the First World War. What happened to the approach to war, how were the battlefields affected…