November 28, 2025 • 40 mins
In this episode, we unpack the meaning and origins of the term Downland, and explore how this distinctive landscape helps us better understand the geography and terrain of the First World War.
We take a closer look at the Lewis Machine Gun, examining how it worked, how a Lewis Gun section operated in battle, and its role on the Western Front.
We also consider the influence of the Franco-Prussian War on both the military thinking and physical landscape of WW1, before turning to the decorations and medals awarded to British and Commonwealth soldiers, explaining how they differed and what they reveal about service and recognition in the Great War.
A wide-ranging episode connecting landscape, weaponry, military history, and remembrance across the First World War.
The Vickers Machine Gun Association: The Lewis Gun on the Western Front 1916-18.
Main image: German offensive on the Lys. A Lewis Gun-post in Marquois, 13 April 1918. (IWM Q6528)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:10):
Thanks for all the kind comments about the question
and answer podcasts followingour fortieth episode.
It's good to know that this partof the old front line seems to
be as popular as ever.
And I think the question that wehad about artificial
intelligence, AI, and the use ofit, and the potential dangers of
(00:31):
it for historical research andthe projection of history
through rich media like podcastsand videos, it really seems to
have hit the mark with many ofyou, and I had a lot of
follow-up comments about that.
And it's clear, like me, many ofyou are cautious, if not a
little bit fearful, of AI.
(00:51):
And I noticed that a recentChannel 4 documentary about
Hitler's DNA, which some of youmay have seen, used AI imagery
and film in the production ofthat documentary, which, as far
as I'm aware, is a first formainstream television.
So it's already quite concerningreally that artificial
(01:12):
intelligence is being used toproduce material for serious
documentaries and it's beingpresented as if it's an actual
source.
And I've seen a few interestingvideos from World War II
channels on YouTube recentlydiscussing this very issue about
(01:33):
AI, and I'm sure it is somethingthat we will return to in this
podcast, perhaps on the oldfrontline YouTube channel at
some point in the near future,because I kind of think it is
something that we need to keepan eye on and keep discussing so
that we are aware that materialis being put out there that has
(01:55):
not come from the archives, thatit is artificially produced from
a source that really only has abare minimum often of the facts.
But anyway, that's thediscussion for another day.
For now, it's time for thisweek's questions.
Our first question comes fromRobert Knapp in America.
(02:18):
Robert asks you often refer todownland in the podcast.
As an American, we don't havethat term here.
Could you describe what downlandis?
Well this is a really goodquestion, Robert, and I guess as
someone who grew up in thatdownland in the south of
England, it's something that Icould take for granted.
(02:42):
So to those who are not familiarwith the concept of downland,
what are we talking about here?
And it is something that I havereferred to a number of times in
the podcast.
Well I grew up in an environmentin a landscape in the county of
Sussex in southern England, insouthern Britain.
(03:03):
It's not just restricted toSussex, this concept of
downland, because Britain as anisland, and I'm not a geologist,
going to leave that to ProfessorPeter Doyle and many others, but
Britain as an island has quite alot of chalk landscapes along
its coastline, f much furtherinland, and not just, as I've
(03:26):
said, restricted to Sussex, butwe can go across the downland
into counties like Hampshire andWiltshire.
When I lived up in Yorkshire,east of York was the Yorkshire
Wolds, going from York acrosstowards the coast at
Bridlington.
That landscape is very much achalk landscape with downland
(03:47):
very, very clearly part of it.
So what is this downland?
Well, essentially, Robert, it'sa kind of a rolling terrain, and
the chalk formed over many, manythousands of years, shapes that
terrain into a kind of rollinglandscape.
And for example, I've read quitea few American accounts,
(04:08):
American written accounts of theFirst World War that often
refers to places like the Sommeas a billiard table because it's
flat.
Now I suspect compared to manyof the rocky parts of America,
it is seemingly quite flat, butit isn't actually like a
billiard table.
(04:29):
The downland part of it, thisrolling landscape, is what gives
its shape and is what gives itsform, and it creates high points
that then become crucial in theconduct of the battles fought
over that landscape in the FirstWorld War.
And one of the things that Ihope that many of you learn by
listening to this podcast isabout the importance of
(04:53):
landscape and the importancethat landscape has, how it
affects the conduct and outcomeof battles in this conflict.
So a landscape, a chalkdownland, creating this rolling
terrain where there are highpoints means that the high
points become the focus of thefighting.
(05:13):
And in many parts of the WesternFront, really the whole conduct
of operations there becomesabout the possession and
repossession of this so-calledhigh ground.
Now chalk downland istraditionally slightly higher
than, for example, theflatlands, the wet Flanders
plain up near Epe in Belgium.
(05:35):
But it is still not a kind ofrocky ridgeline, it is this
rolling, softly, gentle rollingterrain that creates these high
points which become the focus ofdefence and then attack.
And for me growing up in Sussex,and I believe it's the same
chalk seam that goes under thechannel up into northern France
(05:57):
towards that area of what becamethe Somme battlefields of 1916.
So the terrain in Sussex where Igrew up and the terrain on the
Somme is very, very similar.
For me, it was about walking anincredible landscape with so
much to see, the way it dropsaway into escarpments and rises
to high points on the coast,these vast chalk cliffs that are
(06:22):
often at the beginning of rivervalleys or close to them.
That is the kind of landscapethat I knew.
That does exist in northernFrance as well, but in terms of
the battlefield area, that'smuch further inland.
So while the rolling land thatwe've described is there, the
kind of chalk coastline is notreally part of the First World
(06:43):
War story.
And in terms of the nearest kindof thing that you've got to this
in America, and I must confess Ihad to look this up, there are
several areas which, accordingto online sources, you could
describe that are in America,you could describe them as
downland.
There is the Austin Chalk inTexas, and when I looked at
(07:06):
photographs of that, it's a lotstarker than the chalk landscape
in Europe, and I couldn't seeevidence of much downland
rolling terrain around it.
There's a place called the SelmaGroup in Southeast America,
which seems to me, thephotographs of that look much
more like it, with a kind ofrolling area of contoured ground
(07:30):
with a lot of meadowland, whichis something that in the
landscape of Sussex and theSomme before all the
bombardments and then after thewar, it very much is like that.
And there is a place called theNiabrara Formation in Kansas,
Nebraska, South Dakota, whichagain looks a bit more stark to
(07:52):
me, but there is grasslandaround it with this kind of
rolling terrain.
Now, I don't know, Robert, ifyou're familiar with any of
those areas, but I hope that atsome point you get a chance to
compare perhaps what they looklike with that rolling downland
of the Somme.
And one of the elements I thinkto me using this description of
(08:14):
the landscape as downland is anemotional one as well, because
the Sussex Downs, the SouthDowns where I grew up, and many
other kind of areas of downlandacross Britain being so similar
to the Somme, I can see theseconnections between home and the
stark reality of where thebattles were once fought more
(08:35):
than a century ago.
And the similarity is is notjust a physical one in terms of
what they look like, it's whatthose landscapes create.
On downland with rough grasspastures, you have skylarks,
skylarks being the birds thatbring us into each episode of
the podcast and take us out, andare very much part of that chalk
(09:00):
downland landscape in Britainand also that chalk downland
landscape in northern France, inparticular on the Somme.
The Skylark is a bird that takesme whenever I hear it wherever I
am straight back to nineteensixteen, straight back to those
(09:21):
rolling chalk hills of Pigardyand the long chalk dusty roads
that took the troops there andback from the front and
everything that happened there.
And of course I can see that,but many thousands of men who
were there in nineteen sixteensaw that as well and commented
(09:41):
as to how the Somme looked likethe downland that they had known
wherever that was.
So it's a geographical, ageological term really to
describe a type of landscapewhich I guess is much more
European than American, althoughyou do seem to have some similar
(10:02):
kind of landscapes there, but itis that connection, that wider
connection of landscape and how,as we often talk about in this
podcast, how landscape is verymuch a part, an essential part
really of our widerunderstanding of the Great War.
