Media Archive of WW1 Commemoration
2014 marks the centenary of the First World War and a programme of events that will commemorate the conflict. Historyworks are attempting to capture the debate about how we should commemorate the centenary until August 5th 2014: see sections of blogs, pieces published by journalists online and in newsprint, filmed lectures and debates, links to websites and funding opportunities. We would like to list more articles, blogs and filmed lectures/debates, so do share material with us. When you note ommisions, please send these via email with the missing links to: historyworks@gmail.com
RADIO
Home Front
BBC Radio 4, Monday 04 August 2014
Drama serial tracking the fortunes of a group of characters on the home front as they try to maintain normality while Britain is involved in the First World War.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047qhc2
and accompanying blog 'Creating Home Front - Radio 4's epic new First World War drama'
First World War and Sport
BBc Radio 5 Live, Monday 04 August 2014
Eleanor Oldroyd presents a special programme looking at the effect the First World War had on sport here in the UK, 100 years to the day since Britain declared war against Germany.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04c9vc2
1914: Day by Day
BBC Radio 4, Monday 04 August 2014
Historian Margaret MacMillan chronicles the road to war in 1914.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03t8m6h/episodes/player
44 available episodes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03t8m6h/episodes/player
Veterans: From WW1 to Afghanistan
BBC Radio 1, Monday 04 August 2014
Greg James hears from British troops who served in Afghanistan as they contrast their experiences with those who fought in World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04c9fqn
World War One
BBC Radio 2, Sunday 03 August 2014
Diane Louise Jordan commemorates the anniversary of the outbreak of The First World War with hymns, Gospel, choral classic, poetry and reflection.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04bzqnb
The Psychology of War
BBC World Service, Saturday 02 August 2014
One hundred years ago World War One set the course for the twentieth century; for the countries that took part nothing would be the same again. In this worldwide series of events with the British Council, we look at the impact of the war from around the world.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p023ff7g
Gareth Malone and Adrian Sutton, Neil Bartlett, In the Club
BBC Radio 4, Monday 28 July 2014
Gareth Malone and Adrian Sutton discuss Sunday's Prom which takes World War One as its theme. Gareth's Military Wives choir will be performing and Adrian Sutton talks about his War Horse Suite which he's composed from his score for the original theatre production.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04bn28k
I Don't Remember the War
BBC World Service, Saturday 26 July 2014
The BBC World Service gives voice to the most talented young writers - under 35 - to explore a great grandparent or grandparent's involvement in World War One. This centenary offers a chance to reflect on the gulf that separates young people from the war. Each writer attempts to bridge the gap, to question what the values and sacrifices of the war mean today.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0239kqc
Sarajevo: Nationalism
BBC World Service, Saturday 28 June 2014
A world of empires entered the war; the world that came after was one of nation states. Balkan historians join the BBC broadcaster Allan Little to discuss the drive for nationhood during World War One and its impact on nationalism to this day. Exactly 100 years ago a shot rang out on the streets of Sarajevo which set the world on a path to war - was the Archduke’s assassin a nationalist? How did the peace made after World War One influence the ethnic conflicts in the region during the 1990s.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p021n2yq
World War One: Patriotism
BBC World Service, Friday 27 June 2014
Mike Williams presents a special extended edition of The Why Factor on patriotism. He asks what motivates people to serve their country and how this loyalty can be fostered, manufactured and manipulated. Mike investigates the power of patriotism from World War One to the present day – exploring flags and anthems, borders and boundaries, King and Country, God and Empire, and the truths and the myths of the modern nation state. What would you be willing to fight and die for?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0219ql2
Kaiser great-great-grandson: Germany not solely to blame for WW1
BBC 5 Live, Friday 02 May 2014.
The great-great-grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II tells 5 live Breakfast Germany was not solely to blame for the outbreak of World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01y9wqp
World War One
BBC World Service, Saturday 14 June 2014
Historian Heather Jones tackles the familiar image of a war centred on a static front line in northern Europe, and looks at how World War One affected populations beyond the front line.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p020jxrj
The 4 O'Clock Show
BBC Radio 4 Extra, Friday 02 May 2014.
