Dan Snow's History Hit - The Battle of the Somme

Episode Date: July 2, 2021

105 years ago the battle of the Somme raged on into its second day. 60,000 British casualties we recorded on its first day and by its close in November 1916 over a million men had been killed or wounded. It is the bloodiest battle in British military history and in Germany, the battle was described as the bloody field grave of the German army. It has become a byword for futile slaughter; but is that reputation deserved?In this archive episode, Paul Reed a military historian, author and battlefield guide joins the podcast. Paul has immense knowledge of both the First and Second World Wars and guides Dan through the opening day of the battle on the 1 July and the following bloody weeks and months of conflict.

This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. This podcast is first broadcast on the 2nd of July 2021.

It's 105 years since the Battle of Somme began in northern France. British and French troops made a gigantic set-piece attack beginning on the 1st of July, 1916. That day would be the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army. 60,000 men killed and wounded. Countless more, no doubt, carried the trauma with them for years to come. My great-grandfather was present at the Battle of Somme. He was actually a general.

He was one of those generals who was responsible for the shambles that was the first day's attack. He sat in a chateau, which I visited, behind the lines, and he wrote to his wife and said, when the wind blows in the right direction, I can hear the guns. And what he was actually listening to was the sound of a catastrophe. In his sector, Gomcourt, there were no gains to speak of. Some incredibly brave infantrymen fought their way into the German frontline trenches through the wire,

where they were then obliterated in a German counter-barrage and German counter-attacks. They fought in small groups till their ammunition ran out, then they fought with their fists, clubs and knives, until they were wiped out. A few survivors crawled back across No Man's Land on the cover of darkness. In the days that followed, my great-grandfather tried to shift the blame off himself. He tried to blame others. Anyone who's been involved in a gigantic catastrophe knows that the first thing you do is try and say it wasn't your fault. In the case of my great-grandfather,

he appeared to blame the men themselves he wrote to a senior officer i regret to inform you the men lacked offensive spirit this is pretty grotesque and it's something that's sort of haunted my family ever since i've met descendants of the men that were killed that day died as they attempted to cross barbed wire that remained uncut by british artillery as they held out in beleaguered positions unreinforced because the plan broke down on first contact with the enemy and that sentence written by my great-grandfather has proved so painful not just for those descendants but for anyone who studies the battle. I've obviously been to the Somme many times I have done podcasts on there for the

100th anniversary right at the beginning of this podcast in 2016. Now, five years down the line, I'd like to repeat one of the best ones from that period. Not many of you heard it because the podcast was tiny wee small back then, but I've got Paul Reid here on the podcast to talk me through the opening day and the days that followed what was going on 105 years ago now at the Battle of the Somme. Paul Reid's a bit of a legend in the history world. He is a great historian. He's a battlefield guide. He is behind many of the most successful BBC history TV productions of recent years. He's a great friend, an ally of mine. He's incredibly generous, incredibly knowledgeable, has a disturbingly good memory. He can tell you almost where any unit was at any point in the whole of the First and Second World War. He's a bit of a national treasure. He now has his own podcast,

thank goodness, The Old Front Line, which I urge you to listen to. And I'm very happy that we're able to give this podcast another outing. The Battle of the Somme would go on from the 1st of July, 1916, deep into November. over a million men would end up killed or wounded it was described from the German side as a bloody field grave of the German army and it's gone down in British history almost as a byword for futile slaughter but does it deserve that reputation I'll be talking about that with Paul Reed in this podcast if you want to listen to podcasts from years and years and years ago, the only place to do that is on historyhit.tv.

We've got all the podcasts back there that have now been taken down off iTunes and other places. They've got no ads on them at all because you subscribe to historyhit.tv for the price of a pint of beer or two. You get membership of historyhit.tv. You get all of these podcasts without the ads. And you also get hundreds of hours of history documentaries. We've got The heathen army in which cap jarman takes me on a rampage across

england looking for archaeology related to great heathen army of the ninth century that's proving very popular at the moment it's great to see everyone watching that so thank you very much so please head over to historyhit.tv to check out the new history channel in the meantime everyone here is paul Paul Reid talking about the Somme. Paul, this is the big one. Feels like we've been building up this centenary for years. I mean, the Somme's the biggest battle in British history, one of the biggest battles in world history.

