WW1: Not So Quiet On The Western Front!

Episode 149: WW1 Trench Raiding Weapons

Picture a soldier with a trench dagger tucked into his belt and a satchel full of grenades on his shoulder, carrying a spiked club in one hand and a revolver in the other

Episode 148: Courage Without Glory - The British Army in 1915

What happens when an army built for a short war finds itself fighting in a long one? In 1915, the British Army found out, and learned the answer the hard way. Short of gu

Episode 147: Germany 1915: Death, Taxes & Counter-Attacks

In this episode, a continuation of our Germany at War series, we take a deep dive into the fighting on the Western Front throughout the crucial year of 1915. From poison

Episode 146: The Great Escapes of Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle was wounded and captured at Verdun in March 1916, but this marked the beginning of a new phase of his First World War. Over the next two and a half year

Episode 145: Charles de Gaulle in WWI: From Academy to Verdun

It is difficult to imagine Charles de Gaulle as a young man before the képi, the presidency, and his famous silhouette. But in August 1914, he was a 23-year-old lieutenan

Episode 144: Who Won the Battle of the Somme

1917 British patrols walked into Serre without firing a shot. The Germans had gone - withdrawn back to the Hindenburg Line, abandoning ground over which some one million

Episode 143: The Ancre: The Final Major Battle of the Somme

On 13th of November 1916 the British Army attacked at Beaumont Hamel, Serre and Beaucourt - the ground of the first morning of the Somme. Four and a half months after the

Episode 142: French Army on the Somme

Today in popular memory the Battle of the Somme is often seen as titanic struggle fought between Britain and her vast Empire an the military might of the German War Machi

Episode 141: Thiepval 1916: Storming the Impossible Ridge

By late September 1916, the British Army stood ready to attempt something it had failed to do on the war's bloodiest day: capture Thiepval. Once a village, now a fortifie

Episode 140: Flers-Courcelette: The Somme's Tactical Turning Point?

In this episode we continue our exploration of the 1916 Battle of the Somme with a focus on a key crucial stage famed for the global debut of a new weapon - the tank - Bu

Episode 139: Pozières: Australia's Bloodiest Battle of the Somme

The struggle for Pozieres would become one of the most infamous campaigns of the Battle of the Somme: some 23000 Australians would become casualties over six weeks fighti

Episode 138: Somme's Woodland: Mametz, Trônes, Delville & High Wood

There was no terrain on the Somme that soldiers feared more than woodland - a maze of broken stumps, fallen branches, and hidden barbed wire. In this episode we explore h

Episode 137: Night Attack on the Somme: Bazentin Ridge 1916

Just two weeks after the catastrophe of 1 July 1916, the British Army launched another major assault on the Somme - this time with dramatically different results. Attacki

Episode 136: The Somme in the South - Forgotten Victory

When people think of the Somme, they think of failure: men cut down in no man's land; shattered battalions; and catastrophic losses. Yet along much of the southern part o

Bonus Episode: Reichs & Republics The Turnip Winter of 1916/17

What happens when an entire nation runs out of food? This is one of our favourite episodes from our sister podcast, Reichs and Republics: The German History Podcast, and

Episode 135: The Somme’s Northern Disaster

At 7.30am on the morning of 1st July 1916, whistles blew along a front stretching more than twenty miles. Tens of thousands of British soldiers climbed from their trenche

Episode 134: France's Elite Units

What turns a unit into an elite? Is it rigorous selection, a hard-earned reputation, or simply being thrown into the fiercest fighting and surviving? In today's episode

Episode 133: The Gallipoli Evacuation: A Forgotten Success Story?

For eight brutal months in 1915, every Allied plan at Gallipoli had failed. However, on the final night of the campaign, the Allies finally managed to pull off one perfec

Episode 132: Battles that Shaped the 20th Century

In this week’s episode and in a long overdue collaboration between Not So Quite on the Western Front and WW2 Both Sides of the Wire, four of us sit down to explore what w

Episode 131: The August Offensive: Gallipoli’s Last Great Hope

In August, the Allies prepared for their largest offensive yet on the Gallipoli Peninsula. This was intended to be the decisive breakthrough that would break the deadloc