And I hope that's kind ofanswered your question, Robert,
(10:25):
because it was one quite hard toanswer in some respects because
having grown up in that type oflandscape, it's as familiar to
me as breathing, really, and totry and quantify it and describe
it and explain how important itis in the context of the Great
War is perhaps not as easy as itsounds.
(10:46):
So thank you, Robert, for thatexcellent question.
Question number two comes fromJohn Sanderson.
John asks My grandfather was ina Lewis gun team in november
nineteen seventeen with thefifty first Highland Division at
Fleskier.
His pal was next to him, notedas advancing towards the trench
while firing a Lewis gun.
I don't think our grandfatherwould have been operating and
(11:08):
firing a Lewis gun at thispoint, so I am presuming that he
was carrying ammunition for hispal.
However, during the Germanoffensive he was awarded the
military medal for something todo with a Lewis gun.
How big was a Lewis gun teamgenerally?
How did they operate in thefield as a team in terms of
advancing and attacking?
Also, for the part of the teamwho were carrying ammunition,
(11:30):
what were they armed with?
And finally, could those whowere carrying ammunition
instantly be called upon totransfer to firing the gun and
vice versa?
Well this is a really goodquestion.
The Lewis gun, the Lewis machinegun, an American invention
adopted by the British Army innineteen fifteen and became the
(11:51):
standard light automatic weaponused by British infantry in the
Great War in increasing numbersas the war went on to a point
where by nineteen eighteen itbecame a really important weapon
on the battlefield, withinfantry companies moving
forward with a substantialnumber of Lewis guns in each
one, being able to lay downautomatic fire to suppress an
(12:14):
enemy, to allow the otherelements of that infantry
formation to move forward, toattack an enemy that was now
taking cover, and once anobjective was captured, the
Lewis machine gun could then beused to defend it by laying down
automatic fire towards anyGerman counterattacks.
And it's a good moment to talkabout Lewis guns and the use of
(12:35):
Lewis guns and the Lewis gunteams because there is a new
book just come out on this,produced by the Vickers Machine
Gun Collection and ResearchAssociation.
And some of you may rememberthat we had Richard Fisher from
that organisation on the podcasttalking about Vickers guns, and
they've produced a whole load ofmaterial through their website.
(12:58):
This new book, which is calledThe Lewis Gun on the Western
Front, tells the story of thedevelopment and the use of the
Lewis Gun by British forces andthen how it was implemented on
the battlefield, the equipmentthat they carried, and the
training that was required tomake them an effective part of a
fighting unit.
It's a really excellent littlebook, and I'll put a link to it
(13:22):
into the show notes of thisepisode and also on the podcast
website.
And if you're interested in thatelement of the First World War,
or you two have a relative thatwas in the Lewis Gun section of
an infantry battalion, it'sreally worth getting your hands
on.
Now, the Lewis Gun, when it wasintroduced, they created Lewis
(13:42):
Gun sections of men that wouldoperate the guns, commanded in
an infantry battalion initiallyby a Lewis gun officer, whose
job was to oversee this, tooversee the men, to oversee the
training.
Generally, when you look at thekind of men that were asked to
step forward and join part of aninfantry unit like that, they
tended to be slightly moreintelligent men who could act on
(14:04):
their own initiative, that theywere men who could take on
technical training and really besuccessful in that because it
wasn't a particularly complexweapon to use, but it wasn't a
bolt action rifle.
So you needed some of the pickof your company of your
battalion to actually be part ofthese Lewis gun sections.
(14:26):
And a Lewis gun sectionconsisted of seven men.
There was a section leader, hewas armed with a short magazine
Blienfield.
There was then the number oneand the number two on the Lewis
gun.
So the number one actually firedthe weapon, he carried it, he
put it into action, he fired it.
The number two assisted him withthis, carried extra ammunition,
(14:47):
but always made sure that therewas one of the Lewis gun drums
available for a reload when youran out of ammunition.
I think it was something like 47rounds in a Lewis machine gun
drum, and with a rate of fire ofsomething like 500 rounds a
minute.
Obviously, they wouldn't befiring that amount of rounds in
a minute, but it had quite ahigh cycle rate, so it fired a
(15:09):
lot of rounds in one go.
You could, if you weren'tcareful, quickly run out of
ammunition, and the drums wouldneed changing.
So the number two was there tocarry some extra ammunition and
also assist the gunner, thefirer, the number one in
changing the drum if required.
And I guess as part of his jobas well, he was a kind of a
spotter for the machine gunner.
(15:31):
He was observing the groundaround them, looking for targets
of opportunity, and thendirecting the gunner to those
targets if he hadn't seen them.
So both of these men had quitean important role in the Lewis
gun section.
Supporting them, they had anadditional four ammunition
carriers, and these were men whohad set a webbing gear with the
(15:52):
special Lewis gun pouches, whichyou could slot the Lewis gun
drums into, and they were quiteheavy, obviously carrying a few
of them, but these men wouldcarry a number of these drums in
these pouches.
They would be armed with a shortmagazine Lienfield, and part of
the role of all the men withrifles was to protect the
(16:14):
machine gun because there mightbe a situation where they're in
action, where the machine gun isblazing away, taking out the
targets that are on thebattlefield.
The Germans would be the enemy,whoever it was, would be trying
to outflank them, perhaps takethem on, knock them out, and the
rifle teams, the ammunitioncarriers and the section leader
with short magazine the enfieldswould also be there to provide
(16:35):
additional firepower toessentially protect, act as kind
of security for the two machinegunners, the number one and the
number two.
Because of the equipment thatthey carried, the Lewis gun,
ammunition, additional tools,they could not carry rifles.
So both of them, the number oneand the number two, they had
side arms, a Webley servicerevolver or a Colt service
(16:59):
revolver of the same caliber.
So they had side arms, pistols,effectively, revolvers.
Now the important bit is whileall the men in the Lewis gun
section had specific roles, theywere all trained to do other
things.
So all of them were trained tooperate and fire the gun.
They weren't just there theammunition carriers as donkeys
to carry the ammo.
(17:19):
If the number one and the numbertwo get hit, they can then step
in and take over.
So it's quite an importantlittle micro unit and quite a
highly trained one as well.
So coming back to yourgrandfather's circumstances, it
could be that at Fleskier he wasthe number two on the gun going
forward with the main Lewisgunner, and then acting as the
(17:42):
ammunition carrier and thenumber two on the actual weapon
itself, and then later onperhaps he became a number one
on a gun himself, or there mayhave been circumstances in which
the number one got killed orwounded and he had to take over.
And a lot more of this isexplained in the book.
The book's got really goodillustrations, a nice diagram of
(18:02):
a Lewis gun section and whatweapons each man had and what
their role was, and it goes intomuch more detail about that
element of their training andtheir purpose on the
battlefield.
And in terms of how Lewis gunswere used, they were an
automatic weapon that came induring that transition period
when the machine gun corps wasformed, and the Maxim and
(18:24):
Vickers machine guns were takenout of infantry battalions to
form the brigade machine guncompanies in infantry divisions,
which left a gap for automaticfirepower, which was replaced by
the Lewis gun.
And their role and purpose onthe battlefield changed and
developed as the war went on.
It could be used to lay downstandard suppressive fire onto
(18:45):
an enemy position, it could beused to defend a bit of ground
if an enemy attacked, and thenonce you get to the more mobile
battles of 1918, the provisionof a lot of automatic firepower
with an infantry company as itmoved forward towards an
objective was quite important.
And one of the things that hadbeen developed, the tactic if
you like that had been developedto utilize the Lewis gun was to
(19:09):
fire it from the hip as the menmoved forward.
It's quite a bulky big weapon,quite heavy.
There was a strap speciallydeveloped so it could be carried
in this manner and fired in thisway from the hip, if you like.
But I often wondered for a longtime whether that actually
happened.
I remember seeing images inCharlie's War, the comic, of
(19:29):
some of the characters in thatdoing just that with Lewis guns,
perhaps even Charlie himself.
But then I met veterans andinterviewed veterans who had
been Lewis gunners in infantrybattalions, and I discovered
from them that this was indeed atactic, a method that they had
employed.
