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Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: Digging the Trenches
Description:
The start of World War I featured officers in white gloves, leading troops in neat lines, and cavalry charges complete with sabres and lances. But this changed on 15th September, 1914 - when soldiers began digging into the earth, laying the groundwork for the trench warfare that would come to define the conflict.
By that November, trenches covered 400 miles along the Western Front, in two opposing lines that were often as close as 50 metres, with "No Man’s Land" in between—a deadly strip of land covered in barbed wire. Soldiers lived in constant fear of a...