June 6, 2025 • 37 mins
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 Hundred Days differ from the traditional British narrative? And finally, if you could take any piece of modern military technology back to the Great War, what would it be, and why?
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
Welcome to some more questions and answers here on
the old front line.
These are questions submitted byyou, the podcast listeners, and
each month we select some of thebest questions that have been
submitted via email and theDiscord server to answer here
and hopefully give us all freshperspectives and new knowledge
(00:26):
of this vast subject of theGreat War.
So let's begin.
Thank you very much.
(01:02):
And long may they continue andkeep sending those questions in.
So let's get down to this week'squestions and they've all come
in via email or via the Discordserver.
And our first one comes fromAnne.
Anne asks, having just watchedyour YouTube video about the
Ypres ramparts, a thought struckme.
(01:22):
In view of the heavy shellingthe city suffered throughout the
Great War, have the waters atthe ramparts ever been searched
and cleared or could there stillbe ordnance under the water that
could explode in the future.
Secondly, were German shellssubject to the same failure rate
as those of the British, which Iunderstand to have been about
(01:43):
30%?
Was that a true reflection ofthe number of duds?
Well, an interesting questionthere, Anne, about ordnance, the
nature of ordnance, and also thelegacy of that ordnance.
It is one of the biggestlegacies of the First World War
that this iron harvest of shellscomes out of the ground on a
(02:03):
regular basis.
And if it comes out of fields,logically, it is still within
waterways, whether that'scanals, rivers, or in this case,
the moat around the city ofYpres.
and I know that at differentpoints over the years that I've
been visiting those battlefieldsthey've done work on it when
(02:24):
they constructed for example thefootbridge between the sally
port that you saw in that videoand if you haven't seen the
videos they are available on theold Frontline YouTube channel
and I'll put a link to that inthe show notes so when that
bridge was constructed from theold sally port across the moat
on the site where there had beena Royal Engineer bridge during
(02:45):
the Great War things werediscovered within the moat
during the building of thefoundations for that and there
have been one or two occasionswhen the level of the water in
the moat have dropped inparticularly dry summers and
that has exposed things withinthe banks and in recent years I
know for example that magnetfishers have been going into the
(03:09):
moat have been fishing off thesides of the moat or even from
the bridge now it's unclear tome as to whether that is is
permitted.
magnet fishing where you have ahuge powerful magnet that you
drop into a waterway againwhether it's a canal or a river
or in this case the moat canattract metal objects and you
(03:31):
can pull up all kinds of thingsI mean there are plenty of
YouTube videos out there withpeople magnet fishing all over
Europe all over the worldprobably and it's incredible
what can and is pulled out ofplaces like this and I know this
is happened did he because I'veseen it I've seen someone on the
(03:53):
bridge drop one of these thingsin there and come up with a huge
amount of shrapnel shell shardof shell fragments from high
explosive shells that haveexploded on the walls of the
ramparts in the moat itself onthe edge of the moat I mean who
knows where and the fragmentsfrom those shells have ended up
(04:14):
at the bottom of that moatprobably with loads of other
layers of our from previouscenturies as well, but with a
big sprinkling of stuff from1914-18.
And what I saw this person bringup, basically, was what I would
call battlefield junk.
So it is a lot of shell shard.
There were some rounds of 303ammunition.
(04:37):
I guess when there were thefootbridges here, soldiers
dropped stuff all the time, andwho knows what dropped out of
bandoliers and ammunitionpouches and all kinds of
equipment that were beingcarried by the soldiers.
soldiers fell into that moat andthis guy found lots of fragments
few bits of ammunition but thatwas it thankfully I mean what I
(04:58):
was worried about was this guydropping it deep into the moat
and coming up with grenades ormortar rounds or worse than that
so there must be munitions atthe bottom there logically there
must be if shrapnel shell shardand small arms ammunition is
pulled up by a magnet fisher ifyou did a serious kind of
(05:20):
excavation of the bottom of thatmoat who knows what you'd find
in there and consider that theGermans threw pretty much
everything at the city of Ypresfrom the lowest caliber mortar
when they had positions onHellfire Corner in April 1918
very very close to the city ofYpres through to the massive 420
millimeter shells that werefired from guns established in
(05:42):
the Houthos forest and GeneralSnow who was divisional
commander at Portesa I thinkI've mentioned this story a few
times on the podcast when he wasthere in 1915 sitting on the
veranda of the Poteza Chateauwhile his men were in the front
line he was having his morningtea and he observed one of these
420 shells appear in the skyabove the Huttal's forest and
(06:06):
pass like an express train overhis head he turned round to
watch it hit one of the greatbuildings in the city of Ypres
and tear it apart now who knowsif any of those dropped short
and landed in the ramparts inarea and in the moat of the city
of Ypres.
So really who knows what is inthere and I'm sure that this is
(06:26):
a problem.
I don't recall in recent yearsthe local bomb disposal unit
being called out to deal withanything in the moat itself but
a few years ago they were doingsome work on the moat bridge and
the road junction directly infront of the Menin Gate where
they found quite a lot ofordnance there including stuff
that hadn't gone off and alsothe bones on of horses that have
(06:50):
been killed coming over thatmoat bridge going up the Menin
Road coming back from HellfireCorner I mean who knows what the
story is there so aside from themunitions there's going to be
all kinds of archaeology withinthat moat itself and perhaps one
day there will be some kind ofproject to explore that properly
(07:10):
because it's just as importantas doing excavations in a field
on the battlefield area right upin the front line And
considering that they'reunderwater drones now, I mean,
you know, in the next few years,who knows what kind of
technology can go into a moatlike the one at Ypres, and who
knows what it'll find.
So that, again, is the pages ofGreat War history still turning.
(07:36):
Now, the second part of yourquestion was about the ordnance
itself.
You mentioned the dud rate.
These are shells that never wentoff.
And I think this figure of 30%for the British is only an
approximation.
I don't think it could ever becounted.
calculated accurately and whenyou look at different periods of
the war I suspect it wouldchange when you had quite a big
workforce that was not properlytrained I suspect there were
(07:59):
more duds being produced in themunitions factories in Britain
and shells were not going offand certain fuses were known to
be better than others and thatwas adapted over the course of
the war so more shells didexplode so it was an ongoing
process when you read theaccounts of men who were on the
battlefield particularly in thatperiod of the Battle of the
(08:19):
Somme they talk about getting tothe German wire and finding it
like an ammunition dump whereall of the unexploded shrapnel
shells that haven't gone offbecause the fuses didn't work
are lying amongst the Germanwire that they should have cut
so there was quite a highpercentage in some bombardments
but I think by 1918 they werebeginning to perfect a much
(08:42):
better production process andmuch better fuses to ensure that
those shells that ordnanceactually worked In terms of how
that compares to the Germans...
I've never seen any kind offigures for that.
I've never seen any comparativestudy of the production of
German ammunition in the FirstWorld War and what percentage of
(09:03):
it didn't work.
And I suspect the records todayfollowing World War II bombing
of Germany probably don't allowthat to be done on a kind of
full scale.
There may well be publicationsduring or after the First World
War where the Germans look backon that.