Mel Giedroyc has the last episode of Natalie Jane Prior's Lily Quench and the Dragon of Ashby, and the remarkable story of World War One nurse and ambulance driver Elsie Knocker.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041ylqg
What did your family do in the First World War?
BBC Radio 5 Live, Friday 02 May 2014.
5 live Breakfast is in Wadhurst in East Sussex, one of the many villages to have lost hundreds of men on the battlefield in World War One. Nicky Campbell meets the Kaiser's great-great-grandson who explains why he thinks it's not just Germany to blame for the war. And we hear a woman who's been reunited with her two uncles' medals by a man living on the other side of the world.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041trkc
Free Thinking
BBC Radio 3, Thursday 01 may 2014.
The historians Charlie Laderman and Umit Ungor explore the symbolism of Turkey's recent decision "to offer condolences for the mass killings of Armenians under Ottoman rule during World War One".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041y11p
In Tune
BBC Radio 3, Monday 28 April 2014.
Sound artist Bill Fontana on his new sound sculpture Vertical Echoes, part of a major new series to mark the First World War Centenary at Imperial War Museum North.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b041vg78
Singer Jane McDonald and World War One research
BBC Radio Derby, Tuesday 22 April 2014.
Singer Jane McDonald tells Andy about her latest tour and he finds out about World War One research into conscientious objectors.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01wrgcy
Love Your Country?
BBC Radio Four, Sunday 20 April.
Professor David Cannadine dispatches a few myths about nation states - arguing that they a relatively modern inventions and that, in part, the loyalty we owe them was a carefully constructed political strategy. He looks at the ways in which nationalism reached a peak at the time of WW1 and how the artificially created states that emerged after the War were inevitably flawed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b040hk4r
Easter Sunday: Bayonets and Green Blades
BBC Radio Scotland, Sunday 20 April 2014.
Spiritual strength arising from the experiences of WWI help us mark Easter Sunday in this year of commemorations. Ministers Duncan McLaren and Sigrid Marten visit the island of Inchcolm in the Firth of Forth, with its juxtaposition of war fortifications and a medieval Abbey.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0418n43
Five Hundred Years of Friendship
BBC Radio Four, Monday 07 April 2014.
Dr Thomas Dixon brings his timely new history of the changing face of friendship into the era immediately after the First World War, when the international friendship movement flourished.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zy1c0
Five Hundred Years of Friendship
BBC Radio Four, Friday 04 April 2014.
Dr Thomas Dixon tells two contrasting stories for this examination of the impact of World War One on male friendship.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zdkkc
Kandinsky, Khaki and Kisses
BBC Radio 4, Saturday 22 March 2014.
Francine Stock explores what was happening in the international artistic community in the run up to World War 1, and how the commencement of hostilities affected artists either side of the conflict.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03th7g9
Arf a Mo, Kaiser: Popular Culture on All Fronts
BBC Radio 4, Saturday 14 March 2014.
In this programme Francine Stock explores the way the music industry, and by 1914 it was a thriving performing and publishing industry in Britain, responded to war. Recruitment songs, patriotic sheet music and poems by the thousand were everywhere.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03th7bz
Oh What a Lovely War!
BBC Radio 2, Friday 14 March 2014.
Radio 2 begins its commemorations with by broadcasting Tony Award winning director Terry Johnson's new production of "Oh What A Lovely War" performed at The Theatre Royal Stratford East.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03thcl8
Words for Battle
BBC Radio 4, Saturday 08 March 2014.
Francine Stock begins her exploration of the culture of the Great War in 1914 with the mobilization of the word and the focus on war within fiction writing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03th76d
Steve Nolan
BBC Radio 5 Live, Friday 28 Febraury 2014.
