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Welcome to the first Trench Talk of Season 7!
It's a real pleasure to be joined by naval historian and writer Chris Sams as we talk about the Battle of Jutland in 1916. The long-awaited showdown between the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine turned into an unexpectedly bad day for the British. We look at what happened that afternoon off the coast of Denmark and talk about other naval matters in this fascinating and wide-ranging conversation.
Chris' book on the German navy can be found here.
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Welcome to the first episode of 2025!
Today, we head to Belgium and walk a less-trodden route south of Plugstreet Wood towards the hamlet of Le Gheer. From the village of Ploegsteert, we head south and east across the farmer's fields to discover the long-lost history of this part of the battlefield. These seemingly bare fields tell the story of the rank and file of the Allied infantry who fought and died in this so-called quiet sector of the front. There is much to be found if one knows where to look.
We meet the famous (latterly very famous) 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers commander, a certain Mr W.S Churchill, hear the sad story of an officer's death through an appalling piece of treachery, discover the unpleasant and dangerous work of "pond duty", and contemplate how McKenna's bridge got its name.
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Welcome to the final episode of 2024!
One of the great misnomers of WW1 is that soldiers spent all their time in the trenches fighting. Fighting battles took up a tiny amount of soldiers' time, so what did soldiers do when not in the line?
In this episode, we look at life behind the lines, where soldiers had the opportunity to spend their pay on treats to make soldiering more bearable. Many soldiers indulged in the age-old vices of women and gambling; gambling was technically illegal, but thousands of francs were known to change hands through unscrupulous soldiers using loaded dice to stack odds firmly in their favour. We look at the ubiquitous concert parties, hear about the leave lottery endured by soldiers, and discover why being a competent "anchor-man" was a financially enviable position. We also hear the sad story of Basil Radford, "Gilbert the Filbert", one of Edwardian theatre's greatest dandies who met a terrible end on the battlefields of France.
Footsteps of the Fallen will be back in 2025!
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A famous saying asserts that an army marches on its stomach, and in this episode, we examine food and drink for men on the front line.
The challenge of feeding an army was immense, and the war office employed science to calculate the exact calorific intake needed by a soldier to survive.
Feeding the men was one thing; feeding them something palatable was something else. We look at trench rations, from the infamous Army Biscuits to cans of "dog vomit," and see that the culinary life of a soldier in the trenches was not a happy one. Occasionally, however, comfort came in mysterious ways, as men of the Hampshire Regiment found out when the Germans shelled the canal near Cuinchy and provided an unexpected and welcome treat.
Alcohol played an essential part in soldiers' lives from all sides, and we discover more about the daily rum ration, "Pinard", and celebratory German beer mugs. We learn the origin of the phrase "to be on the fiddle", and hear about how excessive alcohol consumption caused huge problems for the Germans advancing in March 1918.
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In the early hours of the 30th July 1915, men of the Rifle Brigade and Kings Royal Rifle Corps were attacked near Hooge by German soldiers using a new and appalling weapon of war - liquid fire. The subsequent counter-attack that afternoon by the British was a military disaster that could have been avoided had the protests of senior commanders in the line been listened to.
We examine what happened that day, discover the story of the man who won the first VC for the new armies, and meet the enigmatic and eloquent "Student in Arms."
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Welcome to this latest episode, in which we explore the history behind one of the world's great monuments, the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing in the Belgian city of Ypres.
We hear the history of the Last Post, look at the famous lions and their connection to Australia, hear the stories of some of the dead, and contemplate what makes this an iconic place of remembrance.
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Welcome to the latest episode!
In today's episode, we look at the role played by Army Chaplains during the Great War. Responsible for the spiritual and personal welfare of soldiers, the Chaplain was a source of great comfort for men during the hell of trench warfare.
We look at the history of the Army Chaplain Department and discover the massively important role that Chaplains had in the lives of men at war and meet some of them, including the famous Woodbine Willie, "Tubby" Clayton and the Reverend Theodore Hardy, a non-combatant who ended the war with an MC, DSO and finally a VC.
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Welcome to this latest podcast, in which we travel to the southern part of the Somme battlefield, a shell-cratered morass on which the men of Canada, Australia and France died in their thousands in the final 100 days of the War.
We tour the battlefield and visit the cemeteries and memorials, which bear testament to the sacrifice of so many who fell so close to the end of four years of conflict.
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In today's podcast, we journey through Amiens and its surrounding areas, uncovering the deep connections to the Great War.
We start in the village of Naours, exploring caves that hold a remarkable record of soldiers from the conflict. Next, we delve into the history of Amiens Cathedral and discover a moving poem, "The Song of Amiens," written by a lesser-known poet of the Great War. A British Chaplain shares a story of divine intervention after "borrowing" a standard lamp from the cathedral.
