Podcasts by World War One
The events of the first truly global war and its devastating and far reaching impact.
Further podcasts by BBC Radio
Podcast on the topic Geschichte
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USA: Isolationism from 2015-06-27T17:30
How did WW1 change America's place in the world? Jonathan Dimbleby presents a public debate from the US Library of Congress in Washington
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Germany: The Waging of War from 2015-06-26T19:45
How did technological and industrial development revolutionise World War One? The tank, gas, flame throwers, Zeppelins were like nothing that had been experienced before.
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Sarajevo: Nationalism from 2015-06-26T13:14
A century ago a shot rang out in Sarajevo which set the world on a path to war. How did the peace made after WW1 influence the ethnic conflicts in the region during the 1990s?
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Jordan: Redrawing the Middle East from 2015-06-22T14:49
How did World War One change the face of the Middle East? And, how did this seismic and controversial period shape the century to follow?
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Britain: The Psychology of War from 2015-04-30T17:34
What drove men to volunteer to fight during World War One? What drove them to the edge of sanity when they got there?
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Australia: The Legend of Anzac from 2015-04-18T18:30
Australia's experience of WW1 is like no other country's. What role has the 'legend of Anzac' played in the hundred-year history of Australia?
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Tanzania: Race and Colonial War from 2015-04-11T17:30
Audrey Brown chairs a discussion on the effects of World War One in Africa. She hears the stories from African fighters, on both the German and British sides. And she speaks to Tanzanians who te...
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France: Heroism from 2014-12-06T19:05
Life in the trenches during World War One, amongst rats, mud, shelling, barbed wire and unprecedented numbers of dead, called upon new reserves of both endurance and courage. But what did the wa...
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WW1 At Home 20 - The Baghdadi Jews&a Terrier on Zeppelin watch from 2014-11-13T17:53
How Manchester’s Baghdadi Jews fought to be recognised as friends of Britain and Jim the dog who helped keep the Kent coast safe.
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India: Imperialism from 2014-11-08T19:05
Hugely influential in the outcome of the war, its aftermath had a huge effect on India and its role in the British Empire.
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WW1 At Home 19 - Tank Trials&Making Jam for the Frontline from 2014-10-23T13:20
The technical innovation that led to the birth of the tank, tales from the grandsons of the Guernsey soldier who travelled all over the world and the factory in Grimsby that supplied the frontl...
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Soldiers of the Empire 2/2 – The Fight in Fairyland from 2014-10-22T10:00
Santanu Das tells the story of the Indian Army on the Western Front, from disembarkation in Marseilles where the troops were greeted by excited crowds, to the grim reality of the trenches.
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Soldiers of the Empire – Recruitment&Resistance from 2014-10-20T12:31
One and a half million Indian men were recruited from the villages and towns of British India to serve the Empire in the First World War. Santanu Das tells the story of how they were recruited t...
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St Petersburg: Revolution from 2014-10-18T17:05
The Romanovs ruled Russia for centuries until World War One brought revolution and an abrupt end to their imperial reign. Allan Little explores the legacy of revolution and the hidden impact of ...
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WW1 At Home 18 - R&R for American Volunteers&a Bristol Love Song from 2014-10-16T15:25
A place in the heart of London where the American soldiers got a little taste of home; a project mapping the lives of nearly 2000 men in Tynemouth, Tyne and Wear, who died in WW1 & a song to...
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Keep the Home Fires Burning from 2014-10-11T17:30
Don Black tells the fascinating story of Ivor Novello and the song that made his name. Keep The Home Fires Burning marks the centenary of a song that became popular both in the WW1 trenches and ...
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WW1 At Home 17 - The Sikh Contribution&the Merseyside Ferries from 2014-10-10T16:15
The two Merseyside ferries who earned their 'Royal' title in a daring wartime raid, a Coventry memorial which marks the Sikhs role in World War One, and why thousands of mules trotted through t...
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Episode 3 - Forgotten Heroes, The Indian Army in the Great War from 2014-10-09T15:30
In the third part of his documentary looking at the Asian contribution to WW1, Sarfraz Manzoor examines the effect of WW1 on India, nationally and locally. Through letters from servicemen and fa...
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WW1 At Home 16 - The Chilwell Explosion&a Wartime Entertainer from 2014-10-02T17:15
Kate Adie reports on the Nottinghamshire munitions factory disaster. Also - the ambulance trains of Lowth & forces sweetheart, Gertie Gitana, who became a wartime music hall star.
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WW1 At Home 15 - Pilot Hero Mick Mannock&Flora Sandes' Enlistment from 2014-09-24T12:22
Three WW1 characters. Flora Sandes, who enlisted and fought as a soldier in Serbia. Mick Mannock, the British 'Ace of Aces'; and 3 yr old Khaki George, who collected funds for the war effort on ...
