The Old Front Line
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.
Episodes
238 episodes
The Other Trench: with Philipp Cross
In a special Trench Chat we speak to Philipp Cross who has written a superb book about his great-great grandfather's war as an officer in the German Army. Alexander Pfeifer served from the very beginning until the very end of the conflict on th...
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Season 8
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Episode 17
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48:56
Questions and Answers Episode 28
In this episode we ask were there any 'Thankful Villages' in France where everyone came home, what was 'Camp Elisabeth' at Verdun as visited by Professor Richard Holmes in the 1990s, did Great War soldiers experience any spiritual or paranormal...
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Season 8
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Episode 16
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38:15
Sambre Canal 1918: Lock No 1
In this episode we travel to the last major battlefield of the Great War on the Western Front - the Sambre Canal. Here we follow the story of the infantry and the engineers who attacked the Canal on 4th November 1918, including the 2nd Battalio...
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Season 8
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Episode 15
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52:55
Questions and Answers Episode 27
Our questions and answers in this episode look at what happened to trench systems when they met a road, was the Battle of the Somme a victory, how France remembers the Great War, and the role of the Army Service Corps in the conflict....
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Season 8
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Episode 14
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38:01
Ypres: The Menin Road
Continuing our journeys along the roads which crisscross the landscape of the Western Front, we travel to Flanders in Belgium, and take the old Roman road between the city of Ypres and the town of Menin which follows the story of four years of ...
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Season 8
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Episode 13
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1:06:49
Questions and Answers Episode 26
This week we discuss the background to the names British soldiers gave their German counterparts - names like Fritz and Bosch - we examine the role Portugal had on the Western Front and discuss where they are memorialised, look out how modern d...
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Season 8
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Episode 12
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38:17
Somme: Tara-Usna Hills
In this episode for the fifth anniversary of the Podcast we travel back to the Somme and look at the story behind the naming of Tara and Usna Hills overlooking La Boisselle, and discuss two First World War objects found in a Somme junk sale.
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Season 8
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Episode 11
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55:27
Questions and Answers Episode 25
In this episode we cover subjects from how the British and Commonwealth soldier named the 'Battle of the Somme' in 1916 to how Irish soldiers on the front line in France thought about the Easter Rising in Dublin in April 1916, to the flooding o...
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Season 8
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Episode 10
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37:46
Live From Ypres: Bayernwald Trenches
From a recently recorded livestream on the battlefields of Ypres in Flanders, join us on a walk around the reconstructed First World War trenches in Bayernwald - 'Bavarian Wood' - called
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Season 8
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Episode 9
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1:02:29
Questions and Answers Episode 24
This weeks subjects include how trenches in the First World War got their names, what happened to the pay of Missing soldiers and were men who were Prisoners of War paid at all, why did the Western Front stop at the Swiss border, and what happe...
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Season 8
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Episode 8
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35:05
Walking Cambrai: Gouzeaucourt 1917
We visit the Hindenburg Line battlefields of 1917 where the Battle of Cambrai was fought. We see the battlefield around Metz-en-Couture, visit the cemetery here and grave of Patrick Shaw-Stewart, and then walk down in Gouzeaucourt seeing a rare...
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Season 8
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Episode 7
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56:32
Questions and Answers Episode 23
Our latest Questions and Answers cover the military importance of Ypres in WW1, the French Cemetery and Memorials at Notre Dame de Lorette in Northern France, weather on the landscape of the Western Front, and the role of Women in the British A...
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Season 8
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Episode 6
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36:46
WW1 on Film: Our World War
Our World War was a three-part BBC Drama series for the Great War Centenary in 2014 covering the fighting at Mons in 1914, the Somme in 1916 and the Battle of Amiens in 1918. It pioneered a new approach to film making about the Great War but a ...
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Season 8
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Episode 5
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51:33
Questions and Answers Episode 22
In our latest round-up of Questions and Answers we look at Memorials to non-white soldiers on the Western Front, whether 'battle bars' were ever planned for WW1 British and Commonwealth campaign medals, the award of the 'Blue Max' to German sol...
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Season 8
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Episode 4
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35:02
Somme: Albert-Bapaume Road
Is there a 'culture' surrounding The Old Front Line? One that helps define it and enables us to understand that landscape of the First World War? If so, what is it, and how can we understand it? In this episode we take a major pathway across th...
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Season 8
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Episode 3
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1:06:03
Questions and Answers Episode 21
In our first Questions and Answers Episode of Season 8 we look at 'quiet' sectors of the Western Front, whether civilians got near the battlefields, discuss the 'best' photos of WW1 and ask if Stretcher Bearers were easy prey on the front line ...
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Season 8
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Episode 2
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36:08
Walking the Somme: Mailly-Maillet
We begin Season 8 back on the Somme Battlefields of 1916 and walk the ground around the village of Mailly-Maillet, located just behind the British trenches in front of Beaumont-Hamel and Serre and later much closer to the fighting in 1918. We v...
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Season 8
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Episode 1
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1:05:26
Questions and Answers Special: WW1 Ancestors
In this special edition we look at how trace to service men and women who fought and died in the Great War. We cover a number of questions covering different aspects of how to trace your WW1 Ancestors from many different nations, but in particu...
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Season 7
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Episode 31
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47:40
Five Iconic Objects of Trench Warfare
In this episode, we examine five iconic objects from the First World War which came to define the experience of Trench Warfare. These objects include barbed wire, helmets, duckboards, and trench periscopes. There is also a surprise artefact tha...
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Season 7
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Episode 30
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1:24:03
Questions and Answers Episode 19
Based on this weeks questions we look at the difference between Ordnance Survey and Trench maps, recommend some WW1 Channels and videos to look at on YouTube, look at how to study a particular regiment and examine souvenirs brought home by vete...
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Season 7
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Episode 29
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39:03
Walking Arras: Point du Jour
We return to the Arras Battlefields of April 1917 and walk from Athies to the high ground at Point du Jour, seeing where men of the 9th (Scottish) Division, including troops from the South African Brigade fought. We visit cemeteries along the w...
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Season 7
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Episode 28
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58:09
Questions and Answers Episode 18
This week we look at the subject of Army Pay - how were men paid, who paid them and in what currency when On Active Service? We ask why men changed their names when joining up, answer a question about the Ypres Buglers and IWGC Gardeners in WW2...
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Season 7
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Episode 27
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35:01
Somme Winter Walk
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 f...
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Season 7
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Episode 26
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54:26
Questions and Answers Episode 17
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...
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Season 7
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Episode 25
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38:08
WW1 on Film: Oh What A Lovely War!
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 ...
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Season 7
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Episode 24
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48:31