I remember actually being inAndre Quayo's private museum in
Arras one time, and MartinMiddlebrook turned up with a
(19:52):
little tour group, and he wouldalways have a veteran with him,
he'd bring one over, he wouldn'tcharge the veteran to come with
him, he'd bring him over on apilgrimage essentially, and this
chap had been a soldier in theSherwood Foresters, one of the
Bantam battalions, I seem torecall of the Sherwood
Foresters, and he'd been a Lewisgunner in the final phase of the
First World War in the attackson the Hindenburg line, and I
(20:14):
spent quite a long time chattingto him about the use of a Lewis
gun because Andre had one in hiscollection, and we were standing
there with this Lewis gun infront of us, and this old chap
went through the whole kind ofmethod of stripping down a Lewis
gun, operating a Lewis gun, andthe tactics they used in that
latter part of the war whilebeing part of a Lewis gun
(20:36):
section.
I mean I wish in those days we'dhad iPhones and I could have
stood there and recorded himsaying these kind of things.
It was a lot more difficult todo that.
But hopefully, John, that'sgiven you a bit of an idea as to
how a Lewis gun sectionoperated, the role of the men
within it.
There could be other menattached to these sections if
(20:58):
they required more personnelgoing into action, more
ammunition carriers and more mento defend the actual weapon
itself.
But I think that gives you akind of structure to it, and I
would very much recommend thatbook by the Vickers Machine Gun
Collection and ResearchAssociation.
And as I say, there's a link inthe show notes and on the
podcast website.
(21:18):
Moving on to question numberthree, this one comes from Steve
McQuaid.
Steve asks, On my travels Inoticed a monument above Point
Noyelle near Amier.
I assumed it must be a FirstWorld War memorial, but on
closer inspection it turned outto be the Colonne Fade Herb
commemorating a battle of theFranco Prussian War.
It made me think, are there anyother such monuments on the
(21:41):
First World War battlefields?
And did that earlier warinfluence how each side prepared
for World War I?
Basically who learned andapplied the most from that
earlier conflict?
Well the Franco Prussian War of1870 to 71 was a defining
conflict in Europe in thatlatter part of the nineteenth
(22:02):
century.
This had been a period in whichPrussia had fought many wars
across Europe.
It had been victorious as partof the Allied coalition at
Waterloo in 1815, and then hadfought against many nations from
Austrians through to the Danes,through to the French eventually
and defeated France in thatFranco Prussian war, and as part
(22:24):
of the spoils of victory,Prussia, the nation that emerged
from that war, the unificationof German states into a new
Germany, Germany annexed AlsaceLorraine following the Franco
Prussian conflict, and forFrance it created this
bissiness, this resentment forthe humiliation of defeat, but
(22:45):
also for the occupation of landthat they considered French, and
that was bubbling away in thebackground in the many decades
leading up to the Great War.
In terms of what people learntfrom that war, the both the
French and of course theGermans, both armies had moved
on considerably by nineteenfourteen, arguably the Germans
(23:08):
much more than the French.
The Germans had really harnessedGerman industry to create
weapons and weaponry that wouldgive them the edge on the
battlefield, whether that wasthe provision of heavy machine
guns or heavy artillery like thefour hundred and twenty
millimetre Big Bertha that firedon the Belgian forts in the
(23:31):
opening stage of the Schlieffenplan against Belgium en route to
France in August 1914, forexample.
Whether France had learned asmuch as it could have done from
the Franco-Prussian War isperhaps a podcast in its own
right when we look at thetremendous losses amongst the
French, huge masses of Frenchtroops going into battle in vast
(23:54):
open fields in August 1914,leading to days in that Battle
of the Frontiers when tens ofthousands of French soldiers
became casualties, then perhapsas in many conflicts there was
an element of looking backrather than looking forward,
although following that war ofmovement and the war going
static, you could argue that theFrench were one of those who
(24:17):
reacted most quickly and perhapsmost effectively to the
conditions of trench warfare bybringing in steel helmets,
trench weapons, and many otherthings besides, but again that's
kind of slightly a differentsubject.
In terms of what we find of theFranco Prussian War on that
landscape of the Great War, thenwe find a lot because many of
(24:40):
the battles were fought oversimilar terrain.
You took the road from Alberttowards Amiens, the old Roman
road going through PointNoyelle, and you saw the
memorial on the top of the hillthere that commemorates the
battle in that area of Decembereighteen seventy when a French
(25:01):
force under the command ofGeneral Fayed Herb pushed the
Germans back.
There was a further victory atBapom in january eighteen
seventy-one and there is astatue of General Fayed Herb in
the main square of Bapome tothis day.
And while these small scaleFrench victories during that
period were rare and important,unfortunately defeat was close
(25:26):
at hand because just a shortwhile afterwards the French
forces were defeated nearSaint-Contas and Quentin, trying
to get towards Paris to relievethe French defending Paris
during its siege, and that wouldeventually lead to the overall
French defeat in theFranco-Prussian War.
So, right across northern Francewhere the fighting during that
(25:49):
Franco-Prussian period of1870-71 took place, there are
memorials and indeed burialgrounds where the dead are
buried, and you've seen theColon Fade Herb at Point
Noyelle.
In fact, when I first used to goto the Somme, when I first lived
on the Somme, not only was therea memorial in Point Noyelle,
(26:09):
there was a Franco Prussianmuseum there as well.
It was a private museum by alocal collector who went out to
metal detect not for First WorldWar Detritus, but for items from
the Franco-Prusan War, and hehad this incredible collection
in his house there.
He died sometime in the earlymid-90s, and that collection was
(26:34):
sadly dispersed.
In Bapome, we mentioned thestatue to General Faye Herb,
that appears in quite a lot ofthe wartime German photographs
of Bapome, and pretty mucheverywhere that you travel
across that landscape that wesee as a landscape of the First
World War, you will find somelocations connected to the
(26:56):
Franco-Prussi conflict.
So if you went down to Sedan,for example, in eastern France,
where there was a battle in1870, you would find the
landscape there reflecting theFranco-Prussian War, reflecting
those early battles of 1914, andnot far away the early battles
of May 1940 at the beginning ofthe Second World War as well.
(27:20):
So it is definitely one of thoseplaces where the crisscross
paths of history, not justbetween World War I and World
War II, but many other conflictsbesides, they all kind of come
together in places like that.
And during the Great War, Sedan,which was way behind the German
lines after the initialfighting, was a big training
(27:41):
area.
There were battlefields createdthere where live fire exercises
took place.
Quite a lot of the standard filmthat we have of Germans in
action with flamethrowers andmachine guns doing trench raids
and stuff like that actuallycomes from film that was made at
that training area near toSedan, for example.
But having spent a few holidaysthere back in the late 90s and
(28:04):
early 2000s, I regularly cameacross burial sites connected to
the Franco-Prussian War.
Small cemeteries where therewere small numbers of burials,
sometimes French, sometimesGerman as well, and not far away
from Sedan is anotherFranco-Prussian museum, one that
is still there, I'm pleased tosay, the Museum of the Last
(28:28):
Cartridge, the Muse de la DenierCartouche, and that tells the
story of the bitter fighting inon that battlefield from the
Franco Prussian war.
And once you get into thatregion of Alsace Lorraine, you
find even more evidence of thisthere.
It's a really important part ofour understanding of that
(28:51):
landscape of conflict thatspreads right across that area
of France from north to theeast, all part of that region of
Europe, that vast area of Europethat often is described as the
cockpit of Europe where so manyconflicts have been fought over
so many centuries.
(29:11):
And of course the symbolism ofthe Franco-Prussi War, what it
meant to the French with defeatand annexation of soil that they
considered to be French was allpart of the feeling that led to
the bitterness between Franceand Germany in the approach to
the First World War, perhapseven the desire to go to war
(29:32):
again, to write that wrong froma French perspective, and for
the Germans the war createdGermany.
Prussia had fought this conflictagainst the French, united all
the German-speaking kingdoms andnations together into the new
Germany, created after theFranco-Prussian War, and of
course that was part of the nextset of steps that took Europe
(29:56):
towards conflict a generationlater.
