The casualties suffered during the First World War dwarf those of previous conflicts.

Some 8.5 million soldiers died as a result of wounds and disease.

How does a society come to terms with such loss?

How did parents, brothers, sisters, children, friends deal with the loss of their nearest and dearest.

Well, it should come as no surprise that spiritualism and the belief in ghosts increased in the post-war years

as families and soldiers sought to connect with the dead.

I'm your host James Rogers, this is the warfare podcast, and to take us through this fascinating

haunting history of ghosts and World War I

I've invited Andrew Smith onto the podcast.

Now Andrew is a professor at the University of Sheffield in the UK

and the author of a new book on the Ghosts of World War I, published by Edinburgh University Press.

As such, he is the perfect person to illuminate this strange world of friendly spirits and malevolent

spectres that appeared in the trenches, in literature, and in the minds

of those desperately trying to cope with the tragic losses of war. Hi Andrew, welcome to the warfare podcast. How you doing today? I'm doing very well. Many thanks for inviting me.

Hey, look, we're really happy to have you here.

Thanks for coming on.

I was having a chat with our general manager at History Hit, James Carson, so a shout out to James there. He mentioned that he was reading a new book on the ghosts of World War I.

And so we got into a chat about this over a coffee and it sounded fascinating and so we had to get you on the

podcast but I think it's important before we start to kind of clarify what we mean by the

ghosts of World War I.

Are we talking about spooky happenings and visits from beyond the grave?

Perhaps not.

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