You've been studying it all your life. You've been walking the ground all your life. I mean, it must be, on one level, quite exciting that the centenaryenary is here it is this is the biggest british battle of the first world war and really probably one of the most iconic the first truly industrial battle when huge amounts of artillery destroy the landscape and with it tens of thousands of lives as well of course which is where the poignancy of the battle of the Somme comes in. Let's start really with the plan. So we've got the war in 1916, the Germans have launched a massive assault on the French at Verdun, trying to bleed the French white. And to what extent is this the British throwing their new army with their new equipment,

their new guns, their new piles of shells into battle, trying to relieve the pressure on the French? Or what are they trying to achieve here? Well, initially it was a breakout battle. It was to try and destroy the German lines on the Western Front. But the Battle of Verdun gets in the way and it ends up becoming a rescue mission, if you like, trying to relieve the pressure on the French at Verdun to save the day for them,

but continue with our offensive on the Somme to try and break the German positions And it was believed was it that this would this is it, after two years of stalemate or just under two years of stalemate this would break the German lines, restore the mobility to the battlefield and it would possibly be a breakthrough victory? Well this really was

the big push there had been battles before but nothing on this scale, nothing with the manpower and more importantly nothing with the manpower and more importantly nothing with the level of artillery that was prepared for this. With Lloyd George sorting out the munitions factories, they had an unparalleled amount of artillery firepower to drop on the Germans and it really did look as if this would be the battle that would end the war.

BAPOM and then Berlin was the much used phrase before the battle that would end the war. Bapome and then Berlin was the much-used phrase before the battle. They really were confident that the planning and the huge amount of firepower and the men, huge volumes of men that were brought into the Somme with all those years of training behind them. And we often forget that. Some of these men enlisted right at the beginning of the war and had been preparing for this day ever since so confidence was high it's difficult for us to really imagine just how high that confidence was from everybody from privates to you know field marshals but this

looked to be it what's the basic plan here you mentioned this artillery how long was the bombardment the plan was what they were going to absolutely annihilate the German lines and there'd be basically nothing left of the Germans. You'd just walk over the rubble. Is that the idea? Essentially, they believed in the power of the artillery to do the job for them, that you could pound the German positions to oblivion with this unparalleled concentration of artillery. to oblivion with this unparalleled concentration of artillery. In the end, it was a seven-day bombardment, one and three-quarter million shells along an 18-mile front. And I think, you know, if you were an ordinary Tommy a century ago and a general said to you, we're going to lob one and three-quarter million shells at Fritz,

you're going to think nothing's going to survive that. The sort of phrases that they used was, nothing will survive, not even a rat. And all you're going to have to do is walk across no man's land and we'll occupy the German positions beyond. Bapone by nightfall, Berlin by Christmas. And what sort of shells are they using there, Paul? Because I know shells come in different shapes and sizes. Well, the bulk of the artillery that we use for the preliminary bombardment of the Somme so the bulk of the shells that were dropped on these German positions was the standard field artillery the divisional artillery so these

were 18 pounders and these things could smash up German trenches they could be used effectively with shrapnel the little lead balls to cut the wire if used correctly but they would not take out german dugouts and that's where things started to go wrong is that you know the somme is chalk downland uh very very easy to dig into solid chalk and the germans had been here since september 1914 and they dug deep and some of their dugouts were 50 even as much as 80 feet beneath the surface and those shells were never going to reach that sort of distance what was the experience for the germans in that seven day bombardment i mean were they just hiding in those deep shelters or had they withdrawn troops to the second line or what

was going on the german side well the bulk the germans never kept this is one of the things that we learned from the song was that the germans never kept the bulk of their troops in the forward positions they kept them in the second and third lines where they had these deep dugouts and they simply sheltered in them and what they called trommel fire drum fire for the course of those seven days deep underground many of the dugouts with electric light with generators cooking facilities bunk beds furniture and so on so they were safe down there um and although their trenches might have been knocked about by the shell fire the men that garrisoned those trenches survived there were very very few casualties caused by the plumey bombardment. And what that meant, of course, is that if you've got survivors,