And there were still, of course,people alive in nineteen
fourteen who could remember theFranco-Prussi War.
So lots more to discuss there,Steve, but I hope that kind of
answers to some degree what youwere hinting at with your
question, and perhaps yet againit's another subject that we
(30:19):
might steer back to in thefuture.
So let's move on to our fourthand final question that comes
from another Steve, in this caseSteve Goodall.
And Steve asks, I'm a keengenealogist and great war
enthusiast.
I like to collect great warmedals and create family trees
of the recipients on ancestry inorder to find out a little bit
about their lives before andafter the war, or in the case of
(30:42):
casualties, what became of theirfamilies afterwards.
I'm lucky enough to have themilitary medal sets for a few
soldiers, but I wondered whatwas the tipping point that
determined whether a recipientreceived a military medal
compared to a distinguishedconduct medal or a military
cross with a DSO or VC.
Well this is a really goodquestion about the honours and
(31:04):
awards that were given toBritish and Commonwealth Empire
soldiers in the Great War.
And when Britain went to war in1914, there were three main
decorations that could beawarded to soldiers for bravery
on the battlefield.
The highest of those was theVictoria Cross, which had come
about following the Crimean Warof the 1850s, and by the time of
(31:27):
the Boer War, which is the mostrecent conflict in terms of the
British Army's experience, therewas also the Distinguished
Service Order for Officers andthe Distinguished Conduct Medal
for Ordinary Men.
The VC could be awarded to anyrank of the armed services, and
in terms of the army, the DSOwas for officers and the DCM for
(31:47):
ordinary soldiers.
And the DCM pre-First World Warwas an important award for an
ordinary soldier if he survivedbecause it carried with it a
pension as well.
So that was another element ofbeing awarded a medal for
bravery on the battlefield.
Now in 1914, the war, the GreatWar, the expansion of the army,
(32:08):
the type of battles that werethen fought changed all of that,
changed the way the honours andawards were given out to the
troops on the ground.
The pension for the DCM wasquickly removed when large
numbers of them were awarded inthat early phase of the
fighting.
And what became apparent at thetime is that there was this big
disparity between these threedecorations.
(32:31):
The VC at one end and forordinary soldiers the DCM at the
other.
DSOs were supposedly only givento officers of a certain rank
and above, although if you lookat the fighting in 1914, some
were given to very young secondlieutenants for fighting at Mons
or on the Ain in August,September of 1914.
(32:53):
But what became clear initiallyis that there needed to be
another medal that could beawarded to the junior ranks of
officers, and that was theMilitary Cross that was then
brought in in late 1914 withretrospective awards given to
some men who'd fought in thoseearlier battles, and some of the
first men to get the militarycross were for battles around
(33:15):
Eape in that winter period of1914-15, for example.
A little while later, theportfolio of awards was added to
in 1916 with the introduction ofthe Military Medal, which was
the other ranks equivalent ofthe MC.
So this could be awarded toordinary soldiers for acts of
gallantry that wouldn't get thema distinguished conduct medal.
(33:36):
So there was now a kind ofpecking order.
VC is the ultimate award for theultimate acts of bravery.
For officers, if it's aparticular act of gallantry on
the battlefield, you're going toget the DSO.
If it's unusual, remarkable,then you're going to be a
recipient of the DistinguishedService Order.
If you're a junior officer andyou carry out a brave deed, then
(33:58):
you're probably going to get theMC.
For ordinary soldiers, the samekind of approach, with the
pecking order being the DCM forthese incredible, daring deeds
on the battlefield, and then themilitary medal, the MM, for some
of the junior NCOs, privatesoldiers for other deeds on that
battlefield.
I mean, this is not reallyrating or ranking the bravery of
(34:20):
individual soldiers.
I mean that is something that isimpossible to do, and who can
walk in their shoes.
But there were criteria for allof these awards.
There had to be witnesses, forexample, to recommend a soldier
for a particular award, and theVictoria Cross had the highest
level of this because theyweren't just going to hand out
(34:42):
the VC to anyone for anything.
So there had to be multipleofficers that witnessed an
action, and they were the onesthat then recommended whatever
that soldier was, whether he wasan ordinary soldier or
commissioned officer, they wouldbe the ones that then
recommended them for that award.
And once there wererecommendations for all of the
(35:04):
honours and awards in the GreatWar on paper, but sadly all of
that archive was destroyed inbombing in the Second World War.
So when we get to certain medalslike the Military Medal, and all
of these were published in theLondon Gazette, many of them,
like the VC and the DSO and theMC and the DCM, have the
citations of the awards, butbecause there were so many
(35:26):
military medals awarded in thewar, they didn't publish the
recommendation or citation inthe London Gazette.
So with the loss of thosecrucial records in World War II,
in most cases we're not reallysure why a soldier got an MM,
for example.
You can occasionally findsomething in a local newspaper
or battalion war diary about it,but in most cases we can only
(35:48):
guess at what that award wasfor.
Now, many soldiers, Iinterviewed quite a lot of Great
War veterans who had beendecorated for bravery.
Several who had the MilitaryCross, one who had the DCM,
quite a lot of military medalrecipients.
And one of the common thingsthat they would say when you
first got to meet them and youfirst spoke to them and you saw
(36:11):
or you noticed that they werewearing a medal like that, you
might ask them how did you getthat award?
And the ordinary blokes wouldoften just say, Oh, it just came
up with the rations, mate.
And that phrase it came up withthe rations is something you see
a lot in the accounts of theFirst World War.
Now there were medals that werehanded out for non-battlefield
(36:32):
deeds.
For example, the chief baker ofRouen is said to have been
awarded a distinguished serviceorder, a DSO, for fantastic work
in baking bread for the army.
And stories like that annoyed alot of men at the time because
they felt that these some ofthese awards were being given
(36:53):
out as well done, good boyawards, and after the war,
seeing a man walking down thestreet, you wouldn't know
whether he'd been awarded theDSO for baking bread or the DSO
for storming a German machinegun position.
But when you begin to look intothe stories of how some of these
decorations were awarded, veryfew of them came up with the
(37:15):
rations.
In some cases, the acts ofgallantry are really quite
incredible, and there are someamazing stories of bravery on
the battlefield that you candiscover by researching men who
were awarded one of thesedecorations.
But I'm always mindful of aphrase that I heard a few times
in different variations.
(37:36):
George Butler was one to saythis regular soldier, he'd gone
out in early 1915 and servedpretty much continuously until
he was badly wounded in April1918.
One of the phrases he used tosay when we spoke about men who
were awarded the Victoria Cross,and he saw some examples of this
at different points in hismilitary career which went on to
(37:58):
the Second World War as well.
He always used to say there'stwo type of cross lad, there's
the Victoria Cross and theWooden Cross, and most got the
latter.
And what he meant and the otherveterans used similar phrases,
what they meant by that is thatmost acts of gallantry went
unrewarded, unrecognised.
(38:19):
Men did some incredible things,but not enough, or perhaps no
one but them ever saw them, andthose deeds died with them on
the battlefield.
So when we cast our eyes acrossthe headstones in those vast
soldiers' cemeteries of theGreat War and see that white
splash of stone and the namesengraved on there, and we see
(38:42):
men who were given decorationsfor every one of them.
Perhaps there are countlessothers who should have been
awarded something, but theirbravery, their great deed was
never recognised, and I thinkthis is something that I guess
we always have to consider whenwe discuss this subject.
So I hope, Steve, that's kind ofadded some context to this
(39:04):
subject.
And those symbols that you havein your collection, the military
medals to men recognized forgallantry on the battlefield,
are such important, powerfulobjects that connect us to the
First World War.
I have a few of them to Sussexlads who were in the South Downs
battalions, and it's good thatpeople like us preserve those
(39:27):
objects and treasure thoseobjects for what they stand for
in that wider picture of theGreat War.
So thank you, Steve.
Thanks for that question, thanksfor all of the questions this
week.
Keep them coming in via theusual methods of email and the
Discord server, and there arelinks to those in the show notes
(39:47):
for this episode.
And I'll see you again soon formore questions and answers on
the Old Frontline.