Perhaps in the post-war Germanythere was little interest in
(09:23):
looking back on the productionof munitions in that most recent
conflict which had resulted inGerman defeat to assess whether
it was of any purpose use orability so maybe those studies
just don't exist logically Isuspect the Germans had exactly
the same kind of problems thatthe British had with shell
(09:44):
production and indeed the Frenchand every nation that fought in
the Great War bringing inlargely unskilled workers that
would require rapid training toproduce these munitions was
fraught with issues so probablyI mean it's definitely a study
in its own right and but we'llprobably never have a clear
answer to that so I hope that'sbeen of interest and I hope it
(10:08):
hasn't inspired you to go magnetfishing because that is not
something that I would adviseI'm not sure of the legality of
it and also I would advise interms of the safety of it
because you just would neverknow what you were going to pull
up so thanks for and we're goingto move on to question number
two which comes from robinprattley recently i discovered
(10:29):
that a distant cousin on mydad's side of the family was
serving in the inland waterservice what was this and did it
serve in france and belgium itwas a kind of a link here with
anne's question not quite in amoat but we now moved on to
canals well the inland waterwaystransport or iwt was actually a
(10:50):
unit of the royal engineers partof the british army and and it
was formed in response to thekind of landscape that the
British Army inherited when itmoved its forces across to
France in the early phase of theGreat War, particularly once the
front was established fromFlanders down into northern
France, which in those first9-12 months of the war, that's
(11:12):
where the bulk of the Britishforces were located.
Behind it, going back towardsthe coast, was a whole network
of canals linking up all thetowns and even some of the small
villages and creating a kind ofsuper highway that could be used
alongside the roads to ship upwar material, supplies,
(11:34):
ammunition, equipment,everything else, not on the
road, not with trucks that hadfuel in that cost money, but on
a waterway, a canal.
So a unit was formed to bringover men who had this kind of
experience, who'd worked, forbring over barges to France and
(11:56):
Flanders and utilise them on thebattlefield area or behind the
battlefield area in that canalinfrastructure.
And the IWT of the RoyalEngineers, the Inland Waterways
Transport, was formed as earlyas December 1914 under the
command of a Colonel Holland.
And it used those canals veryeffectively in its first few
(12:21):
months of existence.
And there's a quote relating tothem which says, around could be
(12:54):
much more easily moved in bargesand they were.
by this IWT Royal Engineers unitand in addition with the food
for animals again that was ahuge amount of food that was
required just to keep animals onor near the battlefield with
tens of thousands of horses anddonkeys and mules they had to be
(13:19):
fed they needed hay for wherethey were based behind the lines
and it was again much easier tomove that via barge than it was
with horse transport or withlorries so it became an
essential part of theinfrastructure and as i've said
quite a lot of times on thispodcast the british really
(13:39):
invested in that infrastructurefrom the very beginning of the
war and utilized everything thatwas there so there was this huge
network of road transport witheverything from donkeys horses
and mules pulling wagons withsupplies and equipment in
through to lorries petrol drivenlorries doing the same kind of
(13:59):
thing.
Old build buses, old Londonbuses that were turned into
transport vehicles to movesoldiers around from rail heads
towards the front line area andthen the canals were used in
exactly the same way and it'ssomething that we still see
today when you take that journeyfrom the French coast up to the
front line area whether that'sin Flanders or in northern
(14:21):
France you will criss-crosscanals all of the time and all
of those canals were activeduring the Great War and would
have had these Royal Engineerinland waterways transport units
operating on them and by the endof 1915 there was over five and
a half thousand men in this unitwith over 550 barges operating
(14:45):
just on the western front andthey continued throughout the
rest of the war to move suppliesmove equipment Eventually there
were hospital barges as wellbecause if you could move things
up you could bring things backand in terms of the wounded it
was another way to evacuatethem.
Men that didn't have highpriority wounds that you could
(15:06):
stabilise, put onto a hospitalbarge where there would be
doctors and nurses from thedifferent nursing units that
formed part of the BritishExpeditionary Force, you could
use these hospital barges tobring them in back to the area
closer to the coast where therewere the base units.
hospitals and even at one pointthe barges were used to move
(15:27):
fresh water because again freshwater was a massively important
commodity and a preciouscommodity on a battlefield and
you needed infrastructure tobring that up it could be
brought up in petrol tins in theback of lorries but you could
also bring up much greatervolumes of it within these
barges so they were incrediblyincredibly important and the
(15:50):
barges could go direct from thedocks up in northern France onto
the coastal area and then inlandvia this canal system most of
which were joined up and theycould get right up towards the
battlefield area so for exampleat Bethune in northern France
there was quite a big canal dockarea there and it became a
(16:12):
drop-off point for all the kitsupplies and everything else
that was being brought forwardby these barges and it was also
a point in which wounded werebrought to one of the where
there were hospital barges tothe front line and therefore
nurses on them so this became anarea Bethune where women got
close to the realities of thebattlefields of the Western
(16:35):
Front much beyond that youwouldn't see places where nurses
would be it was too close to thefront line and there was always
that fear of them being killedor wounded but at Bethune there
were casualty clearing stationsjust the other side of the town
where nurses were working thereand also on these hospital
barges too and when you look atthe kind of men that were in
(16:58):
these units Robin and youmentioned the fact there was a
distant cousin on your father'sside who served in this unit
during the Great War they were amuch higher proportion of them
were older men so these weren't18 year old Tommies they were
older guys in their 30s throughto their 50s because by 1918
with conscription coming in theyconscripted much older men who
(17:22):
were not destined for thetrenches to fight and go over
the top with bayonets fixed butthey could work in units like
this or in logistics behind thelines and free up much younger
men who were fit and able whocould be transferred to the
infantry and could go on to dothat fighting so again can't
(17:43):
really emphasize this enough thestory of the inland waterways
transport And that whole kind oflogistic story of the First
World War is absolutelyessential.
It's not as attractive, it's notas kind of book-inducing as some
of the tales of the Somme andFlanders and the war in the air
(18:03):
and the war underground, butnone of that would be possible
without logistics, withoutsupply.
And the work of the inlandwaterways transport was a
central cog in that massivewheel of supply that kept the
war on the Western Front goingand kept the British and
Commonwealth forces who foughtthat war on the Western Front
(18:26):
going as well.
And the use of inland waterwaystransport units wasn't just
confined to France and Flanders.
They were used in many othertheatres of war where there were
rivers or canals that theBritish Army could use.
My great-uncle Albert Youngs wasa bargeman from Colchester in
Essex.
(18:46):
He worked on the River Hythe andhe ended up in the inland
waterways transport inMesopotamia working on the River
tigress there so wherever therewere waterways wherever these
barges of the inland waterwaystransport could be implemented
they were there doing their bitnot as glamorous as the infantry
(19:08):
there's no victoria crosses inthat kind of work but it's so so
important and thank you robinfor giving us the opportunity to
talk about it So let's move onto question number three.
And this one comes from IanCarr.
Ian asks, how differently wouldthe French portray the last 100
days to the way it's perceivedand recorded in the UK?
(19:31):
Well, that's a good question.
First of all, what is the last100 days?