you've got men that command weapons and men that can then mow down your advancing troops in no man's land. So before we come to that, though, did the bombardment have any positive effect? I mean, it must have smashed up the German trench system a bit. What did they do to the barbed wire that was laced across no man's land? Well, they were using shrapnel to cut the wire which is where you explode a shrapnel shell with hundreds of lead balls in the air like a big shotgun cartridge and it rains down the balls and it chops the wire up and if you fire enough of these simultaneously enough balls come down

to take out the wire but without getting too technical some of the fuses they were using were not very good and when you read the accounts of survivors of the first of july they get to the uncut german wire and they talk about uh you know an ammunition dump where all these unexploded shrapnel shells are just sitting there in the mud and it failed to explode so wire cutting was variable to say the least in most cases um there was a lot of very poor wire cutting, which meant the men had to try and cut the way through themselves, which under the battlefield conditions was pretty impossible, really. And the high explosive shells they used from these guns

would smash up the trenches, but not destroy the dugouts or the entrances to the dugouts. Although there were some heavy guns from the Royal Garrison Artillery, there was not sufficient heavy artillery. And we see this clearly on the southern sector of the Somme, around Mametz and Montabau, which is where the British and French armies joined on the Somme front. And there the French had surplus heavy artillery and fired the bombardment in assistance with us. And a very high percentage of the German casualties on the 1st of July were suffered in that area from this these heavy guns the thing is with the bombardment

you can destroy the trenches and you can cut the wire but unless you've killed the men that garrison those trenches there's only going to be one result you know whether your men walk or run into battle they're going to be advancing into withering fire from German defenders. And that's, of course, exactly what happened come the day of the battle. Well, Paul, I want to talk to you again over the summer and the autumn, because the Battle of the Somme goes on until, well, November, really. But at the moment, let's talk about that first day, because that's the one that lives in infamy. And it's really, well, it's the bloodiest single day in British history history approximately how many people went over the top or at zero hour on the first day of the psalm well over a hundred thousand men went over the top i think we'll ever know the full total of

men that went into battle that day because not every single battalion recorded the battle strength when they went into action but there there were 57,000 casualties in a single day, killed, wounded and missing, of which 20,000 of the men killed in action or died of wounds. And it's easy to say those numbers, but then you start to think about them. I mean, there were more casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme than in the Crimean and Boer Wars combined. Battle of the Somme than in the Crimean and Boer Wars combined. And when you start to pick apart those casualties, you discover that a very high percentage of them were suffered in the first 30 minutes of the battle, as these guys were exiting their trenches, trying to walk out into no man's land, and walking straight into this withering machine gun fire, and then eventually shell fire as well.

You are one of the most accomplished historians that I've ever worked with. Apart from anything else, you've got the most forensic memory of anyone I've ever met. Why don't you show off to the audience here and just tell us about certain battalions and some of the losses that they would have sustained just in the first few moments of the battle, because I'm sure you've got the numbers at your fingertips. Well, I mean, you start with Serre, one of the most iconic areas of the battle because i'm sure you got the numbers at your fingertips well i mean you start with say one of the most iconic uh areas of the battlefield where the powers northern powers battalions went into action and you've got units like the african accrington powers and the barnsley powers and the bradford powers and the leeds powers that suffer between 80 and 90 casualties and in most cases those lads never walked more than 10

or 15 yards from their front line trench before they got cut to pieces by a withering german machine gun fire um so you know i mean the epitaph of those guys is two years in the making 10 minutes in the destruction and that just about sums up not just them but many of the battalions that day two of the worst hit is the newfoundland regiment that go over the top uh Beaumont Hamel um 800 Newfoundlanders go into action 710 become casualties and most of those in between 20 or 30 minutes so that's a terrible loss and the 10th West Yorks down at Free Corps as well um they suffer over 700 casualties of about 800 or so that went into battle. So there was battalion after battalion after battalion that lost over 500 men

out of between 600 and 800 men that had gone into action. So these are catastrophic, catastrophic losses for these units. And within them, so many sad stories of individuals. Now, I know that everyone focuses on the Palace Battalions. I don't want to focus on them too much because there's stories of losses right across know that everyone focuses on the powers battalions i don't want to focus on them too much because there's there's a there's stories of losses right across the british army and beyond but just briefly explain what what were the powers battalions and why that is why do they get so much attention at the som in particular well i mean the british army on the

som wasn't just comprised of powers battalions but the powers are uh the sort of units that people think of every time of the first world war you know these are the eager volunteers from 1914 had responded to kitchener's call and that poster of kitchener pointing at you getting you to enlist for king and country and in the north because of the close-knit communities particularly of the industrialized cities like sheffield and barnsley and bradford and leeds and so, the idea was to bring these men in from their communities, guarantee that they would serve together and not be split up. This is something that people were worried about.