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WW1 At Home 14 - A Captain's Execution&U-boat Defences from 2014-09-17T12:30
The story of Captain Fryatt - a civilian naval officer executed by the Germans, and the Royal Navy tactic of deploying 'Q ships'. These resembled British merchant ships, to lure the enemy to the...
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The War That Changed The World: Istanbul - Modernity and Secularism from 2014-09-08T11:28
Turkey emerged from the First World War as a new republic, with a secular and modern identity, attempting to break from its Ottoman past. How has this influenced Turkey today? With historians Ak...
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Episode 2 - Forgotten Heroes, The Indian Army in the Great War from 2014-08-21T15:30
In the second part of his documentary looking at the Asian contribution to WW1, Sarfraz Manzoor charts the experiences of soldiers and labourers in Mesopotamia and Gallipoli. The story for India...
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Episode 1 - Forgotten Heroes, The Indian Army in the Great War from 2014-08-20T15:30
Sarfraz Manzoor tells the story of the 1.27m men from the Indian Army who fought valiantly in the Great War, through a series of the soldiers' letters written home from Western Front. This first...
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Heroes at War: Frederick Kelly from 2014-08-13T15:30
Two time Olympic gold medalist Steve Williams tells the story of Frederick "Clegg" Kelly, Olympic rowing champion and one of Britain's leading composers, who lost his life on the battlefield in ...
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Heroes at War: Walter Tull from 2014-08-12T15:30
Ex-Northampton Town player Clarke Carlisle tells the story of Walter Tull, the first Afro-Caribbean outfield player in the top division of English football, and the first to be commissioned as a...
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Veterans: From WW1 to Afghanistan from 2014-08-05T15:30
Radio 1's Greg James hears from British troops who served in Afghanistan as they contrast their experiences with those who fought in World War One. Mixing new interviews from Afghanistan veteran...
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Women's lives on the Home Front from 2014-08-04T15:30
Woman's Hour goes behind the scenes at new Radio 4 drama Home Front, as it begins its four-year run. Actor Harriet Walter talks about her cameo role as Emmeline Pankhurst, and we hear from the w...
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WW1 At Home 13 - Sikh Soldiers&Pilot Heroes from 2014-08-03T14:10
The valiant Sikh contribution, the drama of those first training flights above the meadows of Oxfordshire, and a bittersweet story of two families brought together by love and loss.
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How Britain Went to War from 2014-07-28T15:30
Leading Whitehall historian Peter Hennessy examines Britain's secret war planning and preparations before 1914. Drawing on official papers, sound archive, and interviews with historians, Henness...
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The War that Changed the World: Part Two from 2014-07-19T17:06
The tank, gas, flame throwers, Zeppelins - the weapons of World War One were like nothing that had been experienced before. At a special event with the British Council, Amanda Vickery and her gu...
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Minds at War - The Grieving Parents from 2014-07-19T15:30
Poet Ruth Padel reflects on German artist Kathe Kollwitz's memorial for her son, who died on the battlefields of the First World War in October 1914. The German painter, printmaker and sculptor ...
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Minds at War - The Broken Wing from 2014-07-18T15:30
Santanu Das discusses Indian poet Sarojini Naidu's 1917 collection The Broken Wing. Born in Hyderabad in 1879, Naidu became known as "the Nightingale of India" for her work as a poet and also as...
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Minds at War - Fighting France from 2014-07-17T15:30
BBC Correspondent Lyse Doucet introduces novelist Edith Wharton's reportage from wartime France. Wharton, best known for The Age Of Innocence and The House of Mirth, was granted unique access to...
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Minds at War - Battleship Potemkin from 2014-07-16T15:30
For Russians of director Sergei Eisenstein's generation, the experience of the First World War was overtaken by the revolution of 1917, which took Russia out of the war and plunged it into a bit...
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Minds at War - Le Feu from 2014-07-15T15:30
Completed in 1916, Le Feu was the first explicit account of conditions at the front. French soldier Henri Barbusse's novel proved a revelation to a French public sold a sentimental line by the p...
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Minds at War - Thoughts for the Times on War and Death from 2014-07-14T15:30
The declaration of war in 1914 was initially met with jubilation by the people of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, in Vienna, Sigmund Freud shared their mood. But, like his fellow-citizens, Freu...
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Minds at War - The Memorandum on the Neglect of Science from 2014-07-09T15:30
Professor David Edgerton reflects on a WW1 clarion-call from the British scientific establishment. In a letter to The Times in 1916, many of the great names of British science declared their bel...