A debate about whether Britain was right to join the First Wiorld War following BBC Two's Pity of War broadcast.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03w385q
Woman's Hour: Pansexuality; Sharon Rooney; WW1 Nurses' Campaign
BBC Radio 4, Monday 17 February 2014
A discussion about the campaign to get recognition for nurses who served in WW1.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03vd7cq
The Monocled Mutineer; Roman Krznaric's Empathy Revolution
BBC Radio 3, Wednesday 05 February 2014
As a production of Oh What a Lovely War opens at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, Matthew Sweet discusses the way World War I is being commemorated.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03t0d95
Woman's Hour: World War One: Changing Women's Lives
BBC Radio 4, Wednesday 05 February 2014.
Examining how the war shaped the lives of a generation of women.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03thdbh
The Great War of Words
BBC Radio 4, Tuesday 4 February 2014.
Michael Portillo explores the last battleground of World War One - the charred intellectual landscape left by generations of historians, politicians and cultural commentators.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03t873v
Thought for the Day
BBC Radio 4, Monday 13 January 2014
Responding to the debates between historians and politicians surrounding commemorating World War One, Canon Dr Alan Billings suggests that least we are alert now to the fact that there are many different ways of interpreting the Great War.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01pqwpl
The Now Show
BBC Radio 4's satirical weekly sketch show, Friday 10th January, 2014
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis comment on Gove's concerns about BlackAdder and how history is taught in schools, and in this sketch wonder 'what if' we based our knowledge of historical conflicts on sit-coms...
IN is at 18.43 & OUT is at 20.34
Programme: http://bbc.in/1eyT8Bh
Simon Mayo Drivetime
Wednesday 8th January 2014
At 1:19:40 you'll find a section where Dan Snow discusses World War One & the debates surrounding its commemoration.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03nhbzr
European Cities on the Brink of War
Free Thinking BBC Radio Three, Tuesday 07 January 2014.
The novelist AS Byatt, the film expert Neil Brand and the cultural historians Alexandra Harris and Philipp Blom have chosen artworks and artefacts from the period and will use them to explore, with Anne McElvoy, the ideas and spirit of the European capital cities on the brink of World War 1.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ncpfz
Pat Barker
BBC World Service, Saturday 04 January 2014
This month World Book Club is in a reflective mood as we mark the beginning of the centenary commemorations for World War One by inviting multi-award-winning British writer Pat Barker on to the programme.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01nrgd9
The Long, Long Trail
BBC Radio 4’s Archive on 4, 4th January 2014
Roy Hudd explores Charles Chilton's forgotten 1961 radio masterpiece which inspired the musical Oh What a Lovely War.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03nrn9m
World at One
BBC Radio 4, 3rd January 2014
Professor Gary Sheffield and Professor Richard Evans debate the nature of Britain's World War One enemy, imperial Germany.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03mg0pv
"I don't think teachers should be showing Blackadder in history lessons"
BBC Radio 4’s World at One clip, Friday 3rd January 2014
History professors Sir Richard Evans and Professor Gary Sheffield discuss portrayals of the First World War.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01p8591
Dominic Laurie sits in
Shelagh Fogarty, BBC Radio 5 Live, Friday 3rd January 2014
A discussion about the Education Secretary Michael Gove's statements that "left-wing" myths about the First World War by popular shows like Blackadder "belittle" Britain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03mfg70
Michael Gove on teaching history
BBC Start The Week, 30th December 2013
Andrew Marr discusses the teaching of history with the Government's Education Secretary, Michael Gove. He's joined by Margaret MacMillan, Simon Schama and Tom Holland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03mcmwx
TELEVISION
Televison & Visual Media
Martial Races - Episode 1 of 2
BBC Two, Wednesday 06 August 2014.
David Olusoga challenges our perceptions of the First World War with the stories of the millions of Indian, African and Asian troops and ancillaries who fought and died alongside white European troops on the western front and elsewhere.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04d526s
World War One Remembered Across the Commonwealth
BBC, Monday 04 August 2014.