You've been listening to anepisode of the Old Frontline
with me, military historian PaulReed.
You can follow me on Twitter atSomcor, you can follow the
(40:09):
podcast at OldFrontline Pod.
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.
And if you feel like supportingus, you can go to our Patreon
page, patreon.com slasholdfrontline, or support us on
(40:29):
buymea coffee atbuymeacoffee.com slash
oldfrontline.
Links to all of these are on ourwebsites.
Thanks for listening, and we'llsee you again soon.
Thanks for all the kind comments about the question
and answer podcasts followingour fortieth episode.
It's good to know that this partof the old front line seems to
be as popular as ever.
And I think the question that wehad about artificial
intelligence, AI, and the use ofit, and the potential dangers of
(00:31):
it for historical research andthe projection of history
through rich media like podcastsand videos, it really seems to
have hit the mark with many ofyou, and I had a lot of
follow-up comments about that.
And it's clear, like me, many ofyou are cautious, if not a
little bit fearful, of AI.
(00:51):
And I noticed that a recentChannel 4 documentary about
Hitler's DNA, which some of youmay have seen, used AI imagery
and film in the production ofthat documentary, which, as far
as I'm aware, is a first formainstream television.
So it's already quite concerningreally that artificial
(01:12):
intelligence is being used toproduce material for serious
documentaries and it's beingpresented as if it's an actual
source.
And I've seen a few interestingvideos from World War II
channels on YouTube recentlydiscussing this very issue about
(01:33):
AI, and I'm sure it is somethingthat we will return to in this
podcast, perhaps on the oldfrontline YouTube channel at
some point in the near future,because I kind of think it is
something that we need to keepan eye on and keep discussing so
that we are aware that materialis being put out there that has
(01:55):
not come from the archives, thatit is artificially produced from
a source that really only has abare minimum often of the facts.
But anyway, that's thediscussion for another day.
For now, it's time for thisweek's questions.
Our first question comes fromRobert Knapp in America.
(02:18):
Robert asks you often refer todownland in the podcast.
As an American, we don't havethat term here.
Could you describe what downlandis?
Well this is a really goodquestion, Robert, and I guess as
someone who grew up in thatdownland in the south of
England, it's something that Icould take for granted.
(02:42):
So to those who are not familiarwith the concept of downland,
what are we talking about here?
And it is something that I havereferred to a number of times in
the podcast.
Well I grew up in an environmentin a landscape in the county of
Sussex in southern England, insouthern Britain.
(03:03):
It's not just restricted toSussex, this concept of
downland, because Britain as anisland, and I'm not a geologist,
going to leave that to ProfessorPeter Doyle and many others, but
Britain as an island has quite alot of chalk landscapes along
its coastline, f much furtherinland, and not just, as I've
(03:26):
said, restricted to Sussex, butwe can go across the downland
into counties like Hampshire andWiltshire.
When I lived up in Yorkshire,east of York was the Yorkshire
Wolds, going from York acrosstowards the coast at
Bridlington.
That landscape is very much achalk landscape with downland
(03:47):
very, very clearly part of it.
So what is this downland?
Well, essentially, Robert, it'sa kind of a rolling terrain, and
the chalk formed over many, manythousands of years, shapes that
terrain into a kind of rollinglandscape.
And for example, I've read quitea few American accounts,
(04:08):
American written accounts of theFirst World War that often
refers to places like the Sommeas a billiard table because it's
flat.
Now I suspect compared to manyof the rocky parts of America,
it is seemingly quite flat, butit isn't actually like a
billiard table.
(04:29):
The downland part of it, thisrolling landscape, is what gives
its shape and is what gives itsform, and it creates high points
that then become crucial in theconduct of the battles fought
over that landscape in the FirstWorld War.
And one of the things that Ihope that many of you learn by
listening to this podcast isabout the importance of
(04:53):
landscape and the importancethat landscape has, how it
affects the conduct and outcomeof battles in this conflict.
So a landscape, a chalkdownland, creating this rolling
terrain where there are highpoints means that the high
points become the focus of thefighting.
(05:13):
And in many parts of the WesternFront, really the whole conduct
of operations there becomesabout the possession and
repossession of this so-calledhigh ground.
Now chalk downland istraditionally slightly higher
than, for example, theflatlands, the wet Flanders
plain up near Epe in Belgium.
(05:35):
But it is still not a kind ofrocky ridgeline, it is this
rolling, softly, gentle rollingterrain that creates these high
points which become the focus ofdefence and then attack.
And for me growing up in Sussex,and I believe it's the same
chalk seam that goes under thechannel up into northern France
(05:57):
towards that area of what becamethe Somme battlefields of 1916.
So the terrain in Sussex where Igrew up and the terrain on the
Somme is very, very similar.
For me, it was about walking anincredible landscape with so
much to see, the way it dropsaway into escarpments and rises
to high points on the coast,these vast chalk cliffs that are
(06:22):
often at the beginning of rivervalleys or close to them.
That is the kind of landscapethat I knew.
That does exist in northernFrance as well, but in terms of
the battlefield area, that'smuch further inland.
So while the rolling land thatwe've described is there, the
kind of chalk coastline is notreally part of the First World
(06:43):
War story.
And in terms of the nearest kindof thing that you've got to this
in America, and I must confess Ihad to look this up, there are
several areas which, accordingto online sources, you could
describe that are in America,you could describe them as
downland.
There is the Austin Chalk inTexas, and when I looked at
(07:06):
photographs of that, it's a lotstarker than the chalk landscape
in Europe, and I couldn't seeevidence of much downland
rolling terrain around it.
There's a place called the SelmaGroup in Southeast America,
which seems to me, thephotographs of that look much
more like it, with a kind ofrolling area of contoured ground
(07:30):
with a lot of meadowland, whichis something that in the
landscape of Sussex and theSomme before all the
bombardments and then after thewar, it very much is like that.
And there is a place called theNiabrara Formation in Kansas,
Nebraska, South Dakota, whichagain looks a bit more stark to
(07:52):
me, but there is grasslandaround it with this kind of
rolling terrain.
Now, I don't know, Robert, ifyou're familiar with any of
those areas, but I hope that atsome point you get a chance to
compare perhaps what they looklike with that rolling downland
of the Somme.
And one of the elements I thinkto me using this description of
(08:14):
the landscape as downland is anemotional one as well, because
the Sussex Downs, the SouthDowns where I grew up, and many
other kind of areas of downlandacross Britain being so similar
to the Somme, I can see theseconnections between home and the
stark reality of where thebattles were once fought more
(08:35):
than a century ago.
And the similarity is is notjust a physical one in terms of
what they look like, it's whatthose landscapes create.
On downland with rough grasspastures, you have skylarks,
skylarks being the birds thatbring us into each episode of
the podcast and take us out, andare very much part of that chalk
(09:00):
downland landscape in Britainand also that chalk downland
landscape in northern France, inparticular on the Somme.
The Skylark is a bird that takesme whenever I hear it wherever I
am straight back to nineteensixteen, straight back to those
(09:21):
rolling chalk hills of Pigardyand the long chalk dusty roads
that took the troops there andback from the front and
everything that happened there.
And of course I can see that,but many thousands of men who
were there in nineteen sixteensaw that as well and commented
(09:41):
as to how the Somme looked likethe downland that they had known
wherever that was.
So it's a geographical, ageological term really to
describe a type of landscapewhich I guess is much more
European than American, althoughyou do seem to have some similar
(10:02):
kind of landscapes there, but itis that connection, that wider
connection of landscape and how,as we often talk about in this
podcast, how landscape is verymuch a part, an essential part
really of our widerunderstanding of the Great War.
And I hope that's kind ofanswered your question, Robert,
(10:25):
because it was one quite hard toanswer in some respects because
having grown up in that type oflandscape, it's as familiar to
me as breathing, really, and totry and quantify it and describe
it and explain how important itis in the context of the Great
War is perhaps not as easy as itsounds.
(10:46):
So thank you, Robert, for thatexcellent question.
Question number two comes fromJohn Sanderson.
John asks My grandfather was ina Lewis gun team in november
nineteen seventeen with thefifty first Highland Division at
Fleskier.