They wanted to serve with people that they knew. And that was great. That was great because you had fantastic morale, you had fantastic esprit de corps. So when it came to training, it was great. And when it came to going overseas, the men were all working together. They just never thought about the ultimate outcome of that. If you commit a unit recruited in a particular location

to a battle where there are heavy losses, it's going to throw that community into mourning, which is exactly what you see with the first day of the Battle of the Somme, which is why that connection between the powers and the Somme will always be there. But, you know, obviously, you know, we need to see it in its wider context because there were territorial soldiers from the 56th London Division, for example, fighting at Gormacore on the first day of the Somme.

In many respects, the territorials recruited locally were the first day of the Somme. In many respects, the Territorials recruited locally were the first powers before the war even. But you've got a handful of regulars fighting at Mash Valley, ovalers and men who'd survived Gallipoli with the 29th Division at Beaumont Hamel. So it's quite a dynamic and broad army that fights on the Somme, not just powers,

but those are the ones that capture the public imagination because of the background to them. You're listening to Dan Snow's History. We're talking about the Somme with Paul Reid. More after this. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. Talk to me about the plan.

Once the guns stop, what is the plan for the British infantry at the Somme? Zero hour is 7.30 in the morning. Now, 7.30 in the morning in July, it's been sun up for well over two hours by then, so it's perfect daylight. It's absolutely perfect conditions. And it was a period of rain, pretty much as it is at the moment here on the Somme,

leading up to the battle with heavy rain, muddy fields, muddy roads approaching the battlefield. But then it changed, and the 1st of July was this perfect summer's day. So some called it a sunlit picture of hell. The reason why we attacked in broad daylight goes back to the origins of the Somme, in that it was a Franco-British offensive that we were fighting with the French,

and the French were not trained to attack in the darkness, so in many respects they dictated the time of zero hour but of course it didn't matter did it if it was broad daylight because nobody survived the bombardment and when these lads exited their trenches in many cases they put white tape out in front of our wire to show the men where to stand to await the orders of officers to move forward and once the men were assembled the whistles were blown and the momentum of the attack begins and these guys just walked straight into on most sectors what can only be described as machine gun oblivion was that plan fundamentally for were the generals stupid and ignorant no it it was flawed but they weren't stupid and ignorant because nobody really would have predicted a different outcome because we were not aware of the depth

of german constructions on the somme the french had not really captured anything of any significance that gave us insights into this the level of intelligence gathering before the song was good but you know we didn't have infrared equipment to see deep into the ground so we had no idea we knew that they had dugouts but we didn't know that they were that deep we believe the germans like us kept a lot of men in the front line which they didn't so there were all there were lots of factors that broke this plan down and doomed it to failure. But the biggest one was the belief that artillery could just be the weapon that would destroy the Germans and that you would just send men over to occupy ground that had already been captured by the bombardment. That

was not a good plan and it was shown to have been a grave error to approach the battle from that perspective. But generals of the First World War are often lambasted. It's easy to criticize men who lived in chateaus and in apparent luxury compared to men in the front line. But a general's job is not to be in the front line trench. His job is to simulate information, make a plan based on that intelligence. And you can only do that in an area where you can have your staff, you can have your maps, you can have your air photos. But it was only partway through the war. While there were some men that were good at it, there were others that were not

as good at it. And of course, that can have an effect on the plan as well. Perhaps I'll do a different podcast, Paul. You and I have worked on a project about my great-grandfather, who was a general at the Battle of the Somme. It's something I've had to live with all my life, so it's something we can perhaps explore in another podcast another time. You look at General Snow, he was a good defensive general in 1914, and then again at Combré, but he lacked the ability to go on the offensive, and he wasn't alone in that. There were many generals that you could probably categorise like that.

