The fields and lanes around the sleepy village of Bullochore in northern France

became Australia's cauldron in the battles of Arras here in April and May of 1917.

We follow not just the Anzaccia but men from the west riding of Yorkshire

and examine the story of the bravest man in the AIF.

We're on the battlefields southeast of Arras this week, near to the village of Bullochore,

and we're back in ground connected to that film 1917.

But this week's podcast is not about that film, and we will touch on the history of the Hindenberg line.

But much of this week's content is about the men of the Australian Imperial Force, the AIF, or often called the ANZACs.

The ANZACs have occupied a big chunk of my interest in the Great War over many,

many years. One summer, almost 30 years ago, I sat in the garden and read most of C.E.W. Bean's

official histories of the Australians on the Western Front. Now, I guess there are not many

official histories which you could say you've read from cover to cover, but Beans' engaging

narrative and the way that he personalises the stories with the names and details of individual men

is what really brings that whole history of the Australian divisions and the units that fought

in the AIF to life. And I found myself on my travels across the Western Front, dipping and

diving into locations well off the beaten track in those days from from Elle to Bullockaw, which

we'll look at this week. But on the high ground of the Hindenburg line in the final battles of the war,

around the tracks of Mouquet Farm,

and up in Flanders, around Polygon Wood and along the Massines Ridge.

And then in those early years of when I lived on the Somme at Corsolet,

the mayor of my village was Michel Gons, whose grandfather had once owned Mouquet farm.

In fact, the family still did own it.

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