Well, it's generally that periodfrom the 8th of August 1918 with
the Battle of Amiens, thatdecisive day on the Somme when
British and Australian andCanadian and French force
ruptured the German line on theSomme, a day, the 8th of August
(19:52):
1918, which Ludendorff said wasthe black day of the German
army, which led to the finalhundred days of the war on the
Western Front, ending with thearmistice on the 11th of
November 1918.
So the British army and itsCommonwealth forces, they've
been on the back foot, stemmingthe tide of a German advance on
(20:12):
the Somme, in Flanders, on theChemender Dam, and in the Second
Battle of the Now was on theoffensive, pushing the Germans
back, back across the Sommebattlefields, back across the
Hindenburg line, until in earlyOctober...
They were breaking through thefinal line of trenches and it
was open warfare up until thatlast moment in places like Mons.
(20:37):
So that's the kind oftraditional British and
Commonwealth narrative of it,looking at that breakout from
Amiens to Mons in that finalperiod of the First World War on
the Western Front.
The French would, of course, seethis differently because for
them it was a much bigger partof the front that they were
holding for a start, so theirforces were spread out on half
(20:58):
of miles of the Western Front,where in 1918 the British Army
was holding just over about 100miles of it.
So even at its peak, the Britishdid not hold the bulk of the
line.
That was always the French Army.
And in that last 100 days, theydon't really have a phrase for
that.
They break it up into a numberof different battles.
(21:20):
So from March to May of 1918,that is the Bataille de Picardie
and the Bataille de la Troyesand de la Flandre, so the Battle
of Picardy, Artois and Flanderswhere you see the Germans trying
to break through and the Britishand Commonwealth forces
attempting to stop them butalways always with French
(21:41):
assistance.
If you look on the Somme therewere French troops helping out
British forces there on thesouthern part of the Somme
sector beyond places likeVillers-Bretonneux where the
Australians and British were inMarch and April of 1918 and then
up in Flanders in April 1918 awhole load of French forces were
sent up there in the southernparticularly in the southern
(22:02):
sector of Ypres trying to helparound Kemmel Hill and the
Messines Ridge with the Germanbreakthroughs on that part of
the front and then the attack onthe Chemin des Dames on the 27th
of May 1918 broke hard againstboth British and predominantly
French forces there and you seelots of official photographs of
that period where you seecolumns of men and you have to
(22:24):
look very hard to pick out who'sthe British Tommy with the
British shaped helmet and who'sthe French poilu with the
Adrienne helmet on it.
So they were really importantFrench troops coming to British
and Commonwealth assistanceduring that period.
The next phase of the war fromJuly to August of 1918 is what
the French would call theBataille de la Marne, the Battle
(22:44):
of the Marne, the second Battleof the Marne.
Now there's a lot of recent andcurrent research on this that
would identify that period ofthe war as being just as
crucial, perhaps more importantthan the Battle of I'm not
entirely convinced by that, andI hope to speak to some of those
(23:05):
who believe this and areresearching this further down
the line.
But what's clear to me is thatthis whole period of the
turnaround, of the failure, thestagnation of the German
offensive, and then the Alliedcounterpoint to that, with
predominantly French troops inthe Second Battle of the Marne,
but also assisted by someBritish troops and American
(23:26):
troops as well, push to begin topush the Germans back and Amiens
is the kind of pinnacle of thatwhich sees the rupturing of the
German line and gradually thecollapse of the German positions
on the Western Front no one doesthis in isolation it's not just
France it's not just Britain orAustralia or Canada we've got to
mention America in this as wellbecause they're a big player by
(23:49):
this period of the war it'scoalition warfare that's what
brings victory both in the FirstWorld War and in the next Thanks
for watching.
(24:13):
and no doubt in the future aswell.
So that's July to August of1918.
The next part of the conflictwas August through to September
from the French perspective, andthe Bataille de l'Elette plus
the Offensive de la Somme, whichwas the continuing breakout on
the Somme, where the British andCommonwealth forces kind of
(24:34):
peeled off and went towards themain part of the Hindenburg
Line, where they'd been fightingthe previous year.
The French continued along thatold Roman road going from Amiens
towards Saint-Quentin to take onthe southern part of the
Hindenburg Line in that area andthe German defences in that part
of the Western Front.
So it was kind of a continuationof that, which took them across
(24:56):
various rivers and canalsthrough the Somme region on into
the area of the Aisne.
And that became a major Frenchbattlefield, which you see with
French military cemeteries inthat area with the two ends of
the war in it, 1914, wherethey're fighting there at the
very beginning of the conflictand then a lot of casualties
from 1918 as well and that kindof feeds into the Bataille de
(25:19):
Saint-Quentin in September andOctober of 1918 as the French
army are fighting on the flanksof the BEF who are advancing
through the Hindenburg Line upinto that area of north-eastern
France resulting in battlesalong rivers like the Selle and
canals like the Sombray and theFrench are doing exactly the
(25:40):
same kind of thing and thisleads us Eventually, to their
own battles along these rivers,the Battle of the Esco and the
Bataille de l'Assombe in thatfinal six weeks of the First
World War.
So we have a whole kind ofseries of offensives there, kind
of mirroring parts of theBritish and Commonwealth
experience, but the French, ofcourse, fighting their own
(26:02):
battles as well, often incooperation with allies on their
flanks.
And it's clear the French armyare far from standing still and
far from a spent force.
Many books will tell you thatthe French army was finished
after the mutinies of 1917 andany study of the Great War will
quickly indicate otherwise.
(26:23):
But in addition to thoseoffensives in that area of
northern north-eastern France,the French were also, of course,
fighting in what for them hadbeen one of their major battle
areas, which is in that area ofeastern France.
So there's a general offensivein the Lorraine during this
period and also in the Argonnefrom September through to
(26:43):
November of 1918 where Frenchtroops are fighting in the
Argonne forest fightingalongside American units the
American extraditionary forceare fighting in that area of the
Argonne pushing up towards theMeuse river with the French on
their flanks and all those yearsago when we made last day of
World War I and we looked at theAmericans the final American
(27:05):
casualties being suffered alongthat Meuse river were not far
from where Tribuchon themessenger who was the last
French casualty of the Great Warwas killed a little bit further
up towards Sedan.
So all of these battles weretaking place, and in that
northern and central area,that's where the German line was
ruptured by this big coalitionforce.
(27:28):
On the southern flanks of theWestern Front, as you head
beyond Lorraine into the Vosges,there were eventually offensives
there that brought the war thereto a conclusion, but it wasn't
on the kind of scale that yousaw in other parts of the
Western Front.
And during this period, althoughthe French don't give all of
those different actions one kindof global name in the same way
(27:50):
that the British andCommonwealth forces with this
phrase last 100 days, it costthe French more than 500,000
casualties during this period.
So this was a victory with cost.
Cost for everybody.
Tens of thousands of Americansoldiers killed in those last
weeks and hundreds of thousandsof British and Commonwealth
(28:12):
casualties with certain unitssuffering proportionally higher
than others because they becamepart of the tip of the spear.
