Category: Ypres

How I Wrote my WW1 Battlefield Walking Books

This weekend marks History Writers Day, a new venture from Simon at History Book Chat on Twitter. As part of my contribution to the event, in this episode I talk about how I came to write my trilogy of WW1 Battlefield Walking Guides covering… Continue Reading “How I Wrote my WW1 Battlefield Walking Books”

Return to the Silent Cities

Following a battlefield tour looking at the early work of the Imperial War Graves Commission and the establishment of the permanent cemeteries across Belgium and France, we examine some keys sites connected to the Soldier’s Cemeteries of the Great War, what Rudyard Kipling called… Continue Reading “Return to the Silent Cities”

Where WW1 Meets WW2

In this episode we look at how the criss-cross paths of two Great Wars collide on the old battlefields of the First World War. What happened to the approach to war, how were the battlefields affected in the fighting of 1940 and the Occupation,… Continue Reading “Where WW1 Meets WW2”

Forty Years on the Old Front Line

This episode marks forty years since I first visited the battlefields of the Great War. We look back over those four decades and discuss what those first trips meant to me, what it was like to live on the battlefields, my work as a… Continue Reading “Forty Years on the Old Front Line”

Behind The Lines at Ypres

In this episode, we go behind the lines in Flanders and look at the key locations that enabled the British and Commonwealth forces to keep millions of men on the front line near Ypres during the Great War. BATTLEFIELD MAP RECOMMENDED READING:

Ypres In A Day

In this episode, the first in a series of Battlefields in a Day, we explore one of the iconic British and Commonwealth battlefields of the Great War: Ypres, in Flanders. On our tour we take in some well known and famous locations, and travel… Continue Reading “Ypres In A Day”

Walking Ypres: Brandhoek

Just astride the road between Poperinghe and Ypres, the hamlet of Brandhoek was a main site for the treatment of wounded soldiers. Here women serving as Army nurses got close to the realities of war, and the war cemeteries here today remind us that… Continue Reading “Walking Ypres: Brandhoek”

100th Episode: Across The Old Front Line

To commemorate one hundred episodes of the podcast we take a journey along the Western Front visiting four locations from Flanders to the Somme to Verdun to the Vosges. What does the landscape of the Great War mean to us? The Old Front Line… Continue Reading “100th Episode: Across The Old Front Line”

The Western Front: WW1 Trench Warfare

The Great War went from a mobile war in 1914 to a static conflict with hundreds of miles of trenches across France and Flanders. How did trench warfare come about, what were the trenches that crisscrossed the battlefield and what were the differences between… Continue Reading “The Western Front: WW1 Trench Warfare”