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
248 episodes
Questions and Answers Episode 34
For our latest questions submitted by podcast listeners, we examine what my first visit to the battlefields of the Great War with my school meant to me, ask what the Wiltshire Regiment did in the First World War, what sources in English can we ...
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Season 8
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Episode 27
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37:13
Questions and Answers Episode 33
Our latest questions from podcast listeners discuss what role German steel helmets, Stahlhelm, had on the First Day of the Somme, how did Great War veterans feel about WW2, how were women who fell pregnant from British soldiers treated during t...
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Season 8
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Episode 26
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37:52
Return to the Somme
As the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme approaches, we walk part of the battlefield across the iconic Mash Valley, visit Ovillers Military Cemetery and walk through Ovillers village to the far end of the valley facing the Pozières Ridge.<...
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Season 8
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Episode 25
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1:04:38
Questions and Answers Episode 32
Our latest questions from listeners range from could Britain have stood back from conflict in 1914 and not been part of the Great War, how accurate was the final dugout scene in the film 1917, what duties did Royal Field Artillery Drivers have ...
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Season 8
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Episode 24
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36:51
The MOD War Detectives
In a Trench Chat special we speak to the Joint Casualty and Compassionat...
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Season 8
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Episode 23
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1:00:23
Questions and Answers Episode 31
Our listeners have a few intriguing questions: Is there still live ordnance in the moat at the Ypres Ramparts? What exactly was the role of Inland Waterways Transport during the First World War? How would the French portrayal of the Last Hundre...
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Season 8
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Episode 22
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37:55
Live from The Arras Memorial
In this episode we travel to the Arras Memorial to the Missing, where we explore the powerful story of over 35,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave. In this episode, we uncover the personal histories of men from the ...
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Season 8
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Episode 21
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1:08:36
Questions and Answers Episode 30
In this episode we discuss the improvised gas masks used by British and Commonwealth soldiers in 1915, the advancement in medical treatment during the Great War, whether soldiers were told in advance about the explosion of mines on the battlefi...
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Season 8
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Episode 20
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37:19
Forgotten Memoirs of the Great War Part 1
In this episode we start a look at some of the Forgotten Memoirs of the First World War, starting with Percy Croney's 'Soldiers Luck' published in the mid-1960s. Croney was a 1914 volunteer who served with the Essex Regiment and Scottish Rifles...
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Season 8
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Episode 19
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54:21
Questions and Answers Episode 29
In this episode of podcast listeners questions we ask: what Great War items would you take to a Desert Island, how was cause of death accurately reported or not by the military authorities, how did men on the front line get news of other fronts...
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Season 8
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Episode 18
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38:51
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