Australia and Canada inparticular being there from
Amiens through to the lastfighting in Mons and especially
in the case of the Canadians whowere losing men on the 8th of
August 1918 in the breakoutbattle there right through to
(28:35):
the last casualty at 1058 inMons on the 11th of November
1918.
So it's a fascinating subjectand it's easy just to see the
the Great War, particularly thewar on the Western Front, just
from a British and Commonwealthperspective.
That's where the bulk of our ownlanguage sources obviously talk
about or relating to.
But it's important to understandthat wider war as well, the
(28:58):
French War, which the war on theWestern Front was for most of
that conflict.
And there's more and morematerial coming available to
tell us about that war.
And it's an important part ofour understanding.
And we can't neglect to the roleof the Americans in this either.
So it's really about a kind of ajoined up knowledge, I suspect,
(29:21):
really, of the First World War,not just seeing it in terms of a
British victory in 100 days, butunderstanding that all of that,
none of it was possible withoutone partner working alongside
another.
So a fascinating question Ianthat really again I say that
about so many questions in theseQ&A's really deserves its own
(29:42):
podcast and I'm sure it'ssomething that we will return to
particularly in terms of some ofthe most recent research being
done on this.
So let's move on to our fourthand final question that comes
from Parry Hunter who postedthis on our Discord channel and
that's an area you can go on toto post your questions and also
(30:03):
make some comments and askgeneral stuff about the podcast
too.
They ask, this is a questionthat got posed in a different
airsoft group but thought itwould be interesting to pose
here.
Which single piece of a presentday infantryman's regular
equipment if teleported back toan infantryman on the 1917-18
(30:23):
Western Front would be the mostimpressive.
I said Gore-Tex.
Well, that is a good answer toyour own question, Gore-Tex,
because soldiers in the muddyconditions of the trenches of
the Western Front, when theweather was foul and there was
lots of snow and the trenchesgot flooded very easily, they
(30:43):
didn't have anything likeGore-Tex to protect them.
Their boots were not even kindof sewn together, so they filled
up with water very easily andthey would be exposed to being
submerged.
Their feet and parts of theirbody submerged in that water for
long long periods of time whichcaused all kinds of health
issues and resulted in soldiersbecoming casualties so in the
(31:06):
winter you could have morecasualties from the elements
than from the enemy and in thatsame cold kind of conditions
they only had really meagreprotection from that cold which
proper Gore-Tex would today givea soldier and stop them from
getting chill blains through tofull scale frostbite so that is
(31:28):
a really Thank you.
kind of important bit of kitthat if you could take back to
the Great War I'm sure soldierswould have been very very happy
to see it but in terms of my ownanswer I think you could come up
with all kinds of things certaintypes of weaponry you know
certain types of anti-tankmissiles and multiple launch
(31:48):
rocket systems and all this kindof stuff but I think in terms of
an ordinary infantryman'sexperience one of the big things
that if you could take back tothat period of the Great War is
place light armour.
because if you look at modernsoldiers, they carry a lot of
armor to protect them.
The survivability of soldiers onthe battlefield is really
important.
(32:09):
The level of training, theexpense of that training,
everything else that's put intoputting that soldier onto that
battlefield today has a cost toit, and you want to preserve
that soldier's life and hisability to continue to fight as
much as possible.
In the First World War, itwasn't that men were more
expendable.
The army, of course, was muchbigger, there was no technology
(32:31):
to try and save their lives inthe way that that can be done
today with a mixture ofprotection in the form of this
plate armor through to of coursemedical advances as well
conflict in the last 100 plusyears has moved medicine forward
in ways hitherto unknown and hasmade the ability of surgeons and
(32:51):
medical officers to keepsoldiers alive save their lives
much greater so that's again notin isolation but the issue of
armour to soldiers does meanthat even with really horrendous
wounds or massive impact fromexplosions or ordnance whether
that's IEDs or mortars orartillery fire means that their
(33:13):
chances of living through thatbecause of this protection is
much greater whereas in theFirst World War no such armour
no such protection existedcertainly not initially now as
the war went on they didintroduce trench armour I used
to have a set of of the Germantrench armour which was this
massive armoured sheeting thatwent over your shoulders
(33:36):
protected the front of your bodyyou had kind of a little fish
tail that protected the lowerpart of your abdomen and the
upper parts of your legs you hadanother plate that affixed to
the German Stahlhelm the steelhelmet to give extra protection
there it weighed an absolute tonand to try and move around with
this stuff on would have beenvery very difficult it wasn't
(33:57):
for going over the top in it waslarge for men who were on sentry
go that could come underartillery mortar fire more
likely sniper fire so it was adifferent kind of armour the
British did experiment with thiskind of stuff the French too
there are lots of photographs ofthis out there where a kind of
armour is introduced and therewere private in the British army
(34:21):
there were private purchase bodyshields that could be purchased
through popular newspapers andmagazines and they were
guaranteed guaranteed the advertsaid to save your life if you
were hit by a bullet now thereare plenty of examples of in
particular officers because theywere the ones that would have
had the kind of money to buyextra kit like this an ordinary
(34:43):
soldier on a shilling a day isnot going to go into a magazine
like the bystander or the sphereor the graphic and order up a
body shield that could cost morethan he's ever paid for anything
in his life so there areexamples of officers having
these wearing them going intoaction and then getting hit by
(35:03):
rifle and machine gun ammunitionand these body shields being
pretty much useless because thearmor was so thin there was a
lot of padding with them but theactual armor plating of it was
very thin that's why they werewearable you could move around
in them but the actualprotection they gave was fairly
(35:23):
minimal and i think if soldiersin the great war would have had
the kind of body armor that isissued to soldiers on the
battlefield in recent conflictsand right now in ukraine then
their chances of surviving thosetrenches and experience of
trench warfare probably wouldhave been a lot greater there
(35:44):
still of course would have beenissues with medicine because
without antibiotics to steminfection that was one of the
greatest killers so although youmight be wearing armor plating
that could save you and youweren't killed instantly by a
blast or a bullet you couldstill have an injury that could
get infected and you could diefrom that infection so again a
(36:05):
bit like kind of coalitionwarfare what you're looking at
here if you're going to takesomething like that back into
the past it can't be seen inisolation but a great question
thank you for that and if any ofyou listening to this want to
kind of pop in your own ideas asto what bit of kit should go
back to the trenches of thefirst world war then please add
(36:26):
that to the podcast website orpost something on social media
so thanks to all of you for ourquestions this week as always
keep sending them in you can doso via email and the discord
server quite a few of yourecently have also sent in fan
mail which is kind of a a textmessage that comes in I don't
(36:48):
see your number and unless youput your name on there I don't
know who you are and I can'trespond to those but I'm quite
happy to receive questions viathat method keep them coming in
and details of how to send yourquestions in are contained in
the show notes of this episodeso until we meet again for some
more questions and answers onthe old front line You've been
(37:16):
listening to an episode of TheOld Frontline with me, military
historian Paul Reid.
You can follow me on Twitter atSomcor.
You can follow the podcast atoldfrontlinepod.
Check out the website atoldfrontline.co.uk where you'll
find lots of podcast extras andphotographs and links to books
that are mentioned in thepodcast.
(37:37):
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all of these are on our websitethanks for listening and we'll
see you again soon
Welcome to some more questions and answers here on
the old front line.