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Minds at War - Der Krieg from 2014-07-08T15:30
In 1924, six years after the end of hostiliies, the painter Otto Dix, who had been a machine-gunner in the German Army, produced his 51 Der Krieg prints. Gruesome, hallucinatory, and terribly fr...
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Minds at War - Non-Combatants and Others from 2014-07-07T15:30
Rose Macaulay is perhaps best remembered for her final novel, The Towers of Trebizond, but her biographer, Sarah LeFanu, has long believed that her earlier 1916 novel, Non-Combatants and Others,...
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Minds at War - Paths of Glory from 2014-07-06T15:30
CRW Nevinson's painting Paths of Glory is a distant cry from the rallying recruitment posters that appeared at the start of the war. It depicts the bloated corpses of two dead soldiers, stretche...
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Free Thinking - Oh What A Lovely Savas from 2014-07-05T15:30
'Oh what a lovely Savas' begins Rana Mitter in this edition of Free Thinking, using the Turkish word for War. Rana and guests discuss the roles of Turkey, India, China and Japan in World War I, ...
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Free Thinking - Wood and Trees: War and Remembrance from 2014-07-04T15:30
From Paul Nash paintings of blasted tree stumps in the first world war to today's commemorative planting: Paul Gough, Gabriel Hemery and Gail Ritchie join Samira Ahmed to explore woods in war an...
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Free Thinking - Balancing Power in WW1 and Now from 2014-07-03T15:30
The First World War shattered the power balance in Europe. As we confront an uncertain world order, who are the great powers today, how has their role changed and where do they now stand in dete...
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Free Thinking - The Thirty-Nine Steps from 2014-07-02T15:30
John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps first appeared in Blackwoods Magazine in August and September 1915 and depicts Europe on the edge of war in May and June 1914. It quickly became popular readi...
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Gavrilo Princip's Footprint from 2014-07-01T15:30
On the sunny morning of June 28 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot dead the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo. Their assassination began a chain of events that would bring the world to ...
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Sound of Cinema - The First World War from 2014-06-30T15:30
Matthew Sweet looks at music for films set against the background of WW1, including Joseph Kosma's music for Jean Renoir's masterpiece La Grande Illusion. The First World War prompted a cinemati...
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Nationalism The War That Changed the World from 2014-06-30T10:59
An epic exploration of the legacy of World War One begins with this panel and audience discussion from Sarajevo. It looks at the drive for nationhood during World War One and its impact on natio...
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Music Matters - The Legacy of WW1 in Music from 2014-06-29T09:00
How did composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Alban Berg and Maurice Ravel react to the horrific tragedy of the First World War? Tom Service discusses the effect of World War One on music wr...
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Month of Madness - London from 2014-06-27T09:00
Professor Christopher Clark unpicks the complex sequence of events that led to WW1. Today, how British decision-makers reacted in the 'July Crisis' of 1914.
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Month of Madness - The French in St Petersburg from 2014-06-26T09:00
Christopher Clark continues to unpick the complex sequence of events during the 1914 'July Crisis'. In this programme, Clark explores the dangerous impact of the extension of the Franco-Russian ...
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Month of Madness - Berlin from 2014-06-25T09:00
Christopher Clark unpicks the complex sequence of events during the 'July Crisis' of 1914. In this programme, why Germany issued a 'blank cheque' to Austria-Hungary for war against Serbia.
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Month of Madness - Vienna from 2014-06-24T09:00
Christopher Clark continues to unpick the complex sequence of events leading to WW1. In this programme, how Vienna reacted to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
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Month of Madness - Sarajevo from 2014-06-23T09:36
Prof Christopher Clark unpicks the complex sequence of events that led to the First World War. In the first programme, he travels to Sarajevo to tell the story of extraordinary chances that led ...
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WW1 At Home 12 - The Football Icon and The War Poet from 2014-06-17T12:22
The football coach and Derby County football icon stranded in Berlin during World War One and the war poet who wrote in his native Lincolnshire dialect.
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WW1 At Home 11 - The 'White Feather' Campaign&a Popular WW1 French Tipple from 2014-06-06T14:08
The birth of the 'White Feather' campaign in Folkestone, the pill boxes built to repel the German army, and a World War One tipple from French that’s still enjoyed in Burnley today.
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WW1 At Home 10 - Medical Breakthroughs&the 'Chocolate Soldier' from 2014-05-31T08:55
Medical innovation from a wartime surgeon, a soldier's satirical spin on World War One, and how a chocolate bar inspired a unique correspondence between a child from Cornwall and a soldier at th...
