Dan Hill

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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.

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

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

Yeah, there's absolutely a mismatch here.

There's the expectation and the hope of what the artillery can achieve.

There's the reality of what it can actually do.

And, of course, you also have the evolving enemy at the same time.

So not only are we finding, or will be found out, I should say, on the morning of the 1st of July, that artillery and the type of fuse used at the time

is not particularly good at cutting, for example, barbed wire and making breaches in barbed wire to allow infantry to attack through.

But even the heavier shells are not really doing the sustained damage underground into those heavy German bunkers, which are really well reinforced, that that's anticipated to do.

And the diluting effect just multiplies that problem as far as British high command are concerned, albeit this is very difficult to understand at the moment.

And it's only really truly going to be understood about...

8 o'clock in the morning on the 1st of July, 1960, when it's really realised in many parts of the front that things are going to go terribly, terribly wrong on that day.

Now, that's not to say that everything goes wrong, and as we cover this North-South divide, hopefully that will become clear.

In fact, even in the North, there are efforts made to try and mitigate some of the worst problems, some of the biggest trouble spots.

And a lot of that comes down to mining.

British Army, when it surveys the Somme front before the attack, realises quite quickly that certain areas are even so well reinforced, they're likely to sustain and survive even the heaviest of attacks.

pre-battle bombardment and so massive mines are dug, something like 12 in that sector are dug under key German strong points to be blown up shortly before the attack, neutralise them and then allow the advancing troops to move forward with much less fire to contend with.

Again, all bright ideas, tunnelling out, moving forward, sapping forward, closing down the distance of no man's land, all of these things are relatively good ideas.

But the fundamental mismatch, as far as I see it at least, Spence, is one of overestimating what the artillery can achieve and underestimating the strength of German defences.

Well, I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

Do we need an actual attack here or do we need a feint attack?

And I think given the scale of what's to come, the complexity of everything that's already going on, possibly an argument that Third Army want to get in on the action and don't want to sit by and just be observers to this.

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