These are questions submitted byyou, the podcast listeners, and
each month we select some of thebest questions that have been
submitted via email and theDiscord server to answer here
and hopefully give us all freshperspectives and new knowledge
(00:26):
of this vast subject of theGreat War.
So let's begin.
Thank you very much.
(01:02):
And long may they continue andkeep sending those questions in.
So let's get down to this week'squestions and they've all come
in via email or via the Discordserver.
And our first one comes fromAnne.
Anne asks, having just watchedyour YouTube video about the
Ypres ramparts, a thought struckme.
(01:22):
In view of the heavy shellingthe city suffered throughout the
Great War, have the waters atthe ramparts ever been searched
and cleared or could there stillbe ordnance under the water that
could explode in the future.
Secondly, were German shellssubject to the same failure rate
as those of the British, which Iunderstand to have been about
(01:43):
30%?
Was that a true reflection ofthe number of duds?
Well, an interesting questionthere, Anne, about ordnance, the
nature of ordnance, and also thelegacy of that ordnance.
It is one of the biggestlegacies of the First World War
that this iron harvest of shellscomes out of the ground on a
(02:03):
regular basis.
And if it comes out of fields,logically, it is still within
waterways, whether that'scanals, rivers, or in this case,
the moat around the city ofYpres.
and I know that at differentpoints over the years that I've
been visiting those battlefieldsthey've done work on it when
(02:24):
they constructed for example thefootbridge between the sally
port that you saw in that videoand if you haven't seen the
videos they are available on theold Frontline YouTube channel
and I'll put a link to that inthe show notes so when that
bridge was constructed from theold sally port across the moat
on the site where there had beena Royal Engineer bridge during
(02:45):
the Great War things werediscovered within the moat
during the building of thefoundations for that and there
have been one or two occasionswhen the level of the water in
the moat have dropped inparticularly dry summers and
that has exposed things withinthe banks and in recent years I
know for example that magnetfishers have been going into the
(03:09):
moat have been fishing off thesides of the moat or even from
the bridge now it's unclear tome as to whether that is is
permitted.
magnet fishing where you have ahuge powerful magnet that you
drop into a waterway againwhether it's a canal or a river
or in this case the moat canattract metal objects and you
(03:31):
can pull up all kinds of thingsI mean there are plenty of
YouTube videos out there withpeople magnet fishing all over
Europe all over the worldprobably and it's incredible
what can and is pulled out ofplaces like this and I know this
is happened did he because I'veseen it I've seen someone on the
(03:53):
bridge drop one of these thingsin there and come up with a huge
amount of shrapnel shell shardof shell fragments from high
explosive shells that haveexploded on the walls of the
ramparts in the moat itself onthe edge of the moat I mean who
knows where and the fragmentsfrom those shells have ended up
(04:14):
at the bottom of that moatprobably with loads of other
layers of our from previouscenturies as well, but with a
big sprinkling of stuff from1914-18.
And what I saw this person bringup, basically, was what I would
call battlefield junk.
So it is a lot of shell shard.
There were some rounds of 303ammunition.
(04:37):
I guess when there were thefootbridges here, soldiers
dropped stuff all the time, andwho knows what dropped out of
bandoliers and ammunitionpouches and all kinds of
equipment that were beingcarried by the soldiers.
soldiers fell into that moat andthis guy found lots of fragments
few bits of ammunition but thatwas it thankfully I mean what I
(04:58):
was worried about was this guydropping it deep into the moat
and coming up with grenades ormortar rounds or worse than that
so there must be munitions atthe bottom there logically there
must be if shrapnel shell shardand small arms ammunition is
pulled up by a magnet fisher ifyou did a serious kind of
(05:20):
excavation of the bottom of thatmoat who knows what you'd find
in there and consider that theGermans threw pretty much
everything at the city of Ypresfrom the lowest caliber mortar
when they had positions onHellfire Corner in April 1918
very very close to the city ofYpres through to the massive 420
millimeter shells that werefired from guns established in
(05:42):
the Houthos forest and GeneralSnow who was divisional
commander at Portesa I thinkI've mentioned this story a few
times on the podcast when he wasthere in 1915 sitting on the
veranda of the Poteza Chateauwhile his men were in the front
line he was having his morningtea and he observed one of these
420 shells appear in the skyabove the Huttal's forest and
(06:06):
pass like an express train overhis head he turned round to
watch it hit one of the greatbuildings in the city of Ypres
and tear it apart now who knowsif any of those dropped short
and landed in the ramparts inarea and in the moat of the city
of Ypres.
So really who knows what is inthere and I'm sure that this is
(06:26):
a problem.
I don't recall in recent yearsthe local bomb disposal unit
being called out to deal withanything in the moat itself but
a few years ago they were doingsome work on the moat bridge and
the road junction directly infront of the Menin Gate where
they found quite a lot ofordnance there including stuff
that hadn't gone off and alsothe bones on of horses that have
(06:50):
been killed coming over thatmoat bridge going up the Menin
Road coming back from HellfireCorner I mean who knows what the
story is there so aside from themunitions there's going to be
all kinds of archaeology withinthat moat itself and perhaps one
day there will be some kind ofproject to explore that properly
(07:10):
because it's just as importantas doing excavations in a field
on the battlefield area right upin the front line And
considering that they'reunderwater drones now, I mean,
you know, in the next few years,who knows what kind of
technology can go into a moatlike the one at Ypres, and who
knows what it'll find.
So that, again, is the pages ofGreat War history still turning.
(07:36):
Now, the second part of yourquestion was about the ordnance
itself.
You mentioned the dud rate.
These are shells that never wentoff.
And I think this figure of 30%for the British is only an
approximation.
I don't think it could ever becounted.
calculated accurately and whenyou look at different periods of
the war I suspect it wouldchange when you had quite a big
workforce that was not properlytrained I suspect there were
(07:59):
more duds being produced in themunitions factories in Britain
and shells were not going offand certain fuses were known to
be better than others and thatwas adapted over the course of
the war so more shells didexplode so it was an ongoing
process when you read theaccounts of men who were on the
battlefield particularly in thatperiod of the Battle of the
(08:19):
Somme they talk about getting tothe German wire and finding it
like an ammunition dump whereall of the unexploded shrapnel
shells that haven't gone offbecause the fuses didn't work
are lying amongst the Germanwire that they should have cut
so there was quite a highpercentage in some bombardments
but I think by 1918 they werebeginning to perfect a much
(08:42):
better production process andmuch better fuses to ensure that
those shells that ordnanceactually worked In terms of how
that compares to the Germans...
I've never seen any kind offigures for that.
I've never seen any comparativestudy of the production of
German ammunition in the FirstWorld War and what percentage of
(09:03):
it didn't work.
And I suspect the records todayfollowing World War II bombing
of Germany probably don't allowthat to be done on a kind of
full scale.
There may well be publicationsduring or after the First World
War where the Germans look backon that.