But as the war moved on, new generals came in, commanders were appointed, and people learnt. Now, that is, you know, we can look at that now from the point of view of a century and understand that the British Army learnt from these terrible days on the Somme. But what's hard to reconcile is the cost of that learning, and the cost is human lives. Yeah, indeed. The Somme wasn't uniformly appalling there were parts of the front there were parts of the sectors of the front line where they didn't get beyond 10 meters of their own trench there were other parts where they actually did break into

German defenses can you try and talk me through perhaps from south to north from from the south where the French were cooperating with the Brits up to the north? Well in the southern sector between Memetz and Montabar that's where there was some success where the bombard were cooperating with the Brits up to the north? Well, in the southern sector between Mometz and Montserrat, that's where there was some success, where the bombardment had done more of its job there and the heavy artillery had smashed in German dugout positions and the troops there were able to advance, not without casualties, I mean, they suffered losses there,

but they were able to achieve their objectives. And then the further you go north, the worse it gets. And although although there are some areas the ulster division at thiepval for example i mean they actually attacked before zero hour so their guys were almost on the german wire when the barrage lifted nevertheless although they got into the german lines and got to their immediate objective to schwabenredau within the first hour of the battle the germans reacted very quickly because we hadn't silenced their troops defending it, we hadn't silenced their artillery, and they were able to drop a box barrage down on no man's land, seal it off, prevent us from sending over ammunition supplies, more men, and then hit our guys in the Schwaben- Redoubt with counterattacks and gradually destroy us over the course of the day. So even where there were some areas of success because of the German quick reaction to it

and also the rigidity of the British plan. So you had situations where men went into battle and machine gun positions had been missed. Now, ideally, you'd have an artillery liaison officer with you to call back the fire, to take out that machine gun post or strong point or whatever it is but they didn't exist on the first day of the Somme no one could call back that artillery fire without the express permission of a senior officer you're kidding I didn't know that so there was a rigid fire plan for the entire day that was that was completely inflexible it was it was too inflexible. There were occasions in which they managed to get past that.

There was an occasion at Serre, for example, where a forward observer saw the Germans having annihilated the powers battalions. He saw them mustering for an apparent attack and was able to convince the gunners to drop down fire and take that out. But that was very rare. That was very rare. If you then contrast that as the battle moves on that changes so that artillery men get embedded with infantry units as they go into battle to react to situations on the ground and that's really still a fundamental tenet of warfare right up to the present day absolutely yeah fire control officers of whatever part of the services it is

are important infantry is only as good as the artillery that can protect it and that was true 100 years ago and that's true now with mortars and rocket fire and artillery fire and everything else and airstrikes of course now so i think that's one of the real tragedies the song that people don't understand as much is that even when the infantry did manage to break into the German frontline trenches, they would then become isolated from the British support behind them because no man's land is actually this terrible obstacle. It is. And the soldiers can carry a lot of gear, but only a certain amount of material. And the first thing that normally runs out is small arms ammunition, the ammunition for their rifles.

Although the average soldier was carrying probably 150 150 maybe in some cases 250 rounds of ammunition which was a heavy weight in its own right but that soon disappears if you're in a serious firefight with the enemy which some of them did get into but the tragedy on most areas there were many many men that went over the top that day that never once fired their weapon because uh when they went over the weapons were not cocked because the last thing you want to do is accidentally pull the trigger and shoot your mate in the back as he's in front of you they had bayonets fixed but uh they were not cocked weapons as they moved forward and the only time that they would have had an opportunity to actually use them against the

enemy is if they got isolated from the main attack and were then able to fight or as in the case of the Ulster division they got into the German trenches and were fighting them in their own lines but that was rare on the 1st of July. So by nightfall on the 1st of July what shreds of success existed up and down the battlefront? The only serious area of success was to the south between Mometz and Montauk where the majority of the German positions had been taken. Danzig alley trench between Mometz and Montauk had been taken. There was, I mean this characterizes the problems of command and control on the battlefield. There had been an opportunity that day to advance even further beyond Montauk, beyond the objectives, but the reserves were too far back