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WW1 At Home 9 - Wartime Drunkeness&a Belgian Refugee's Tale from 2014-05-23T12:00
The wartime experiment that aimed to tackle drunkenness in Carlisle, the grandson of Belgium refugees discovers more about his roots, and the story of a Welsh land girl's memories of the city.
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WW1 At Home 8 - Conscientious Objectors from 2014-05-15T01:31
The 'Winchester Whisperer' – the secret newspaper produced by the Conscientious Objectors of Winchester Prison, imprisoned for refusing to take up arms and fight.
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WW1 At Home 7 - The Hartlepool Bombardment&the Glasgow Rent Protests from 2014-05-13T07:02
The first attack on British soil for centuries, the Govan woman who battled for a fair rent for tenants in Glasgow, and the egg collectors of Shropshire who helped alleviate the food crisis.
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Woman's Hour - Women and the War - A signaller's story from 2014-05-12T12:57
In 1918, Annie May Martin was a telegraphist working in France. Her role with the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps was to pass messages in morse code between front line troops and London. In an arch...
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WW1 At Home 6 - Women's Football, Anti-German Riots&the Soldier's Song from 2014-05-02T15:45
The Newcastle women's football champions who were unbeaten during the war, the Hull shop that bore the brunt of anti-German riots and 'Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag', the Welsh hit t...
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WW1 At Home 5 - Brighton Pavilion: a Hospital for Indian Troops from 2014-04-25T13:30
Over a million Indian soldiers fought alongside the British Army during WW1, and thousands were nursed at the Royal Brighton Pavilion. Over 700 beds were provided in the midst of the building's ...
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WW1 At Home 4 - Nursing Heroines&Lost Treasure from 2014-04-17T15:13
Kate Adie joins in a tribute to Elsie Knocker & Mairi Chisholm, famous nursing heroines of the frontline, and the price a Bristol family paid when their horses were commandeered for the war ...
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At Home 3 - The Spy on the Forth; Lizzie the Elephant; a Gardener Goes to War from 2014-04-11T15:30
How a German spy raised suspicions in Edinburgh; letters home show how a gardener from Gloucestershire's Cowley Manor found frontline life; Lizzie the Elephant does her bit for the war effort in...
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WW1 At Home 2 - Zeppelin Raids; Airship Patrols; Scouts on Standby from 2014-04-04T16:25
How a Scarborough home was immortalised in WW1 propaganda, defending the Irish coast from U-boats and how the scouts of Hertfordshire rose to the wartime challenge. Discover hundreds more storie...
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WW1 At Home 1 - Spies, Bravery&Acme Whistles from 2014-03-28T14:15
Three WW1 home front stories: how German spies were executed at the Tower of London, England's Bravest St & production of Birmingham's famous Thunderer whistle. Discover more WW1 At Home sto...
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The Cultural Front - Ep3: Kandinsky, Khaki&Kisses from 2014-03-22T11:05
For Radio 4, Francine Stock explores how artists responded to the outbreak of war on either side of the conflict and hears how the publishing world fed the appetite for women's popular fiction.
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The Cultural Front - Ep2 : Popular Culture from 2014-03-15T11:05
For Radio 4, Francine Stock explores the music and images of popular culture in Britain, France, Russia and Germany, as fiery patriotism flares and fades in the first weeks and months of war.
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The Cultural Front - Ep1 : Words for Battle from 2014-03-10T14:24
Francine Stock begins her exploration of the culture of the Great War in 1914 with the mobilization of the word. For more than 40 years the next war to come had been a staple of fiction. England...
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Woman's Hour Women and the War - a young widow's story from 2014-02-24T14:47
How a night out to Manchester’s Palace Theatre in 1914 was to change forever the lives of Kitty and her young husband Percy Morter. Looking back, Kitty describes the moment when music hall star ...
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Woman's Hour: Campaign for Nurses' War Memorial from 2014-02-17T16:44
From BBC Radio 4: During the First and Second World War at least 1700 nurses gave their lives in service, yet there is no official memorial to them. Jenni Murray talks to Yvonne McEwen, a histor...
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The Great War of Words, Episode 2 from 2014-02-11T10:00
From BBC Radio 4 Responsibility for the Great War has been a fierce battle for meaning ever since 1914. Michael Portillo examines how the history of the origins of the Great War and the issue o...
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Woman's Hour: Changing Woman's Lives from 2014-02-06T11:23
From BBC Radio 4: How the war shaped the lives of a generation of women. While women in their thousands volunteered for war service and the number of women employed went up by more than a millio...
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The Great War of Words, Episode 1 from 2014-02-04T12:17
Michael Portillo reveals how our understanding of the war has been distorted through a century of intellectualising, interpretation and misinterpretation. In this first episode Michael Portillo...
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