Perhaps in the post-war Germanythere was little interest in
(09:23):
looking back on the productionof munitions in that most recent
conflict which had resulted inGerman defeat to assess whether
it was of any purpose use orability so maybe those studies
just don't exist logically Isuspect the Germans had exactly
the same kind of problems thatthe British had with shell
(09:44):
production and indeed the Frenchand every nation that fought in
the Great War bringing inlargely unskilled workers that
would require rapid training toproduce these munitions was
fraught with issues so probablyI mean it's definitely a study
in its own right and but we'llprobably never have a clear
answer to that so I hope that'sbeen of interest and I hope it
(10:08):
hasn't inspired you to go magnetfishing because that is not
something that I would adviseI'm not sure of the legality of
it and also I would advise interms of the safety of it
because you just would neverknow what you were going to pull
up so thanks for and we're goingto move on to question number
two which comes from robinprattley recently i discovered
(10:29):
that a distant cousin on mydad's side of the family was
serving in the inland waterservice what was this and did it
serve in france and belgium itwas a kind of a link here with
anne's question not quite in amoat but we now moved on to
canals well the inland waterwaystransport or iwt was actually a
(10:50):
unit of the royal engineers partof the british army and and it
was formed in response to thekind of landscape that the
British Army inherited when itmoved its forces across to
France in the early phase of theGreat War, particularly once the
front was established fromFlanders down into northern
France, which in those first9-12 months of the war, that's
(11:12):
where the bulk of the Britishforces were located.
Behind it, going back towardsthe coast, was a whole network
of canals linking up all thetowns and even some of the small
villages and creating a kind ofsuper highway that could be used
alongside the roads to ship upwar material, supplies,
(11:34):
ammunition, equipment,everything else, not on the
road, not with trucks that hadfuel in that cost money, but on
a waterway, a canal.
So a unit was formed to bringover men who had this kind of
experience, who'd worked, forbring over barges to France and
(11:56):
Flanders and utilise them on thebattlefield area or behind the
battlefield area in that canalinfrastructure.
And the IWT of the RoyalEngineers, the Inland Waterways
Transport, was formed as earlyas December 1914 under the
command of a Colonel Holland.
And it used those canals veryeffectively in its first few
(12:21):
months of existence.
And there's a quote relating tothem which says, around could be
(12:54):
much more easily moved in bargesand they were.
by this IWT Royal Engineers unitand in addition with the food
for animals again that was ahuge amount of food that was
required just to keep animals onor near the battlefield with
tens of thousands of horses anddonkeys and mules they had to be
(13:19):
fed they needed hay for wherethey were based behind the lines
and it was again much easier tomove that via barge than it was
with horse transport or withlorries so it became an
essential part of theinfrastructure and as i've said
quite a lot of times on thispodcast the british really
(13:39):
invested in that infrastructurefrom the very beginning of the
war and utilized everything thatwas there so there was this huge
network of road transport witheverything from donkeys horses
and mules pulling wagons withsupplies and equipment in
through to lorries petrol drivenlorries doing the same kind of
(13:59):
thing.
Old build buses, old Londonbuses that were turned into
transport vehicles to movesoldiers around from rail heads
towards the front line area andthen the canals were used in
exactly the same way and it'ssomething that we still see
today when you take that journeyfrom the French coast up to the
front line area whether that'sin Flanders or in northern
(14:21):
France you will criss-crosscanals all of the time and all
of those canals were activeduring the Great War and would
have had these Royal Engineerinland waterways transport units
operating on them and by the endof 1915 there was over five and
a half thousand men in this unitwith over 550 barges operating
(14:45):
just on the western front andthey continued throughout the
rest of the war to move suppliesmove equipment Eventually there
were hospital barges as wellbecause if you could move things
up you could bring things backand in terms of the wounded it
was another way to evacuatethem.
Men that didn't have highpriority wounds that you could
(15:06):
stabilise, put onto a hospitalbarge where there would be
doctors and nurses from thedifferent nursing units that
formed part of the BritishExpeditionary Force, you could
use these hospital barges tobring them in back to the area
closer to the coast where therewere the base units.
hospitals and even at one pointthe barges were used to move
(15:27):
fresh water because again freshwater was a massively important
commodity and a preciouscommodity on a battlefield and
you needed infrastructure tobring that up it could be
brought up in petrol tins in theback of lorries but you could
also bring up much greatervolumes of it within these
barges so they were incrediblyincredibly important and the
(15:50):
barges could go direct from thedocks up in northern France onto
the coastal area and then inlandvia this canal system most of
which were joined up and theycould get right up towards the
battlefield area so for exampleat Bethune in northern France
there was quite a big canal dockarea there and it became a
(16:12):
drop-off point for all the kitsupplies and everything else
that was being brought forwardby these barges and it was also
a point in which wounded werebrought to one of the where
there were hospital barges tothe front line and therefore
nurses on them so this became anarea Bethune where women got
close to the realities of thebattlefields of the Western
(16:35):
Front much beyond that youwouldn't see places where nurses
would be it was too close to thefront line and there was always
that fear of them being killedor wounded but at Bethune there
were casualty clearing stationsjust the other side of the town
where nurses were working thereand also on these hospital
barges too and when you look atthe kind of men that were in
(16:58):
these units Robin and youmentioned the fact there was a
distant cousin on your father'sside who served in this unit
during the Great War they were amuch higher proportion of them
were older men so these weren't18 year old Tommies they were
older guys in their 30s throughto their 50s because by 1918
with conscription coming in theyconscripted much older men who
(17:22):
were not destined for thetrenches to fight and go over
the top with bayonets fixed butthey could work in units like
this or in logistics behind thelines and free up much younger
men who were fit and able whocould be transferred to the
infantry and could go on to dothat fighting so again can't
(17:43):
really emphasize this enough thestory of the inland waterways
transport And that whole kind oflogistic story of the First
World War is absolutelyessential.
It's not as attractive, it's notas kind of book-inducing as some
of the tales of the Somme andFlanders and the war in the air
(18:03):
and the war underground, butnone of that would be possible
without logistics, withoutsupply.
And the work of the inlandwaterways transport was a
central cog in that massivewheel of supply that kept the
war on the Western Front goingand kept the British and
Commonwealth forces who foughtthat war on the Western Front
(18:26):
going as well.
And the use of inland waterwaystransport units wasn't just
confined to France and Flanders.
They were used in many othertheatres of war where there were
rivers or canals that theBritish Army could use.
My great-uncle Albert Youngs wasa bargeman from Colchester in
Essex.
(18:46):
He worked on the River Hythe andhe ended up in the inland
waterways transport inMesopotamia working on the River
tigress there so wherever therewere waterways wherever these
barges of the inland waterwaystransport could be implemented
they were there doing their bitnot as glamorous as the infantry
(19:08):
there's no victoria crosses inthat kind of work but it's so so
important and thank you robinfor giving us the opportunity to
talk about it So let's move onto question number three.
And this one comes from IanCarr.
Ian asks, how differently wouldthe French portray the last 100
days to the way it's perceivedand recorded in the UK?
(19:31):
Well, that's a good question.
First of all, what is the last100 days?
Well, it's generally that periodfrom the 8th of August 1918 with
the Battle of Amiens, thatdecisive day on the Somme when
British and Australian andCanadian and French force
ruptured the German line on theSomme, a day, the 8th of August
(19:52):
1918, which Ludendorff said wasthe black day of the German
army, which led to the finalhundred days of the war on the
Western Front, ending with thearmistice on the 11th of
November 1918.
