History Cafe Podcast By Jon Rosebank Penelope Middelboe cover art

History Cafe

History Cafe

By: Jon Rosebank Penelope Middelboe
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 True history storytelling at the History Café. Join BBC Historian Jon Rosebank & HBO, BBC & C4 script and series editor Penelope Middelboe as we give history a new take. Drop in to the History Café weekly on Wednesdays to give old stories a refreshing new brew. 90+ ever-green stand-alone episodes and building...

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Episodes
  • #64 They had the wrong guns - Ep 4 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16

    #64 They had the wrong guns - Ep 4 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16
    May 28 2025
    On the eve of the Somme the British had far too few artillery guns, and most of the ones they had were the wrong sort. They needed five times as many heavy guns before they could launch an attack. The few big guns they did have were grossly inaccurate, sometimes missing a target by one mile. They were firing shells that were not fitted with delayed-action fuses which meant the German machine-gunners were safe in their deep underground bunkers. And yet British schoolchildren are still taught it was a surprise that the bombardment that preceded the infantry attack failed so catastrophically. (R)

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    41 mins
  • #63 The generals never studied how to attack trenches - Ep 3 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16

    #63 The generals never studied how to attack trenches - Ep 3 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914-16
    May 21 2025
    The British Army wanted to throw men against machines. Its generals had not thought about how to cross 100-200 yards of open space with wire entanglements. They had been offered plenty of designs for armoured tractors with caterpillar tracks but had ignored them. It was Churchill, head of the Royal Navy, who eventually funded the development of the first ‘tank’. But they arrived late at the Somme and were so badly deployed they couldn’t save lives. And that wasn’t the worst of the problems the British army had created for itself. (R)

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    40 mins
  • #62 They refused to take orders - Ep 2 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914:16

    #62 They refused to take orders - Ep 2 Nightmare in the Trenches 1914:16
    May 14 2025
    Unlike the Royal Navy, the British Army proved itself over the course of decades incapable of taking new ideas on board: trench warfare, the machine gun and the tank to name a few. And at the heart of the problem was that too many men in the army refused to take orders. Not the rank and file, you understand, who were executed for any refusal to march into a hail of bullets. But the officers. The reason was that they regarded themselves as gentlemen – and gentlemen could not be bossed around. (R)

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    38 mins
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