Unknown Warriors

Understanding The First World War

Despite the fact that in the years before 1914 international conferences had agreed a set of rules to govern the conduct of warfare, when the First World War broke out, these red lines were rapidly and flagrantly crossed, by all sides, in the headlong rush to gain a military advantage once the stalemate of trench warfare had set in.

This happened, notoriously, both on the Western Front as well as at sea and in the air, with poison gases, U-boat sinkings of merchant and passenger vessels, and the aerial bombardment of civilian populations, all being introduced within a six-week period in 1915 alone. And yet all these actions were expressly forbidden by international agreements. Listen to this unfamilar aspect of WW1 at www.unknownwarriorspod.co.uk. The world would never be the same again. This is an Understanding History podcast.