As the seasons change along The Old Front Line we take a winter walk across one part of the Somme battlefields, walking along the tracks from near Courcelette to Thiepval and the Ancre Valley.

The WW1 Cemeteries website mentioned can be found here: www.ww1cemeteries.com.

Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.

Send us a text

Support the show

We begin at the Battle of Loos in 1915, looking at the casualty figures for the opening stage of the attack and comparing them to the Somme, we then discuss what units formed in WW1 were still part of the Army in WW2, discuss soldiers and their medals and were there examples of 'stolen valour' and examine collectables of the Great War and discuss fakes and what to collect.

Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.

Send us a text

Support the show

The film Oh what A Lovely War! based on Joan Littlewood's play was released in 1969 and influenced a whole generation of people in what the Great War stood for. But what does the film really tell us about the First World War and what is its value more than 50 years on?

Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.

Send us a text

Support the show

In a wargraves special, we follow up on the recent episode about the new Loos British Cemetery Extension and we take some Questions relating to the work being carried out there, along with the recovery and identification of the dead from the Great War, both in the past and the present. 

Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.

Send us a text

Support the show

Our latest questions submitted by podcast listeners lead us to discuss what was a 'British Warm' and how did uniforms change during the Great War, ask if we could go back in time what would we want to see, look at the quarries that were part of the battlefield at Beaumont-Hamel on the Somme, and ask what happened to Allied Prisoners of War taken in the final days of the conflict in November 1918?

The Western Front Association Online Trench Maps: WFA TrenchMapper site.

Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.

Send us a text

Support the show

We take the podcast across to Northern France and visit Loos British Cemetery on the battlefields of 1915, seeing the new Extension that has been constructed here, looking at the initial burials and asking how this brand new cemetery might develop over the coming years.

Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.

Send us a text

Support the show

In our latest selection of questions from podcast listeners we look at the circumstances of the end of the First World War on the Western Front on 11th November 1918, ask why Albert Ball VC has a private memorial over his grave in France, discuss what happened to the Last Post Ceremony during WW2 and examine the 'War of the Guns' in the Great War - the use of artillery.

Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.

Send us a text

Support the show

Trench Warfare saw the use of existing weapons on the battlefield and the development of new ones to cope with the static nature of the Western Front. In this episode we examine five of those weapons from handguns to trench clubs to mortars, and include a surprising 'weapon' of trench warfare.

Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.

Send us a text

Support the show

This week we answer questions about British Prisoners of War held in Switzerland, ask what kind of permission you need to explore the fields and woods across the landscape of the Great War, discuss if any Estaminets survive from the Great War and look at events on the Somme on 1st July 1916 and what the experience of soldiers was on that evening as darkness fell.

Red Cross Records from WW1 are found here: Red Cross Prisoner of War Records.

Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.

Send us a text

Support the show

Fismes is a small town on the Aisne, close to its neighbour Fismette and divided by the Vesle river. Here in the summer of 1918 men of the American 28th Division took part in a bitter battle for possession of its houses and the bridge over the Vesle, a story retold in possibly the greatest American memoir of the First World War: Toward the Flame by Hervey Allen. Here too a memorial bridge was built commemorating their sacrifice, just a dozen years before Europe went to war once more.

Got a question about this episode or any others? Drop your question into the Old Front Line Discord Server or email the podcast.

Send us a text

Support the show