The Old Front Line

Latest Episodes:

Somme: La Boisselle to Contalmaison Apr 23, 2022

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We begin Season 4 of the podcast with a walk between the Somme villages of La Boisselle and Contalmaison, the scene of heavy fighting in July 1916. We see memorials, battlefield cemeteries and discover the stories of those who fought here more than a century ago.
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Adjutant's Notebook: What Is A Division? Apr 02, 2022

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In a new Podcast Series we use the Adjutant's Notebook to look at different aspects of First World War history. In this episode we examine the cornerstone of the British Army in the Great War - the Division. These self-contained units of nearly 20,000 men fought the battles and held the line, and by 1918 there were more than seventy of them.

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The Somme In A Day Mar 26, 2022

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In the second in our series of Battlefields In A Day, we travel to the Somme battlefields in Northern France. The Somme was one of the defining battles of the Great War and we follow it's story from beginning to end, seeing some of the key sites connected to the fighting in 1916.

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Above The Battlefield: WW1 Aerial Photography Mar 19, 2022

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During the Great War pilots took their aircraft above the battlefield not only to bomb and strafe, but to photograph the trenches of the Western Front. What do these images show us and how do they relate to the landscape we know today?

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Ypres In A Day Mar 12, 2022

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In this episode, the first in a series of Battlefields in a Day, we explore one of the iconic British and Commonwealth battlefields of the Great War: Ypres, in Flanders. On our tour we take in some well known and famous locations, and travel off the beaten track, too.

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Walking Arras: Feuchy Chapel Mar 05, 2022

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Astride the Arras-Cambrai road a small wayside memorial commemorates a missing British officer. Out in the fields small Comrade's Cemeteries act like beacons to the fighting here in April 1917. What took place on this ground around Arras, near to Feuchy Chapel?

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Walking Ypres: Brandhoek Feb 26, 2022

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Just astride the road between Poperinghe and Ypres, the hamlet of Brandhoek was a main site for the treatment of wounded soldiers. Here women serving as Army nurses got close to the realities of war, and the war cemeteries here today remind us that not everyone could be saved.

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The Bantams of Bourlon Wood Feb 19, 2022

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Among the dark Oak trees of Bourlon Wood, the Bantam Battalions from England, Scotland and Wales experienced their baptism of fire. Who were The Bantams, and did all roads lead to Bourlon Wood in November 1917?

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100th Episode: Across The Old Front Line Feb 12, 2022

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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?

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Henry Williamson's War Feb 05, 2022

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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.

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