Huw Edwards introduces events marking the centenary of World War I. The day begins with a service from Glasgow Cathedral reflecting the contribution of the Commonwealth.
World War I Remembered from the Battlefield
BBC, Monday 04 August 2014.
Huw Edwards in London with Sophie Raworth in Belgium introduce an evening of live coverage of commemorations marking the centenary of World War I.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04d51rl/world-war-i-remembered-from-the-battlefield
World War I Remembered from Westminster Abbey
BBC, Monday 04 August 2014.
Huw Edwards introduces a special candlelit service from Westminster Abbey that marks the moment the war began 100 years ago.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04d4vkz/world-war-i-remembered-from-westminster-abbey
Horrible Histories - Frightful First World War
CBBC, Monday 04 August 2014.
Bob Hale and Rattus Rattus guide viewers through the horrible history of 1914-18. Featuring the soldiers, civilians, suffragettes and even kings who were caught up in the fighting.
Railways of the Great War with Michael Portillo - A Railway War Begins
BBC Two, Monday 04 August 2014.
Michael Portillo examines the role of the railways in World War I. He begins his journey in the French city of Metz on European tracks built with war in mind.
Songs of Praise: Outbreak of War
BBC One, Sunday 03 August 2014
In commemoration of the outbreak of the First World War 100 years ago, Bill Turnbull travels to Belgium with classical chart toppers Libera.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04d4hph/songs-of-praise-outbreak-of-war
Brothers In Arms - The Pals Army Of World War One
ITV, Sunday 03 August 2014
Documentary telling the epic story of the young men who joined up together, fought together and died together during the First World War in the Pals battalions of Kitchener's Army.
Great War Diaries
BBC Two, Friday 02 August 2014
Based on letters and journals, many of which have never been published before, this tells the story of 1914-18 solely through the eyes of those who lived through World War I.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04dc3qt/great-war-diaries-episode-1
The Big Performance
BBC - CBBC, Thursday 01 August 2014.
Young singer-songwriters prepare to represent the nation at a World War I centenary event. It's the final week of songwriting and the kids are hard at work finishing their songs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b04cnk42/the-big-performance-series-3-episode-5
WW1 Uncut - The Global War
BBC, Thursday 24 July 2014
Historian David Olusoga explores how the Western Front became the most culturally diverse place on earth and how the war went far beyond the battlefields of the Western Front.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0239rlx/ww1-uncut-12-the-global-war
WW1 Uncut - War Medicine
BBC, Thursday 24 July 2014
Saleyha Ahsan explores some of the aspects of medical care in WW1 that fascinate her most, given her experience as both an emergency medicine doctor and an ex-army officer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0239r7z/ww1-uncut-11-war-medicine
WW1 Uncut - U.Boats and Explosives
BBC, Thursday 24 July 2014
Dr. Sam Willis investigates two of the war's most hi-tech and deadly elements - the German U-Boat and high explosives.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0239qtw/ww1-uncut-10-uboats-explosives
The Big Performance
BBC - CBBC, Thursday 10 July 2014
Six young singer-songwriters prepare for a historical performance. The group must write a song in the style of R&B artist Conor Maynard, who will judge their performance.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b049jgqw/the-big-performance-series-3-episode-2
The Crimson Field, Part 3
BBC One, Sunday 04 May 2014.
Part 5/6 of drama series presenting one of the untold stories of World War I.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0436tlp
The Crimson Field, Part 3
BBC One, Sunday 27 Apr 2014.
Part 4/6 of drama series presenting one of the untold stories of World War I.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b042qjhc
World War One At Home
BBC News, Sunday 20 Apr 2014.
Stories from the Home Front 1914-1918 - a special programme to launch a unique partnership between the BBC and Imperial War Museums. Robert Hall presents.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03xlmc6/World_War_One_At_Home/
The Crimson Field, Part 3
BBC One, Sunday 20 Apr 2014.