His pal was next to him, notedas advancing towards the trench
while firing a Lewis gun.
I don't think our grandfatherwould have been operating and
(11:08):
firing a Lewis gun at thispoint, so I am presuming that he
was carrying ammunition for hispal.
However, during the Germanoffensive he was awarded the
military medal for something todo with a Lewis gun.
How big was a Lewis gun teamgenerally?
How did they operate in thefield as a team in terms of
advancing and attacking?
Also, for the part of the teamwho were carrying ammunition,
(11:30):
what were they armed with?
And finally, could those whowere carrying ammunition
instantly be called upon totransfer to firing the gun and
vice versa?
Well this is a really goodquestion.
The Lewis gun, the Lewis machinegun, an American invention
adopted by the British Army innineteen fifteen and became the
(11:51):
standard light automatic weaponused by British infantry in the
Great War in increasing numbersas the war went on to a point
where by nineteen eighteen itbecame a really important weapon
on the battlefield, withinfantry companies moving
forward with a substantialnumber of Lewis guns in each
one, being able to lay downautomatic fire to suppress an
(12:14):
enemy, to allow the otherelements of that infantry
formation to move forward, toattack an enemy that was now
taking cover, and once anobjective was captured, the
Lewis machine gun could then beused to defend it by laying down
automatic fire towards anyGerman counterattacks.
And it's a good moment to talkabout Lewis guns and the use of
(12:35):
Lewis guns and the Lewis gunteams because there is a new
book just come out on this,produced by the Vickers Machine
Gun Collection and ResearchAssociation.
And some of you may rememberthat we had Richard Fisher from
that organisation on the podcasttalking about Vickers guns, and
they've produced a whole load ofmaterial through their website.
(12:58):
This new book, which is calledThe Lewis Gun on the Western
Front, tells the story of thedevelopment and the use of the
Lewis Gun by British forces andthen how it was implemented on
the battlefield, the equipmentthat they carried, and the
training that was required tomake them an effective part of a
fighting unit.
It's a really excellent littlebook, and I'll put a link to it
(13:22):
into the show notes of thisepisode and also on the podcast
website.
And if you're interested in thatelement of the First World War,
or you two have a relative thatwas in the Lewis Gun section of
an infantry battalion, it'sreally worth getting your hands
on.
Now, the Lewis Gun, when it wasintroduced, they created Lewis
(13:42):
Gun sections of men that wouldoperate the guns, commanded in
an infantry battalion initiallyby a Lewis gun officer, whose
job was to oversee this, tooversee the men, to oversee the
training.
Generally, when you look at thekind of men that were asked to
step forward and join part of aninfantry unit like that, they
tended to be slightly moreintelligent men who could act on
(14:04):
their own initiative, that theywere men who could take on
technical training and really besuccessful in that because it
wasn't a particularly complexweapon to use, but it wasn't a
bolt action rifle.
So you needed some of the pickof your company of your
battalion to actually be part ofthese Lewis gun sections.
(14:26):
And a Lewis gun sectionconsisted of seven men.
There was a section leader, hewas armed with a short magazine
Blienfield.
There was then the number oneand the number two on the Lewis
gun.
So the number one actually firedthe weapon, he carried it, he
put it into action, he fired it.
The number two assisted him withthis, carried extra ammunition,
(14:47):
but always made sure that therewas one of the Lewis gun drums
available for a reload when youran out of ammunition.
I think it was something like 47rounds in a Lewis machine gun
drum, and with a rate of fire ofsomething like 500 rounds a
minute.
Obviously, they wouldn't befiring that amount of rounds in
a minute, but it had quite ahigh cycle rate, so it fired a
(15:09):
lot of rounds in one go.
You could, if you weren'tcareful, quickly run out of
ammunition, and the drums wouldneed changing.
So the number two was there tocarry some extra ammunition and
also assist the gunner, thefirer, the number one in
changing the drum if required.
And I guess as part of his jobas well, he was a kind of a
spotter for the machine gunner.
(15:31):
He was observing the groundaround them, looking for targets
of opportunity, and thendirecting the gunner to those
targets if he hadn't seen them.
So both of these men had quitean important role in the Lewis
gun section.
Supporting them, they had anadditional four ammunition
carriers, and these were men whohad set a webbing gear with the
(15:52):
special Lewis gun pouches, whichyou could slot the Lewis gun
drums into, and they were quiteheavy, obviously carrying a few
of them, but these men wouldcarry a number of these drums in
these pouches.
They would be armed with a shortmagazine Lienfield, and part of
the role of all the men withrifles was to protect the
(16:14):
machine gun because there mightbe a situation where they're in
action, where the machine gun isblazing away, taking out the
targets that are on thebattlefield.
The Germans would be the enemy,whoever it was, would be trying
to outflank them, perhaps takethem on, knock them out, and the
rifle teams, the ammunitioncarriers and the section leader
with short magazine the enfieldswould also be there to provide
(16:35):
additional firepower toessentially protect, act as kind
of security for the two machinegunners, the number one and the
number two.
Because of the equipment thatthey carried, the Lewis gun,
ammunition, additional tools,they could not carry rifles.
So both of them, the number oneand the number two, they had
side arms, a Webley servicerevolver or a Colt service
(16:59):
revolver of the same caliber.
So they had side arms, pistols,effectively, revolvers.
Now the important bit is whileall the men in the Lewis gun
section had specific roles, theywere all trained to do other
things.
So all of them were trained tooperate and fire the gun.
They weren't just there theammunition carriers as donkeys
to carry the ammo.
(17:19):
If the number one and the numbertwo get hit, they can then step
in and take over.
So it's quite an importantlittle micro unit and quite a
highly trained one as well.
So coming back to yourgrandfather's circumstances, it
could be that at Fleskier he wasthe number two on the gun going
forward with the main Lewisgunner, and then acting as the
(17:42):
ammunition carrier and thenumber two on the actual weapon
itself, and then later onperhaps he became a number one
on a gun himself, or there mayhave been circumstances in which
the number one got killed orwounded and he had to take over.
And a lot more of this isexplained in the book.
The book's got really goodillustrations, a nice diagram of
(18:02):
a Lewis gun section and whatweapons each man had and what
their role was, and it goes intomuch more detail about that
element of their training andtheir purpose on the
battlefield.
And in terms of how Lewis gunswere used, they were an
automatic weapon that came induring that transition period
when the machine gun corps wasformed, and the Maxim and
(18:24):
Vickers machine guns were takenout of infantry battalions to
form the brigade machine guncompanies in infantry divisions,
which left a gap for automaticfirepower, which was replaced by
the Lewis gun.
And their role and purpose onthe battlefield changed and
developed as the war went on.
It could be used to lay downstandard suppressive fire onto
(18:45):
an enemy position, it could beused to defend a bit of ground
if an enemy attacked, and thenonce you get to the more mobile
battles of 1918, the provisionof a lot of automatic firepower
with an infantry company as itmoved forward towards an
objective was quite important.
And one of the things that hadbeen developed, the tactic if
you like that had been developedto utilize the Lewis gun was to
(19:09):
fire it from the hip as the menmoved forward.
It's quite a bulky big weapon,quite heavy.
There was a strap speciallydeveloped so it could be carried
in this manner and fired in thisway from the hip, if you like.
But I often wondered for a longtime whether that actually
happened.
I remember seeing images inCharlie's War, the comic, of
(19:29):
some of the characters in thatdoing just that with Lewis guns,
perhaps even Charlie himself.
But then I met veterans andinterviewed veterans who had
been Lewis gunners in infantrybattalions, and I discovered
from them that this was indeed atactic, a method that they had
employed.
I remember actually being inAndre Quayo's private museum in
Arras one time, and MartinMiddlebrook turned up with a
(19:52):
little tour group, and he wouldalways have a veteran with him,
he'd bring one over, he wouldn'tcharge the veteran to come with
him, he'd bring him over on apilgrimage essentially, and this
chap had been a soldier in theSherwood Foresters, one of the
Bantam battalions, I seem torecall of the Sherwood
Foresters, and he'd been a Lewisgunner in the final phase of the
First World War in the attackson the Hindenburg line, and I
(20:14):
spent quite a long time chattingto him about the use of a Lewis
gun because Andre had one in hiscollection, and we were standing
there with this Lewis gun infront of us, and this old chap
went through the whole kind ofmethod of stripping down a Lewis
gun, operating a Lewis gun, andthe tactics they used in that
latter part of the war whilebeing part of a Lewis gun
(20:36):
section.
