Dan Hill

speaker

2,064 appearances 11 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 7 Sep

Dan Hill’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 11 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 5.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

WW1: Not So Quiet On The Western Front! · Episode 135: The Somme’s Northern Disaster · 6 Jul 2026 podcast

I was thinking exactly the same thing as you said that.

It does feel like a very long time since we've both been on the same podcast together in the kind of old-fashioned way that we're doing it.

But I'm looking forward to this and a whole series of episodes that we're going to cover in depth on the Battle of the Somme.

I have to admit, we're probably long overdue for this.

110th anniversary is a great opportunity.

to kind of redress that balance to a certain extent.

I know it's a subject that you're passionate about.

It's one that I study quite a lot as well.

So I'm looking forward to kind of breaking the story down.

And I think for this series, which let's take a guess now whilst we start it, maybe four, maybe five, maybe eight episodes.

I'm going to go for around six.

is probably one of those that hopefully we can once we get our teeth into you know may well expand out in directions we hadn't originally foreseen but it's certainly one that's important and has earned its place in any military history podcast particularly one related to the first world war but i suppose the question is where do we start and i guess we have to go back really to late 1915 in order to understand exactly how the song comes about and why it finds its place in this story

Yeah, and it's actually a relatively logical choice if you think about it.

And I think the main thing that dictates that is the fact that it's the join between the French armies, the very impressive French armies in late 1915, alongside the British army who's expanding at a very quick rate and also taking on more territory really throughout 1915 into early 1916.

They're expanding the line and we're starting to see

a really sizable British army in the field for the first time here.

And in order to kind of concentrate that effort in one location, it makes sense that you do the point where those two forces join.

So the French can put real pressure to bear in the area around the Somme River and the British slightly north of the Somme and heading up towards Arras can exert their pressure

closer to their own supply lines and in areas of ground which is slightly more favourable in that area and hopefully as you say a crack will appear.

Now all of this is logical and by 1915 the idea of the kind of general offensive that's come about and the big push of 1916 most people are on board in fact it's very clear that the Germans have taken a defensive posture except and this is a big but they don't read the script and something changes in a big way in early 1916.

Showing 1761–1780 of 2,064 · page 89 of 104