Old Front Line
WW1 Podcast with Paul Reed
The Silent Cities
Rudyard Kipling called the cemeteries of the Great War ‘Silent Cities’, these vast cities of stone where the dead of that conflict lay. What is the background and history of these cemeteries, what happened to them in WW2, and what is their meaning to us today?
The following books are recommended on the subject of the Silent Cities. Click on an image to be taken to the page on Amazon for that title. Buying books via this link helps support The Old Front Line. Thank you!
An example of the WW1 cemeteries in WW2 images posted on Twitter by Andrew Thornton.
Podcast Extras: Cemeteries 1918/20
Podcast Extras: Books
Experimental Cemeteries: Le Treport, Forceville and Louvencourt
WW1 Object: IWGC Photo Wallet
Excellent stories let us not forget the sacrifice of that special generation.
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Another very helpful and informative episode thankyou , I learn so much each week. Are the Registers of the Graves you mentioned in the podcast still available for public viewing? I have found copies of the GRU documents for a relative on the CWGC website regarding his re-burial where my gg grandmother paid for an inscription on his headstone and would keen to see more if possible. Thanks again for the podcasts. Much appreciated. Nigel
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I think I remember reading in some documents at the CWGC archive that whereas the British were willing to pay 2F per body, the French (and possibly the Germans?) were willing to pay 4F or even 6F. So there wasn’t as much of an incentive to find and report British bodies as there was for other nationalities. I can’t recall how it was resolved! Apologies (and to my embarrassment) if you mentioned this on another podcast, Paul!
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Thanks – indeed, the small payment did prevent many remains from being recovered sadly.
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Another excellent podcast. Especially interesting to hear how our attitudes to commemorating our war dead have changed since Waterloo. Also I was appalled by the misuse of the library records by so called “old comrades”.
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