4/8: Verdun Donbass Front: 1/8: The Beginnings of the Hundred Years War: 4/8: Nick Lloyd, The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 23 January 2023
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
@Batchelorshow
4/8: Verdun Donbass Front: 1/8: The Beginnings of the Hundred Years War: 4/8: Nick Lloyd, The Western Front: A History of the Great War, 1914-1918
https://www.amazon.com/Western-Front-History-Great-1914-1918/dp/B09NS2DT8X
A panoramic history of the savage combat on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 that came to define modern warfare.
The Western Front evokes images of mud-spattered men in waterlogged trenches, shielded from artillery blasts and machine-gun fire by a few feet of dirt. This iconic setting was the most critical arena of the Great War, a 400-mile combat zone stretching from Belgium to Switzerland where more than three million Allied and German soldiers struggled during four years of almost continuous combat. It has persisted in our collective memory as a tragic waste of human life and a symbol of the horrors of industrialized warfare.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | In New York you can gaze up at the towering skyscrapers or... |
| 0:05.0 | You can sunbathe on top of one. |
| 0:08.0 | In LA you can catch a neon lit rollercoaster ride on Santa Monica Pier. |
| 0:14.0 | Before catching a California catfish off Santa Monica Pier. |
| 0:19.0 | Oop! |
| 0:20.0 | Virgin Atlantic fly to the world's most iconic destinations |
| 0:24.0 | but how you see them is up to you. |
| 0:26.0 | Book now with Virgin Atlantic. See the world differently. |
| 0:35.0 | As the CBSI in the world I'm John Batcher with Nick Law. |
| 0:38.0 | His new book is The Western Front, the first of three volumes of the history of the Great War 1914 to 1918. |
| 0:46.0 | The British themselves are a mystery because they put a toe in at the beginning of the conflict |
| 0:55.0 | and then what follows is a series of decisions that are both political and military about how to fight and what the aims are. |
| 1:04.0 | It's striking how it's similar to the putting a toe in in 1939 as well. |
| 1:10.0 | Nick we need to start with Ask With because he was the prime minister at the time. |
| 1:16.0 | An Ask With minister of war was Kitchener and Kitchener's commander of what will become the British expedition. |
| 1:24.0 | The British expeditionary force that goes to help the French after their attack is John French. |
| 1:31.0 | Those three men don't strike me as comfortable in the room together. Is that correct Nick? |
| 1:37.0 | That is correct. |
| 1:39.0 | They are quite... individuals with very different temperaments and they are thrown together. |
| 1:44.0 | Ask With is when the war breaks out, nobody understands or has any idea how terrible it's going to be. |
| 1:52.0 | Ask With is at the time of the war breaks out, he's obsessed with female confidant Venetia Stanley. |
| 2:00.0 | He's very interested in writing letters to Venetia in the war cabinet. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from John Batchelor, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of John Batchelor and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.