I mean I wish in those days we'dhad iPhones and I could have
stood there and recorded himsaying these kind of things.
It was a lot more difficult todo that.
But hopefully, John, that'sgiven you a bit of an idea as to
how a Lewis gun sectionoperated, the role of the men
within it.
There could be other menattached to these sections if
(20:58):
they required more personnelgoing into action, more
ammunition carriers and more mento defend the actual weapon
itself.
But I think that gives you akind of structure to it, and I
would very much recommend thatbook by the Vickers Machine Gun
Collection and ResearchAssociation.
And as I say, there's a link inthe show notes and on the
podcast website.
(21:18):
Moving on to question numberthree, this one comes from Steve
McQuaid.
Steve asks, On my travels Inoticed a monument above Point
Noyelle near Amier.
I assumed it must be a FirstWorld War memorial, but on
closer inspection it turned outto be the Colonne Fade Herb
commemorating a battle of theFranco Prussian War.
It made me think, are there anyother such monuments on the
(21:41):
First World War battlefields?
And did that earlier warinfluence how each side prepared
for World War I?
Basically who learned andapplied the most from that
earlier conflict?
Well the Franco Prussian War of1870 to 71 was a defining
conflict in Europe in thatlatter part of the nineteenth
(22:02):
century.
This had been a period in whichPrussia had fought many wars
across Europe.
It had been victorious as partof the Allied coalition at
Waterloo in 1815, and then hadfought against many nations from
Austrians through to the Danes,through to the French eventually
and defeated France in thatFranco Prussian war, and as part
(22:24):
of the spoils of victory,Prussia, the nation that emerged
from that war, the unificationof German states into a new
Germany, Germany annexed AlsaceLorraine following the Franco
Prussian conflict, and forFrance it created this
bissiness, this resentment forthe humiliation of defeat, but
(22:45):
also for the occupation of landthat they considered French, and
that was bubbling away in thebackground in the many decades
leading up to the Great War.
In terms of what people learntfrom that war, the both the
French and of course theGermans, both armies had moved
on considerably by nineteenfourteen, arguably the Germans
(23:08):
much more than the French.
The Germans had really harnessedGerman industry to create
weapons and weaponry that wouldgive them the edge on the
battlefield, whether that wasthe provision of heavy machine
guns or heavy artillery like thefour hundred and twenty
millimetre Big Bertha that firedon the Belgian forts in the
(23:31):
opening stage of the Schlieffenplan against Belgium en route to
France in August 1914, forexample.
Whether France had learned asmuch as it could have done from
the Franco-Prussian War isperhaps a podcast in its own
right when we look at thetremendous losses amongst the
French, huge masses of Frenchtroops going into battle in vast
(23:54):
open fields in August 1914,leading to days in that Battle
of the Frontiers when tens ofthousands of French soldiers
became casualties, then perhapsas in many conflicts there was
an element of looking backrather than looking forward,
although following that war ofmovement and the war going
static, you could argue that theFrench were one of those who
(24:17):
reacted most quickly and perhapsmost effectively to the
conditions of trench warfare bybringing in steel helmets,
trench weapons, and many otherthings besides, but again that's
kind of slightly a differentsubject.
In terms of what we find of theFranco Prussian War on that
landscape of the Great War, thenwe find a lot because many of
(24:40):
the battles were fought oversimilar terrain.
You took the road from Alberttowards Amiens, the old Roman
road going through PointNoyelle, and you saw the
memorial on the top of the hillthere that commemorates the
battle in that area of Decembereighteen seventy when a French
(25:01):
force under the command ofGeneral Fayed Herb pushed the
Germans back.
There was a further victory atBapom in january eighteen
seventy-one and there is astatue of General Fayed Herb in
the main square of Bapome tothis day.
And while these small scaleFrench victories during that
period were rare and important,unfortunately defeat was close
(25:26):
at hand because just a shortwhile afterwards the French
forces were defeated nearSaint-Contas and Quentin, trying
to get towards Paris to relievethe French defending Paris
during its siege, and that wouldeventually lead to the overall
French defeat in theFranco-Prussian War.
So, right across northern Francewhere the fighting during that
(25:49):
Franco-Prussian period of1870-71 took place, there are
memorials and indeed burialgrounds where the dead are
buried, and you've seen theColon Fade Herb at Point
Noyelle.
In fact, when I first used to goto the Somme, when I first lived
on the Somme, not only was therea memorial in Point Noyelle,
(26:09):
there was a Franco Prussianmuseum there as well.
It was a private museum by alocal collector who went out to
metal detect not for First WorldWar Detritus, but for items from
the Franco-Prusan War, and hehad this incredible collection
in his house there.
He died sometime in the earlymid-90s, and that collection was
(26:34):
sadly dispersed.
In Bapome, we mentioned thestatue to General Faye Herb,
that appears in quite a lot ofthe wartime German photographs
of Bapome, and pretty mucheverywhere that you travel
across that landscape that wesee as a landscape of the First
World War, you will find somelocations connected to the
(26:56):
Franco-Prussi conflict.
So if you went down to Sedan,for example, in eastern France,
where there was a battle in1870, you would find the
landscape there reflecting theFranco-Prussian War, reflecting
those early battles of 1914, andnot far away the early battles
of May 1940 at the beginning ofthe Second World War as well.
(27:20):
So it is definitely one of thoseplaces where the crisscross
paths of history, not justbetween World War I and World
War II, but many other conflictsbesides, they all kind of come
together in places like that.
And during the Great War, Sedan,which was way behind the German
lines after the initialfighting, was a big training
(27:41):
area.
There were battlefields createdthere where live fire exercises
took place.
Quite a lot of the standard filmthat we have of Germans in
action with flamethrowers andmachine guns doing trench raids
and stuff like that actuallycomes from film that was made at
that training area near toSedan, for example.
But having spent a few holidaysthere back in the late 90s and
(28:04):
early 2000s, I regularly cameacross burial sites connected to
the Franco-Prussian War.
Small cemeteries where therewere small numbers of burials,
sometimes French, sometimesGerman as well, and not far away
from Sedan is anotherFranco-Prussian museum, one that
is still there, I'm pleased tosay, the Museum of the Last
(28:28):
Cartridge, the Muse de la DenierCartouche, and that tells the
story of the bitter fighting inon that battlefield from the
Franco Prussian war.
And once you get into thatregion of Alsace Lorraine, you
find even more evidence of thisthere.
It's a really important part ofour understanding of that
(28:51):
landscape of conflict thatspreads right across that area
of France from north to theeast, all part of that region of
Europe, that vast area of Europethat often is described as the
cockpit of Europe where so manyconflicts have been fought over
so many centuries.
(29:11):
And of course the symbolism ofthe Franco-Prussi War, what it
meant to the French with defeatand annexation of soil that they
considered to be French was allpart of the feeling that led to
the bitterness between Franceand Germany in the approach to
the First World War, perhapseven the desire to go to war
(29:32):
again, to write that wrong froma French perspective, and for
the Germans the war createdGermany.
Prussia had fought this conflictagainst the French, united all
the German-speaking kingdoms andnations together into the new
Germany, created after theFranco-Prussian War, and of
course that was part of the nextset of steps that took Europe
(29:56):
towards conflict a generationlater.
And there were still, of course,people alive in nineteen
fourteen who could remember theFranco-Prussi War.
So lots more to discuss there,Steve, but I hope that kind of
answers to some degree what youwere hinting at with your
question, and perhaps yet againit's another subject that we
(30:19):
might steer back to in thefuture.
So let's move on to our fourthand final question that comes
from another Steve, in this caseSteve Goodall.
And Steve asks, I'm a keengenealogist and great war
enthusiast.