and no one was willing to commit themselves to a bold plan. And then the ground beyond that would take days, if not weeks, to eventually be taken in the battles that followed. So some success there. Elsewhere, pretty much failure. I mean, there was a few small instances where the sunken lane at beaumont hamill had been annexed troops in no man's land at beaumont hamill connected up shell holes to make a new trench and push the line forward 75 yards or something but you know at the cost in that area of over 5 000 casualties casualties so was that as a success and down at La Boiselle with the Loch Naga mine crater that was a small pocket that had been taken by

the British the survivors from an entire division were dug in around that there been over 6,000 casualties in that area more than 10% of the casualties on the 1st of July were suffered there so while there had been little footholds here and there that were eventually exploited the terrible losses in achieving even those tiny bits of success were just so high. Paul you've been a military historian and battlefield guide for for decades now you've met a lot of men who fought on the Somme what are some of their what are some of the impressions you got from those men who sadly now have all passed away? Well I was very lucky in the 1980s to interview over 300 Great War veterans, in particular men who fought on the Somme.

There's a few things that they always remember. I interviewed a lot of men that fought at Serre with the Powers Battalions, and they all remembered the bombardment there finishing just prior to zero hour, and that there was this momentary pause in the din of battle between the end of the bombardment and then the beginning of the attack and in that pause it wasn't exactly silent but it was not as noisy as it'd been before and above them they all remembered hearing the skylarks chirping away above the battlefield as if life was normal and that they took that memory to their dying day really uh it defined their connection to the battle of the song and it was something that

would take them back to that day very very easily if they heard it while they were later in life wandering around britain wherever they were but most men saw men that they'd grown up with that they trained with walk into battle and never come back. And that had a profound effect on them as well. But the interesting thing is that very few of these men ever had regrets. They said they never would have missed it for anything. Many of them referred to it as the highlight of their lives, that it was a defining moment in their life. And they were pleased to be part of something that was bigger than them.

And when we look back at the Great War from 100 years, it's often difficult to understand the pride that these men had in their service. Just the way that modern servicemen have pride and service in Afghanistan or Iraq. Soldiers in the Great War were exactly the same. And it's something that we should remember more often, perhaps. That's something very hard to explain to a more general audience. I've never had more abuse about an article I've written than when I said many soldiers enjoyed the First World War. That was record levels of abuse on Twitter and Facebook for that one.

But as you say, you know, that's something very important to understand. Listen, Paul, you are so prolific on Facebook, on Twitter. Listen, Paul, you are so prolific on Facebook, on Twitter. You're SOMCourt on Twitter. That's S-O-M-M-E-C-O-U-R-T. You're one of the biggest military history tweeters in the world. And I urge everyone to follow you on that one. How can people keep abreast of the amazing things you're up to at the moment?

Well, I've got my World War I revisited YouTube channel where I'm some uh video blogs on there to do with the back of the song i've got some of my drone footage on there of the battlefields as they are today at sarah and high wood and so on and i'm going to be tweeting a lot of photographs to do with the song in the lead up to the first of july and around the first july period and onwards through all 141 days of the Somme campaign because the Somme wasn't just defined by a single day, it often is, but it wasn't the battle continued and there were many, many important instances

within that period, the first use of tanks, the dawn attack on the 14th of July and all these need to be remembered as well as the catastrophic first day Cheers Paulul thank you thanks folks for listening to this episode of denison's history as i say all the time i love doing these podcasts they are the best thing i do professionally i feel very lucky to have you listening to them if you fancied giving them a rating review obviously the best thing i do professionally i feel very lucky to have you listening to them if you fancied giving them a rating review obviously the best rating review possible would

be ideal it makes a big difference to us i know it's a pain but we'd really really be grateful and if you want to listen to the other podcasts in our ever-increasing stable don't forget we've got suzanne lipscomb with not just the tudors that's flying high in the charts we've got our medieval podcast gone medieval the brilliant matt lewis in the charts. We've got our medieval podcast, Gone Medieval, the brilliant Matt Lewis and Kat Jarman. We've got the ancients with our very own Tristan Hughes, and we've got warfare as well, dealing with all things military. Please go and check those out, wherever you get your pods. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.

You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts.