Is the landscape of the Western Fronts, our last witness of the Great War?

Can what lies beneath those battlefields tell us more about how those battles were fought?

And what is the geology of mud, of chalk, of rock?

These are all things that we uncover this week

and our latest trench chat on the old front line.

Welcome to another trench chat on the old front line.

I'm really pleased this week to be joined by Professor Peter Doyle,

author of some incredible books on the First World

War and one in particular that I like, which is Disputed Earth about the geology of the First

World War. So as landscape and the meaning of landscape and the importance of landscape is

so important to really what this podcast is about

with visits along the Western Front and other battlefield speeder. I thought we'd have a little

bit of a chat about that this week. When we look at the meaning of landscape, often in the

discussion of it, geology is the missing elements. Why do you think that is and why is it so important?

Well, I think you're absolutely right, Paul. And I think what's really interesting is that if you look back over

the writing about the Western Front and you go back to perhaps some of the classics like the

old front line by Macefield, they all talk about the significance, the importance, the meaning of the battlefields, what they meant to the soldiers and what they mean to people who visit them today.

But I think one of the missing aspects to that is how did that landscape form and how did the landscape have an effect on the everyday lives of the soldiers. I think both you and I are

absolutely fascinated in trying to understand and striving to understand what it was like

for the soldiers of the Western Front. And I think this is what your podcasts are all about.

And I think that's certainly something that I've been striving to do for all

of the time that I've been interested in is try and understand what exactly it felt like,

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