This is precisely why I wrote Thunder in The Mountains, and I couldn’t be happier.

Whoever gets the ghost-writing gig for Dawa’s story is going to be minted.

Sixth Day is a gruelling misery-fest about the Great Retreat of 1915 by one of Serbia’s leading avant-garde writers. It’s like a William S Burroughs and Solzhenitsyn mash-up. But I confess I missed the whole primordial mystery of the feminine thing.

This summer, I will mostly going full Frohntal 😳 Will be taking a closer look at the Peralba and Chiadenis WW1 battlefield.

How WW1 changed everything we thought we knew about…crinoids. Austrian soldiers dug trenches near Monte Cellon in the Carnic Alps, and after the war palaeontologists noticed unusual fossilised crinoids in the spoil. So now we know more about crinoid stuff, which is good.

One of the interesting aspects of exploring Italian Front battlefields…calorie deficit. It’s often not physically possible to consume the same number of calories as those expended. This was also the case for soldiers, in WW1 and now. After a week of -1,500 k/cal per day at altitude, I’m done in.

I’ve just been told that I’m wrong about White Friday being more myth than reality, and that I should check Wikipedia and…wait for it…Sabaton. Two glaring omissions from my bibliography 😳

Had a very enjoyable chat with Paul about the Italian Front, and my foolish obsession with walking the ground, even when that ground is fairly hazardous at times. Have a listen…

A chat with @tomisitt.bsky.social for @oldfrontline.bsky.social coming up this Saturday - a fascinating climb onto the highest peaks of the Great War!

It’s been a while

Trying to understand WW1 in the Dolomites is complicated. In addition to reading the diaries, studying the maps, looking at the photos, and even walking the ground, it also helps to examine the historical weather reports and understand the mechanics of avalanches.

Heh! Arsenal, in their infinite generosity, have classified me as a Silver Senior Citizen and given me £5 off my annual membership. Ker-ching!

Team Sala or Team Lunelli? These two Alpini officers had a spectacular post-war spat about who did what in the Sexten Dolomites in 1916, each publishing several claims, counter-claims, and rebuttals between 1932 and 1953!

It’s International Nurses Day, so I’d like to pay tribute to all the nurses who have attended to me over the years…14 broken bones, double eye surgery, a scalping, and a huge swollen testicle. And particularly the one who had to cut off my motocross gear after a hot day riding (she visibly gagged).

Someone just suggested that if I’m interested in the Italian Front I should read Thompson’s The White War 😢

Why is the Giro d’Italia social media being run by a nine year old?

My mad obsession with WW1 on Sextener Rotwand and Elferkofel continues unabated. I’m currently making the bigliest and most definitive map of the battlefield ever. Maybe. Reconciling archive and modern maps with modern and archive photos is 🤯

The day I won a stage of the Giro, but was DQed for motor-doping.

Mmmm, I love the smell of fresh tyres in the morning.

Not the Western Front Conference 2026 Following last years great conference will take place on Saturday 31st October in Wakefield West Yorkshire just off the M1. Tickets cost £29 including lunch.with 4 great speakers. Earlybird tickets £25 before end of May www.trybooking.com/uk/FPHV

The complete lack of critical thinking and technical ignorance constantly exhibited by the cycling press drives me mad. Just adding “we’re told” doesn’t mean you’re excused from doing the basics of journalism. Gah!

Not the Western Front Conference 2026 Following last years great conference will take place on Saturday 31st October in Wakefield West Yorkshire just off the M1. Tickets cost £29 including lunch.with 4 great speakers. Earlybird tickets £25 before end of May www.trybooking.com/uk/FPHV

You’ll all be thrilled to hear I’ve joined the ranks of academia and become a university lecturer* * I’m giving a talk to the University of the Third Age 😉

Like everything else in the Balkans, the river systems are complicated and baffling. I made a simplified map to get a better understanding, but I’m not sure it’s helped. The Austro-German bridging units certainly had their work cut out during the 1915 tripartite invasion.

Oh good, another book about Eddy Merckx. This one offers new insights that the hundreds of existing Merckx books don’t have. Probably 🙄

It’s interesting that the two major uprisings against occupation during WW1 were by the Irish (Easter Rising, 1916) and the Serbs (Toplica Rising, 1917). I wonder if that says anything about the national characteristics of those that did, or didn’t, rise up against their occupiers?

Can anyone help with this query about the French military in the FWW?

Nothing says dedication and commitment to your readers quite like telling them to look it up on the internet 😂

The look on my literary agent’s face when he reads my latest book proposal.

A very pleasing oak tree in my local park 👌

If any London or south-east peeps fancy an evening listening to me talk about the 12 battles of the Isonzo, and why you should give a damn, it’s happening at the London East branch of the WFA, 19.30hrs this Thursday, everyone welcome (£4 donation on the door). Signed copies of TiTM will be available

I don’t know her name (she’s identified only as Vojinović's girlfriend), nor do I know what became of her, but she’s rather splendid. She took part in the Toplica Uprising in Serbia in 1917.

Leutnant Albin Mlaker, an argumentative Slovenian sapper in the Austrian army in WW1, was constantly awarded medals even though he wasn’t very good at his job and got on everyone’s tits. Captured an empty fort - medal. Cocked up mining on Monte Cimone - medal. Blew up a bit of Monte Kal - medal.

Is it bad that, as I research cannibalism during the FWW, I can’t get this old joke out of my head? Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says “Does this taste a bit funny to you?”

A casual mention of cannibalism during the Great Retreat of 1915 has stopped me in my tracks. Czech POW Jaroslav Janda mentions it in his diary. That’s a research rabbit hole I don’t really want to explore.

Deep-diving into historic weather records for the Balkans in late 1915. I want to know exactly how terrible the “terrible weather” really was, and the history books never actually say.

As a connoisseur of implausible WW1 stories, The Wolf Truce (Eastern Front, 1917) is my current diversion. And the AI image I found online is 👌

Yeah, but free delivery 👊

Karpathenwacht, 1915. How it started, and how it finished.

Don’t go to Amalfi or Liguria, go instead to the beautiful coastal city of…wait for it…Rimini! 😂

As a lover of maps and charts, am looking forward to reading this…

It’s weird to think that one day all this will be a flat, rocky plateau. #DeepTime

Howling with laughter

Does anyone know what this medal is? It’s very small, it has a Bersagliere soldier on one side and an oak leaf motif on the other, with the words Guerra di Redenzione. Google image searches draw a blank. Any ideas?

Oh god, now I have to worry whether my public transport reading material is gendered and/or performative.

According to my photos app, 18 years ago today I was on the Somme visiting the grave of the American nurse who tended to my mortally wounded Great Uncle Jack. He died of wounds sustained at Langemarck, she died of liver failure, possibly caused by breathing gas soaked into her patients’ uniforms.