Welcome to the Old Front Line with me, military historian Paul Reed.

This is a regular podcast where we'll look at the history of the First World War and travel

together across the battlefields from Ep to the Somme and beyond. So what's in this week's

episode? This week we begin the first of our walks on some forgotten battlefields of the First

World War. And we'll start in northern France at the village of Rishborg.

In fact, we'll begin this walk near to the Indian Corps Memorial at New Chappelle.

That's a visit for another day.

But this memorial sits on a crossroads.

To the east is the village of New Chappelle itself.

To the north, the road continues to Estairs, to the south down towards La Basse, and to the west it runs through Richborg.

Richborg is in many respects two villages, one on the so-called Rue de Bois, Wood Street. That's the street we're going to walk down shortly, and one just to the north

of that, Richborg St Vast, which is the main village of Richborg itself. The road that we're going to

take was used in October 1914 by the men of the British Expeditionary Force, the BEF, the old

contemptibles, to march down to take part in the Battle of Labasse.

They detrained at Bethune, having come up from the Ayn and the Marn, where they'd taken part in the fighting there in September and October of 1914,

and then moved along this road to go up over the Arbor Ridge to confront the advance of the German army in the race to the sea in that autumn of 1914.

In 1915, armoured cars went up and down this road, in fire support for the attacks on the Alba's Ridge and in some of the lesser-known battles of the First World War.

And by 1916, it was all part of the infrastructure

behind the British Front Line in this sector of the Western Front.

Now I have to confess that this is not the most ideal road to walk down.

It's a bit of a rat run from Bethune to the villages in this outlying area

but walk it nevertheless we will and about half a mile down

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