Welcome to some more questions and answers here on the old front line.

These are questions submitted by you, the podcast, listeners,

and each month we select some of the best questions that have been submitted via email and the Discord server to answer here and hopefully give us all fresh perspectives and new

knowledge of this vast subject of the Great War. So let's begin. I'm pleased to say that the

questions for these episodes continue to come in thick and fast and they

continue to be excellent. I mean, I'm amazed really at some of the subjects that are being brought up

by these questions. And the continuing feedback that I get indicates that these episodes

where we tackle different parts of the Great War, different layers of the First World War

sometimes, are continuing to be very popular with you, the listener, and long may they continue

and keep sending those questions in. So let's get down to this week's questions, and they've all come in

via email or via the

Discord server and our first one comes from Anne. Anne asks having just watched your

YouTube video about the Eap ramparts, a thought struck me. In view of the heavy shelling the

city suffered throughout the Great War have the waters at the ramparts

ever been searched and cleared, or could there still be ordnance under the water that could

explode in the future? Secondly, were German shells subject to the same failure rate as

those of the British, which I understand to have been about 30% was that a true reflection of the number of duds?

Well, an interesting question there, Anne, about ordinance, the nature of ordinance,

and also the legacy of that ordinance.

It is one of the biggest legacies of the First World War

that this iron harvest of shells comes out of the ground

on a regular basis. And if it comes out of fields, logically, it is still within waterways,

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