So the British army and itsCommonwealth forces, they've
been on the back foot, stemmingthe tide of a German advance on
(20:12):
the Somme, in Flanders, on theChemender Dam, and in the Second
Battle of the Now was on theoffensive, pushing the Germans
back, back across the Sommebattlefields, back across the
Hindenburg line, until in earlyOctober...
They were breaking through thefinal line of trenches and it
was open warfare up until thatlast moment in places like Mons.
(20:37):
So that's the kind oftraditional British and
Commonwealth narrative of it,looking at that breakout from
Amiens to Mons in that finalperiod of the First World War on
the Western Front.
The French would, of course, seethis differently because for
them it was a much bigger partof the front that they were
holding for a start, so theirforces were spread out on half
(20:58):
of miles of the Western Front,where in 1918 the British Army
was holding just over about 100miles of it.
So even at its peak, the Britishdid not hold the bulk of the
line.
That was always the French Army.
And in that last 100 days, theydon't really have a phrase for
that.
They break it up into a numberof different battles.
(21:20):
So from March to May of 1918,that is the Bataille de Picardie
and the Bataille de la Troyesand de la Flandre, so the Battle
of Picardy, Artois and Flanderswhere you see the Germans trying
to break through and the Britishand Commonwealth forces
attempting to stop them butalways always with French
(21:41):
assistance.
If you look on the Somme therewere French troops helping out
British forces there on thesouthern part of the Somme
sector beyond places likeVillers-Bretonneux where the
Australians and British were inMarch and April of 1918 and then
up in Flanders in April 1918 awhole load of French forces were
sent up there in the southernparticularly in the southern
(22:02):
sector of Ypres trying to helparound Kemmel Hill and the
Messines Ridge with the Germanbreakthroughs on that part of
the front and then the attack onthe Chemin des Dames on the 27th
of May 1918 broke hard againstboth British and predominantly
French forces there and you seelots of official photographs of
that period where you seecolumns of men and you have to
(22:24):
look very hard to pick out who'sthe British Tommy with the
British shaped helmet and who'sthe French poilu with the
Adrienne helmet on it.
So they were really importantFrench troops coming to British
and Commonwealth assistanceduring that period.
The next phase of the war fromJuly to August of 1918 is what
the French would call theBataille de la Marne, the Battle
(22:44):
of the Marne, the second Battleof the Marne.
Now there's a lot of recent andcurrent research on this that
would identify that period ofthe war as being just as
crucial, perhaps more importantthan the Battle of I'm not
entirely convinced by that, andI hope to speak to some of those
(23:05):
who believe this and areresearching this further down
the line.
But what's clear to me is thatthis whole period of the
turnaround, of the failure, thestagnation of the German
offensive, and then the Alliedcounterpoint to that, with
predominantly French troops inthe Second Battle of the Marne,
but also assisted by someBritish troops and American
(23:26):
troops as well, push to begin topush the Germans back and Amiens
is the kind of pinnacle of thatwhich sees the rupturing of the
German line and gradually thecollapse of the German positions
on the Western Front no one doesthis in isolation it's not just
France it's not just Britain orAustralia or Canada we've got to
mention America in this as wellbecause they're a big player by
(23:49):
this period of the war it'scoalition warfare that's what
brings victory both in the FirstWorld War and in the next Thanks
for watching.
(24:13):
and no doubt in the future aswell.
So that's July to August of1918.
The next part of the conflictwas August through to September
from the French perspective, andthe Bataille de l'Elette plus
the Offensive de la Somme, whichwas the continuing breakout on
the Somme, where the British andCommonwealth forces kind of
(24:34):
peeled off and went towards themain part of the Hindenburg
Line, where they'd been fightingthe previous year.
The French continued along thatold Roman road going from Amiens
towards Saint-Quentin to take onthe southern part of the
Hindenburg Line in that area andthe German defences in that part
of the Western Front.
So it was kind of a continuationof that, which took them across
(24:56):
various rivers and canalsthrough the Somme region on into
the area of the Aisne.
And that became a major Frenchbattlefield, which you see with
French military cemeteries inthat area with the two ends of
the war in it, 1914, wherethey're fighting there at the
very beginning of the conflictand then a lot of casualties
from 1918 as well and that kindof feeds into the Bataille de
(25:19):
Saint-Quentin in September andOctober of 1918 as the French
army are fighting on the flanksof the BEF who are advancing
through the Hindenburg Line upinto that area of north-eastern
France resulting in battlesalong rivers like the Selle and
canals like the Sombray and theFrench are doing exactly the
(25:40):
same kind of thing and thisleads us Eventually, to their
own battles along these rivers,the Battle of the Esco and the
Bataille de l'Assombe in thatfinal six weeks of the First
World War.
So we have a whole kind ofseries of offensives there, kind
of mirroring parts of theBritish and Commonwealth
experience, but the French, ofcourse, fighting their own
(26:02):
battles as well, often incooperation with allies on their
flanks.
And it's clear the French armyare far from standing still and
far from a spent force.
Many books will tell you thatthe French army was finished
after the mutinies of 1917 andany study of the Great War will
quickly indicate otherwise.
(26:23):
But in addition to thoseoffensives in that area of
northern north-eastern France,the French were also, of course,
fighting in what for them hadbeen one of their major battle
areas, which is in that area ofeastern France.
So there's a general offensivein the Lorraine during this
period and also in the Argonnefrom September through to
(26:43):
November of 1918 where Frenchtroops are fighting in the
Argonne forest fightingalongside American units the
American extraditionary forceare fighting in that area of the
Argonne pushing up towards theMeuse river with the French on
their flanks and all those yearsago when we made last day of
World War I and we looked at theAmericans the final American
(27:05):
casualties being suffered alongthat Meuse river were not far
from where Tribuchon themessenger who was the last
French casualty of the Great Warwas killed a little bit further
up towards Sedan.
So all of these battles weretaking place, and in that
northern and central area,that's where the German line was
ruptured by this big coalitionforce.
(27:28):
On the southern flanks of theWestern Front, as you head
beyond Lorraine into the Vosges,there were eventually offensives
there that brought the war thereto a conclusion, but it wasn't
on the kind of scale that yousaw in other parts of the
Western Front.
And during this period, althoughthe French don't give all of
those different actions one kindof global name in the same way
(27:50):
that the British andCommonwealth forces with this
phrase last 100 days, it costthe French more than 500,000
casualties during this period.
So this was a victory with cost.
Cost for everybody.
Tens of thousands of Americansoldiers killed in those last
weeks and hundreds of thousandsof British and Commonwealth
(28:12):
casualties with certain unitssuffering proportionally higher
than others because they becamepart of the tip of the spear.
Australia and Canada inparticular being there from
Amiens through to the lastfighting in Mons and especially
in the case of the Canadians whowere losing men on the 8th of
August 1918 in the breakoutbattle there right through to
(28:35):
the last casualty at 1058 inMons on the 11th of November
1918.
