History often repeats itself.

On the battlefields of the old front line, the criss-cross paths of two massive conflicts

of the 20th century met, from Flanders to the Somme and beyond.

Something a bit different for this podcast, we're going to look at how the criss-cross paths of two great wars come together, how the First World War meets with the Second

World War in terms of the battlefields of the old Western Front.

It's a subject that I've been interested in for a long time. I've been collecting images relating

to this from local French and Belgian sources, but often largely from German sources for quite a few

years.

And it's exposed just how much the battlefields of the First World War were affected by events in World War II.

And most recently this is kind of re-emerged through a chat I had with Terry Wenham on his excellent podcast.

And I'll put a link to that episode on the old front line podcast website so you can listen to Terry's podcast as well and if you don't subscribe

to Terry's podcast then I would recommend that you do because it's an excellent First World War

podcast of his journeys along the battlefields of the Great War.

We also had a podcast supporters evening just this week looking at this very subject.

It was kind of a preview, a precursor to what this podcast will be about.

And a group of you who support the podcast via buy me a coffee and patreon came along

and we had a look at some images connected with what we're about to talk about in this podcast

and that's a good way of using how people support the podcast to give something back and also

enhance what we do here with the podcast itself

and hopefully we'll do more of that going forward if we look at europe and indeed of course

the battlefields which were on mainland europe in the approach to the second world war in 1939

in that late 30s period it was a period of a resurgence of interest

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