I like to collect great warmedals and create family trees
of the recipients on ancestry inorder to find out a little bit
about their lives before andafter the war, or in the case of
(30:42):
casualties, what became of theirfamilies afterwards.
I'm lucky enough to have themilitary medal sets for a few
soldiers, but I wondered whatwas the tipping point that
determined whether a recipientreceived a military medal
compared to a distinguishedconduct medal or a military
cross with a DSO or VC.
Well this is a really goodquestion about the honours and
(31:04):
awards that were given toBritish and Commonwealth Empire
soldiers in the Great War.
And when Britain went to war in1914, there were three main
decorations that could beawarded to soldiers for bravery
on the battlefield.
The highest of those was theVictoria Cross, which had come
about following the Crimean Warof the 1850s, and by the time of
(31:27):
the Boer War, which is the mostrecent conflict in terms of the
British Army's experience, therewas also the Distinguished
Service Order for Officers andthe Distinguished Conduct Medal
for Ordinary Men.
The VC could be awarded to anyrank of the armed services, and
in terms of the army, the DSOwas for officers and the DCM for
(31:47):
ordinary soldiers.
And the DCM pre-First World Warwas an important award for an
ordinary soldier if he survivedbecause it carried with it a
pension as well.
So that was another element ofbeing awarded a medal for
bravery on the battlefield.
Now in 1914, the war, the GreatWar, the expansion of the army,
(32:08):
the type of battles that werethen fought changed all of that,
changed the way the honours andawards were given out to the
troops on the ground.
The pension for the DCM wasquickly removed when large
numbers of them were awarded inthat early phase of the
fighting.
And what became apparent at thetime is that there was this big
disparity between these threedecorations.
(32:31):
The VC at one end and forordinary soldiers the DCM at the
other.
DSOs were supposedly only givento officers of a certain rank
and above, although if you lookat the fighting in 1914, some
were given to very young secondlieutenants for fighting at Mons
or on the Ain in August,September of 1914.
(32:53):
But what became clear initiallyis that there needed to be
another medal that could beawarded to the junior ranks of
officers, and that was theMilitary Cross that was then
brought in in late 1914 withretrospective awards given to
some men who'd fought in thoseearlier battles, and some of the
first men to get the militarycross were for battles around
(33:15):
Eape in that winter period of1914-15, for example.
A little while later, theportfolio of awards was added to
in 1916 with the introduction ofthe Military Medal, which was
the other ranks equivalent ofthe MC.
So this could be awarded toordinary soldiers for acts of
gallantry that wouldn't get thema distinguished conduct medal.
(33:36):
So there was now a kind ofpecking order.
VC is the ultimate award for theultimate acts of bravery.
For officers, if it's aparticular act of gallantry on
the battlefield, you're going toget the DSO.
If it's unusual, remarkable,then you're going to be a
recipient of the DistinguishedService Order.
If you're a junior officer andyou carry out a brave deed, then
(33:58):
you're probably going to get theMC.
For ordinary soldiers, the samekind of approach, with the
pecking order being the DCM forthese incredible, daring deeds
on the battlefield, and then themilitary medal, the MM, for some
of the junior NCOs, privatesoldiers for other deeds on that
battlefield.
I mean, this is not reallyrating or ranking the bravery of
(34:20):
individual soldiers.
I mean that is something that isimpossible to do, and who can
walk in their shoes.
But there were criteria for allof these awards.
There had to be witnesses, forexample, to recommend a soldier
for a particular award, and theVictoria Cross had the highest
level of this because theyweren't just going to hand out
(34:42):
the VC to anyone for anything.
So there had to be multipleofficers that witnessed an
action, and they were the onesthat then recommended whatever
that soldier was, whether he wasan ordinary soldier or
commissioned officer, they wouldbe the ones that then
recommended them for that award.
And once there wererecommendations for all of the
(35:04):
honours and awards in the GreatWar on paper, but sadly all of
that archive was destroyed inbombing in the Second World War.
So when we get to certain medalslike the Military Medal, and all
of these were published in theLondon Gazette, many of them,
like the VC and the DSO and theMC and the DCM, have the
citations of the awards, butbecause there were so many
(35:26):
military medals awarded in thewar, they didn't publish the
recommendation or citation inthe London Gazette.
So with the loss of thosecrucial records in World War II,
in most cases we're not reallysure why a soldier got an MM,
for example.
You can occasionally findsomething in a local newspaper
or battalion war diary about it,but in most cases we can only
(35:48):
guess at what that award wasfor.
Now, many soldiers, Iinterviewed quite a lot of Great
War veterans who had beendecorated for bravery.
Several who had the MilitaryCross, one who had the DCM,
quite a lot of military medalrecipients.
And one of the common thingsthat they would say when you
first got to meet them and youfirst spoke to them and you saw
(36:11):
or you noticed that they werewearing a medal like that, you
might ask them how did you getthat award?
And the ordinary blokes wouldoften just say, Oh, it just came
up with the rations, mate.
And that phrase it came up withthe rations is something you see
a lot in the accounts of theFirst World War.
Now there were medals that werehanded out for non-battlefield
(36:32):
deeds.
For example, the chief baker ofRouen is said to have been
awarded a distinguished serviceorder, a DSO, for fantastic work
in baking bread for the army.
And stories like that annoyed alot of men at the time because
they felt that these some ofthese awards were being given
(36:53):
out as well done, good boyawards, and after the war,
seeing a man walking down thestreet, you wouldn't know
whether he'd been awarded theDSO for baking bread or the DSO
for storming a German machinegun position.
But when you begin to look intothe stories of how some of these
decorations were awarded, veryfew of them came up with the
(37:15):
rations.
In some cases, the acts ofgallantry are really quite
incredible, and there are someamazing stories of bravery on
the battlefield that you candiscover by researching men who
were awarded one of thesedecorations.
But I'm always mindful of aphrase that I heard a few times
in different variations.
(37:36):
George Butler was one to saythis regular soldier, he'd gone
out in early 1915 and servedpretty much continuously until
he was badly wounded in April1918.
One of the phrases he used tosay when we spoke about men who
were awarded the Victoria Cross,and he saw some examples of this
at different points in hismilitary career which went on to
(37:58):
the Second World War as well.
He always used to say there'stwo type of cross lad, there's
the Victoria Cross and theWooden Cross, and most got the
latter.
And what he meant and the otherveterans used similar phrases,
what they meant by that is thatmost acts of gallantry went
unrewarded, unrecognised.
(38:19):
Men did some incredible things,but not enough, or perhaps no
one but them ever saw them, andthose deeds died with them on
the battlefield.
So when we cast our eyes acrossthe headstones in those vast
soldiers' cemeteries of theGreat War and see that white
splash of stone and the namesengraved on there, and we see
(38:42):
men who were given decorationsfor every one of them.
Perhaps there are countlessothers who should have been
awarded something, but theirbravery, their great deed was
never recognised, and I thinkthis is something that I guess
we always have to consider whenwe discuss this subject.
So I hope, Steve, that's kind ofadded some context to this
(39:04):
subject.
And those symbols that you havein your collection, the military
medals to men recognized forgallantry on the battlefield,
are such important, powerfulobjects that connect us to the
First World War.
I have a few of them to Sussexlads who were in the South Downs
battalions, and it's good thatpeople like us preserve those
(39:27):
objects and treasure thoseobjects for what they stand for
in that wider picture of theGreat War.
So thank you, Steve.
Thanks for that question, thanksfor all of the questions this
week.
Keep them coming in via theusual methods of email and the
Discord server, and there arelinks to those in the show notes
(39:47):
for this episode.
And I'll see you again soon formore questions and answers on
the Old Frontline.
You've been listening to anepisode of the Old Frontline
with me, military historian PaulReed.
You can follow me on Twitter atSomcor, you can follow the
(40:09):
podcast at OldFrontline Pod.
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.
And if you feel like supportingus, you can go to our Patreon
page, patreon.com slasholdfrontline, or support us on
(40:29):
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oldfrontline.
Links to all of these are on ourwebsites.
Thanks for listening, and we'llsee you again soon.
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