If you consider the First World Struggle, what springs to thoughts? Is it trench warfare? The parable that troops can be residence by Christmas? Or maybe the concept the entire thing started due to the assassination of an Austro-Hungarian archduke? On this episode, we’re going past these narratives to think about different views of the opening weeks of the battle. Rachel Dinning is joined by historian Alex Churchill – co-author of latest e-book Ring of Hearth alongside Nikolai Eberholst – to think about contemporary views of the battle, highlighting the voices of abnormal individuals caught up within the battle, in addition to the way it unfolded throughout the globe.
Alex is the presenter of the brand new HistoryExtra academy collection WW1: Myths and Misconceptions – which is out now and out there to look at on the HistoryExtra App. Within the collection, Alex unpacks a number of the most enduring myths about World Struggle One – exploring subjects such because the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the complexities of wartime neutrality, why the battle didn’t actually finish on 11 November 1918, and rather more.
Download the HistoryExtra App to look at Alex’s new academy collection WW1: Myths and Misconceptions.
Alexandra Churchill and Nicolai Eberholst are the authors of Ring of Hearth: A New World Historical past of the Outbreak of the First World Struggle (Bloomsbury, 2025).