So it's a fascinating subjectand it's easy just to see the
the Great War, particularly thewar on the Western Front, just
from a British and Commonwealthperspective.
That's where the bulk of our ownlanguage sources obviously talk
about or relating to.
But it's important to understandthat wider war as well, the
(28:58):
French War, which the war on theWestern Front was for most of
that conflict.
And there's more and morematerial coming available to
tell us about that war.
And it's an important part ofour understanding.
And we can't neglect to the roleof the Americans in this either.
So it's really about a kind of ajoined up knowledge, I suspect,
(29:21):
really, of the First World War,not just seeing it in terms of a
British victory in 100 days, butunderstanding that all of that,
none of it was possible withoutone partner working alongside
another.
So a fascinating question Ianthat really again I say that
about so many questions in theseQ&A's really deserves its own
(29:42):
podcast and I'm sure it'ssomething that we will return to
particularly in terms of some ofthe most recent research being
done on this.
So let's move on to our fourthand final question that comes
from Parry Hunter who postedthis on our Discord channel and
that's an area you can go on toto post your questions and also
(30:03):
make some comments and askgeneral stuff about the podcast
too.
They ask, this is a questionthat got posed in a different
airsoft group but thought itwould be interesting to pose
here.
Which single piece of a presentday infantryman's regular
equipment if teleported back toan infantryman on the 1917-18
(30:23):
Western Front would be the mostimpressive.
I said Gore-Tex.
Well, that is a good answer toyour own question, Gore-Tex,
because soldiers in the muddyconditions of the trenches of
the Western Front, when theweather was foul and there was
lots of snow and the trenchesgot flooded very easily, they
(30:43):
didn't have anything likeGore-Tex to protect them.
Their boots were not even kindof sewn together, so they filled
up with water very easily andthey would be exposed to being
submerged.
Their feet and parts of theirbody submerged in that water for
long long periods of time whichcaused all kinds of health
issues and resulted in soldiersbecoming casualties so in the
(31:06):
winter you could have morecasualties from the elements
than from the enemy and in thatsame cold kind of conditions
they only had really meagreprotection from that cold which
proper Gore-Tex would today givea soldier and stop them from
getting chill blains through tofull scale frostbite so that is
(31:28):
a really Thank you.
kind of important bit of kitthat if you could take back to
the Great War I'm sure soldierswould have been very very happy
to see it but in terms of my ownanswer I think you could come up
with all kinds of things certaintypes of weaponry you know
certain types of anti-tankmissiles and multiple launch
(31:48):
rocket systems and all this kindof stuff but I think in terms of
an ordinary infantryman'sexperience one of the big things
that if you could take back tothat period of the Great War is
place light armour.
because if you look at modernsoldiers, they carry a lot of
armor to protect them.
The survivability of soldiers onthe battlefield is really
important.
(32:09):
The level of training, theexpense of that training,
everything else that's put intoputting that soldier onto that
battlefield today has a cost toit, and you want to preserve
that soldier's life and hisability to continue to fight as
much as possible.
In the First World War, itwasn't that men were more
expendable.
The army, of course, was muchbigger, there was no technology
(32:31):
to try and save their lives inthe way that that can be done
today with a mixture ofprotection in the form of this
plate armor through to of coursemedical advances as well
conflict in the last 100 plusyears has moved medicine forward
in ways hitherto unknown and hasmade the ability of surgeons and
(32:51):
medical officers to keepsoldiers alive save their lives
much greater so that's again notin isolation but the issue of
armour to soldiers does meanthat even with really horrendous
wounds or massive impact fromexplosions or ordnance whether
that's IEDs or mortars orartillery fire means that their
(33:13):
chances of living through thatbecause of this protection is
much greater whereas in theFirst World War no such armour
no such protection existedcertainly not initially now as
the war went on they didintroduce trench armour I used
to have a set of of the Germantrench armour which was this
massive armoured sheeting thatwent over your shoulders
(33:36):
protected the front of your bodyyou had kind of a little fish
tail that protected the lowerpart of your abdomen and the
upper parts of your legs you hadanother plate that affixed to
the German Stahlhelm the steelhelmet to give extra protection
there it weighed an absolute tonand to try and move around with
this stuff on would have beenvery very difficult it wasn't
(33:57):
for going over the top in it waslarge for men who were on sentry
go that could come underartillery mortar fire more
likely sniper fire so it was adifferent kind of armour the
British did experiment with thiskind of stuff the French too
there are lots of photographs ofthis out there where a kind of
armour is introduced and therewere private in the British army
(34:21):
there were private purchase bodyshields that could be purchased
through popular newspapers andmagazines and they were
guaranteed guaranteed the advertsaid to save your life if you
were hit by a bullet now thereare plenty of examples of in
particular officers because theywere the ones that would have
had the kind of money to buyextra kit like this an ordinary
(34:43):
soldier on a shilling a day isnot going to go into a magazine
like the bystander or the sphereor the graphic and order up a
body shield that could cost morethan he's ever paid for anything
in his life so there areexamples of officers having
these wearing them going intoaction and then getting hit by
(35:03):
rifle and machine gun ammunitionand these body shields being
pretty much useless because thearmor was so thin there was a
lot of padding with them but theactual armor plating of it was
very thin that's why they werewearable you could move around
in them but the actualprotection they gave was fairly
(35:23):
minimal and i think if soldiersin the great war would have had
the kind of body armor that isissued to soldiers on the
battlefield in recent conflictsand right now in ukraine then
their chances of surviving thosetrenches and experience of
trench warfare probably wouldhave been a lot greater there
(35:44):
still of course would have beenissues with medicine because
without antibiotics to steminfection that was one of the
greatest killers so although youmight be wearing armor plating
that could save you and youweren't killed instantly by a
blast or a bullet you couldstill have an injury that could
get infected and you could diefrom that infection so again a
(36:05):
bit like kind of coalitionwarfare what you're looking at
here if you're going to takesomething like that back into
the past it can't be seen inisolation but a great question
thank you for that and if any ofyou listening to this want to
kind of pop in your own ideas asto what bit of kit should go
back to the trenches of thefirst world war then please add
(36:26):
that to the podcast website orpost something on social media
so thanks to all of you for ourquestions this week as always
keep sending them in you can doso via email and the discord
server quite a few of yourecently have also sent in fan
mail which is kind of a a textmessage that comes in I don't
(36:48):
see your number and unless youput your name on there I don't
know who you are and I can'trespond to those but I'm quite
happy to receive questions viathat method keep them coming in
and details of how to send yourquestions in are contained in
the show notes of this episodeso until we meet again for some
more questions and answers onthe old front line You've been
(37:16):
listening to an episode of TheOld Frontline with me, military
historian Paul Reid.
You can follow me on Twitter atSomcor.
You can follow the podcast atoldfrontlinepod.
Check out the website atoldfrontline.co.uk where you'll
find lots of podcast extras andphotographs and links to books
that are mentioned in thepodcast.
(37:37):
And if you feel like supportingus, you can go to our Patreon
page at patreon.com slash oldfront line or support us on buy
me a coffee at buymeacoffee.comslash old front line links to
all of these are on our websitethanks for listening and we'll
see you again soon
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