While the story of those northern POWs battalions raised in 1914 will be forever associated with the Battle of the Somme, their war continued beyond Piccadie, and in May 1917, what was left of the POWs found themselves in front of a dark wood, opi wood, near Arras.

We've returned to the battlefields around the northern French city of Arras this week.

Aras is perhaps one of the less visited battlefields of the Great War,

but it was an important part of the British sector of the less visited battlefields of the Great War, but it was an important part of the British

sector of the Western Front. We took over the area around Arras from the French in 1916, and for

the next two years, the final two years of the war, just about every regiment of the British Army

passed through here, and many of the men who served on the front during that period served at Arras.

So for them, it was as important as the Som or Eap.

It was a battlefield that in 1916, when we first took over the area, was a quiet part of the front.

But in 1917, with the Battle of Arras, one of the front, but in 1917 with the battle of

Arras, one of the deadliest battles that the British Army fought on the Western Front

took place here in April and May of 1917, and we're going to look at one aspect of that

during this week's walk. But as with all these battlefields that we visit, we can't see it in

isolation because the

fighting returned to Aras in 1918 with the German offensive in March of 1918 when they broke

through in the area that were about to walk but were stopped on the outskirts of Arras and then in

the summer with the final offensive the Germans were pushed back. The Hindenberg line was broken leading to the final offensive, the Germans were pushed back.

The Hindenberg line was broken, leading to the final phase of the war, leading up to the end of the conflicts with Mons on the 11th November 1918.

But all of that was way into the future in terms of the ground that we're starting on today.

We're walking up a little grass path alongside a railway embankment

to our right. The trains run from Arras up through to Lons and beyond that to Lill. This is one of

the main routes across this part of northern France. And again, we've often spoken about trains in

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