World War 1 Trench Warfare Explained

You know the Second World War almost battle by battle. But the war that came before it stays a blur of mud, barbed wire and pointless charges, and nobody has ever told it to you as a story you could actually follow.

This is the Western Front made comprehensible, from the map tables where generals moved armies like counters to the fire-step where a private waited out the shelling with his boots full of water. You will understand why the fighting locked into stalemate after the opening weeks, what an ordinary day in the line involved, and how the great set pieces at Verdun and on the Somme unfolded and what they cost. French, British, German and later American soldiers speak throughout, so the trenches stop being a landscape and become men with names.

By the end, the First World War will make sense to you as a single connected story, right through to the final Hundred Days that broke the deadlock. Press play and start at the beginning.