Part 3/6 of drama series presenting one of the untold stories of World War I.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01tly0c
The Crimson Field, Part 2
BBC One, Sunday 13 Apr 2014.
Part 2/6 of drama series presenting one of the untold stories of World War I.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01tly0c
The Crimson Field, Part 1
BBC One, Sunday 06 Apr 2014.
Part 1/6 of drama series presenting one of the untold stories of World War I.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01tly0c
The Poet who Loved the War: Ivor Gurney
BBC Four, Friday 04 April 2014.
Documentary presented by writer Tim Kendall which tells the remarkable story of the First World War soldier-poet who broke all the rules.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03zq4cb
The Review Show
BBC Four, Sunday 30 March 2014.
Martha Kearney and guests discuss the BBC's World War One drama The Crimson Field.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03zq4c8/The_Review_Show_30_03_2014/
The Somme: Secret Tunnel Wars
Wednesday 26 March 2014.
Beneath the Somme battlefield lies one of the great secrets of the First World War, a recently-discovered network of deep tunnels thought to extend over several kilometres. This lost underground battlefield, centred on the small French village of La Boisselle in Picardy, was constructed largely by British troops between 1914 and 1916.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01skvnh
Hidden Histories: WW1's Forgotten Photographs
BBC Four, Tuesday 18 March 2014.
Documentary telling the extraordinary untold story of soldiers' photography in the First World War.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03xsrvv
I Was There: The Great War Interviews
BBC Radio 2, Friday 14 March 2014.
In the early 1960s, the BBC interviewed 280 eyewitnesses of the First World War for the series, The Great War. Using never-before-seen footage from these interviews, this film illuminates the poignant human experience of the war, through the eyes of those who survived it.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03y76xl
37 Days
BBC Two, Thursday 06 March 2014 - Saturday 08 March 2014.
A three-part drama revealing the complex behind-closed-doors story of the final weeks before the outbreak of World War I.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01pf7dx
The Pity of War
BBC Two, Friday 28 February 2014.
Professor Niall Ferguson argues that Britain's decision to enter the First World War was a catastrophic error that unleashed an era of totalitarianism and genocide.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01nl00x/The_Pity_of_War/
The Necessary War
BBC Two, Tuesday 25 February 2014.
Through conversations with the world's most eminent World War I scholars and military historians, including Sir Michael Howard, Sir Hew Strachan, Professor John Rohl and Professor Margaret MacMillan, Max explores the key questions surrounding the outbreak of the war and the necessity for Britain to step in.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03wtmz6/broadcasts/upcoming
The First World War
BBC Four, Tuesday 25 February 2014.
Ten-part series which tells the story of the First World War.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00jz8g2/episodes/guide
Britain's Great War - 4. At the Eleventh Hour
BBC One, Monday 17 February 2014.
Series charting how the First World War affected Britain. Jeremy Paxman describes how the country came to the very brink of defeat in the last year of the war.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01npqws
Britain's Great War - 3. The Darkest Hour
BBC One, Monday 10 February 2014.
Series charting how the First World War affected Britain. How Germany's attempts to starve Britain into submission edged the nation closer to defeat than ever.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03vc2rw/Britains_Great_War_The_Darkest_Hour/
Royal Cousins at War
BBC Two
A two-part series looks at the role played by the three monarchs,Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and King George V of England, and their relationships with each other, in the outbreak of war, arguing that it is far greater than historians have traditionally believed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01pw7nx
Planning War before 1914
Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sociences and Humanities, Thursday 06 February 2014.
A lecture by Margaret MacMillan (St Anthony's College, Oxford) about the thinking of the military and their critics in relation to the plans that were drawn up before the great powers went to war in 1914.
http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/25378
Britain's Great War - 2. The War Machine
BBC One, Monday 04 February 2014.