Amiens was a place of rest and indulgence for officers and soldiers, and it offered abundant good food, wine, and other human pleasures. We visit the graves of the first airmen to die in World War I and hear the tale of one of the war’s great eccentrics, RFC officer Lt. Harvey-Kelly, a man known for living life at full speed, always flying with potatoes in his pockets. We then visit the closest point the Germans reached to Amiens before exploring the site of the first tank-versus-tank battle near Villers-Bretonneux.Support the podcast:
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In this latest episode, we answer a couple of listener questions and then tour the battlefield near St. Quentin. We hear the story of the tragic death of two British soldiers shot for spying by the Germans, stand on the very trenches from which the offensive began, and visit some of the redoubts which stood in the way of the German onslaught. Our journey concludes with the story of Manchester Hill and the heroic efforts of Lt Col Wilfrith Elstob VC DSO MC.
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In this episode we look at the Kaiserschlact, or Kaiser's Battle which was launched by the Germans in March 1918, a final roll of the dice to win the war before American superiority in arms and men came to the fore.
Logistical problems tempered initial successes, and by early summer, the advance had faltered. On the 8th of August, the Allies counter-attacked with an offensive near Amiens that captured nearly 15,000 men and saw estimated German losses of 30,000. Ludendorff described it as the "black day of the German army"
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Why do we always do the same thing? This question was posed during a work call last week, and it got me thinking about travelling around the battlefields and why I always seem to take the easy route to Ypres.
In this episode, we meander up the coast from Calais to Nieupoort, taking in Zuydcoote, Adinkerke, Coxyde, Nieupoort and Ramskappelle to see what Great War history can be found when heading to Ypres along a road less travelled.
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Welcome to this latest episode.
We find ourselves in Ypres, on a part of the salient that offers real bang for the buck regarding military history. Our journey today covers just over a mile and a half from White House Cemetery to Kitchener's Wood, and we hear the stories of the cemeteries and memorials on this part of the old front line.
We visit White House Cemetery, where we also discover the social history behind a small wooden house opposite the cemetery entrance. We visit Oxford Road, the 50th Division Memorial and Mousetrap Farm, where we hear the remarkably tragic story of two fighting Irish brothers before heading to Kitchener's Wood. There, Marechal Foch described the actions of the Canadian soldiers in April 1915 as the finest feat of soldiering of the entire war.
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In this latest episode, we look at colonial soldiers' experiences in the Great War. Britain and France made full use of the human capital of their global empires to provide extra manpower for their armed forces.
Our journey begins in an art gallery in Belgium, and we look at the work of the famous German artist Karl Goetz and his most scandalously infamous medallion depicting "The Black Shame."
We examine the role played by French colonial troops and discover the story of the most decorated Division in the French Army.
King George V's intervention created the British West Indies Regiment, an organisation founded on maternal coercion and wild promises that the British Government had little intention of fulfilling.
We look at the military experience of black soldiers and discover how years of repression, racism and segregation exploded in the Taranto Riot of December 1918.
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In this episode, we travel to the Somme and begin our journey at one of the most iconic sites on the battlefield, the Basilica at Albert. We hear about its founding and discover more about the legend of the Golden Virgin.
We leave Albert, head onto the battlefields over the Tara and Usna line, and visit the Lochnagar Crater at La Boiselle. Just to the right of the crater on the 2nd of July 1916, a Victoria Cross was won by one of the great characters of the First World War. A man whose life was a real "Boy's Own" tale of dangerous escapes and seizing every moment of every day - of course, we are talking about Adrian Ghislain Carton de Wiart VC KBE CB CMG DSO. who, when asked about his experience of the Great War, famously replied, "The War? Oh, I rather enjoyed it!"
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In this episode, we visit one of the forgotten fronts of the Great War and look at the fighting in Palestine in 1917-1918. This was an unforgiving landscape that saw numerous battles, the removal of a Corps Commander and one of the most impressive military victories in history.
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In this episode, recorded live on the battlefields, we are at Festubert, the forgotten battle of 1915, and we visit some of the cemeteries around the battlefield to hear the personal stories of the men buried within them.
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Welcome to Season 7!
In our first episode, we look at poison gas, its development and use on the battlefield, and how the science of chemical weapons saw the militarisation of academia in the pursuit of developing more lethal and deadly weapons.
We discover how the Allies combated the German gas threat, what it was like to be a gas victim and how a common garden pest was, in fact, nature's most effective gas detector.
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Welcome to the final episode of Season 6 and our 150th podcast!
In this episode, we look back at the podcast since it began 3 1/2 years ago, examine some of the statistics about the pod, and contemplate some of my favourite episodes that have been released.
We then head over to Belgium and travel from Essex Farm to Elverdinghe, where we visit some of the smaller and less visited cemeteries in this part of the Ypres salient, including Talana Farm, Bleuet Farm and Ferme Olivier cemeteries.
The podcast will be back with Season 7 on Sunday 28th April 2024.
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In this latest podcast, historian and author Tom Isitt joins us. Tom has a passion (or, he might say, obsession) with the Italian Front in the Great War. An inhospitable battlefield with appalling weather conditions and treacherous terrain, the fighting around the Isonzo River proved to be the graveyard of the Italian army in a series of 12 battles that cost hundreds of thousands of casualties.
In this wide-ranging conversation, we talk about the fighting at Isonzo and Caporetto, the Asiago plateau, the problems of supply and fighting in the mountains, and meet a belligerent commander who dismissed no fewer than 270 Generals during the course of the War.
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