Dan Snow brings together the sound archive collections of the Imperial War Museums and the BBC to tell the story of World War I through the voices of those who were.
Latest episodes
-
57 min ↗
25/12/2018
In an omnibus edition of selected programmes from the final series, Dan Snow looks at some of the key events of 1918, from the German Spring Offensive in March, to the impact that…
-
13 min ↗
11 o'clock
Dan Snow presents the final episode of Voices of the First World War, veterans recall what they were doing when the armistice took effect at 11 o'clock on 11th November 1918, and h…
-
13 min ↗
Mutiny in the High Seas Fleet
Dan Snow hears accounts of those who witnessed the restlessness, disorder and eventual mutiny of the sailors of the German High Seas Fleet in early November 1918, and recollections…
-
14 min ↗
Open Country
'Green fields, no barbed wire, nothing…'. Those who were there recall what it felt like to be advancing at last in the autumn of 1918, after years of stalemate. After a series of a…
-
13 min ↗
Amiens
In August 1918 after years of disappointment, bloodshed and stalemate, Allied troops launched a surprise overwhelming attack on the German Army - a short, four day battle in which…
-
13 min ↗
Torpedo
Across 50 programmes, in a major series throughout the commemorative period, Voices of the First World War has been tracking the story of the war through archive interviews with th…
-
14 min ↗
Enter America
Dan Snow hears the recollections of US soldiers who were sent to fight in France in 1918, and looks at the reactions of British and German soldiers to their arrival. They had recei…
-
13 min ↗
Spanish Flu
It was a tragedy beyond comprehension. Soldiers who had survived the trenches, civilians who had weathered shortages and bombardment, now faced a new enemy: influenza. The virus to…
-
13 min ↗
Morale and Manpower
Oral History tells a very different story to the propaganda of contemporary accounts when it comes to the state of morale in 1918. On the British side, the army that had sailed to…
-
13 min ↗
The Last of the Great Aces
Dan Snow looks at the war in the air in the first months of 1918, when a pilot's expertise began to matter less than an aircraft's bombing capabilities. Airmen recall that most of…
-
14 min ↗
Operation Michael
The return of the major series tracking the development of the First World War, presented by Dan Snow. After 40 episodes looking at the war through interviews in the sound archives…
-
57 min ↗
The Christmas Truce
An omnibus edition of five episodes of Voices of the First World War, spanning the course of the war from 1914 to 1917.Narrated by Dan Snow, this edition begins with the Christmas…
-
13 min ↗
Out of It
William Towers describes his experiences as a seriously wounded soldier in the autumn of 1917, when his life was threatened as much by the primitive medical practices of the Wester…
-
14 min ↗
The Battle of Cambrai
Members of the Tank Corps describe the excitement and rapid gains of the first day of the Battle of Cambrai, where new tactics and new technology helped the British to achieve that…
-
13 min ↗
Passchendaele: John Palmer
Among the recordings made for the BBC's landmark series 'The Great War' in the early 1960s, one in particular stands out. John Palmer, a British Gunner who served as a signaller fr…
-
13 min ↗
Towards Passchendaele
Dan Snow, surveying the landscape around Ypres, hears the recollections of veterans of the Third Battle of Ypres, and maps their painfully slow progress eastwards. As the front lin…
-
14 min ↗
Third Ypres - Conditions
The return of the major series tracking the development of the First World War through the sound archives of the Imperial War Museums and the BBC.The name Ypres has become shorthan…
-
57 min ↗
Omnibus 1917
In the first five programmes looking at 1917, Dan Snow explores the events of the year through the recollections of those who were there. As the fighting became more and more despe…
-
14 min ↗
Etaples Mutiny
There are conflicting versions of events when it comes to the British mutiny at Etaples in September 1917, from the soldiers who took part in it, to the military policeman who witn…
-
14 min ↗
Rank
Soldiers and officers speak about the issue of rank and class in the British Army of 1917, by which time many ex-public school officers had been wiped out. With Dan Snow.