Series charting how the First World War affected Britain. With the country unprepared for war, the whole population is enlisted to turn Britain into a war machine.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03ts1c1/Britains_Great_War_The_War_Machine/
Britain's Great War - 1. War Comes to Britain
BBC One, Monday 27 January 2014
Jeremy Paxman presents a four-part documentary charting how the First World War affected Great Britain, with this episode focusing on the war's early stages.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p01nprmc/Britains_Great_War_War_Comes_to_Britain/
Life on the front line: The diaries describing soldiers' lives during World War One
BBC One Breakfast, Tuesday 14th January 2014.
Terry Jackson of the Western Front Association discusses the significance of The National Archives making war diaries available online.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01pv77x
This Week
BBC 1, Thursday 9th January 2014
At 34:45 in the episode of politics on the sofa (with Andrew Neil and pundits Diane Abbot MP and Michael Portillo #SadManOnTrain) Dan Snow discusses whether dramatic reconstruction gets in the way of learning 'the facts' about history, and admits that he first learnt about World War One via the sit-com BlackAdder:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03pml84
Newsnight
BBC 2, 6th January 2014
At 26:50 into the programme, Professor Margaret MacMillan and Professor Richard Evans debate whether we have a left-wing view of the First World War, directly challenging the education minister, Gove's opinions about BlackAdder and the teaching of history which he published in the Daily Mail earlier in the week (for text, see Journalism section below):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03pdgs6
The WFA responds to the debate about how the Great War should be commemorated
Sky News, Monday 6th January 2014
Western Front Association Trustee Richard Hughes is interviewed on Sky News and contributes the WFA's perspective to the debate about Michael Gove's comments on the teaching and remembrance of the Great War.
Baldrick Calls Gove's Blackadder Remarks 'Silly'
Sky News, Monday 6th January 2014
Sir Tony Robinson criticises Michael Gove for suggesting the comedy teaches schoolchildren "left-wing myths" about World War One.
http://news.sky.com/story/1190526/baldrick-calls-goves-blackadder-remarks-silly
WW1 Cemetery At Heart Of Commemorations
Sky News, Sunday 5th January 2014
Video and supporting article detailing the news that the graveyard where the first and last British soldiers to be killed in the First World War are buried will be the focus of centenary memorial events.
http://news.sky.com/story/1190367/ww1-cemetery-at-heart-of-commemorations
Michael Gove and the 'left-wing myths of WW1'
Channel 4 News, Friday 3rd January 2014
Admiral Lord West and Professor Richard Evans discuss Michael Gove’s criticism that "Left Wing" World War One commemorations are "designed to belittle Britain and its leaders".
http://www.channel4.com/news/catch-up/display/playlistref/030114/clipid/030114_4ON_GOVENEW_03
LECTURES, PODCASTS AND DEBATES: FILMS AVAILABLE ONLINE
TNA podcasts - War and Peace Conference
British Genes Blog, Saturday 02 August 2014.
The National Archives at Kew (www.nationalarchives.gov.uk) has released a bonus round of podcasts in the form of an entire conference themed on the First World War.
http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/tna-podcasts-war-and-peace-conference.html
Science and war
The Guardian, 26 July 2014
Science and war have a complex relationship, mediated by technology and politics. Some thoughts on an excellent lecture by Jon Agar
http://www.theguardian.com/science/life-and-physics/2014/jul/26/science-and-war
Michael Morpurgo on the first world war – books podcast
The Guardian, Friday 04 July 2014
The creator of War Horse explores how the first world war still looms large in our imagination with members of the Guardian Children's books site
http://www.theguardian.com/books/audio/2014/jul/04/michael-morpurgo-first-world-war-podcast
Michael Morpurgo: why we should remember the first world war – children's books podcast
The Guardian, Tuesday 01 July 2014.
Michael Morpurgo explains to site members Orli and Fernando why he writes about war. Plus hear Michael read a moving contribution from Raymond Briggs for his WW1 anthology Only Remembered
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/audio/2014/jul/01/michael-morpurgo-world-war-podcast
Max Hastings tells @jamieowenbbc why #ww1 was not a futile war
BBC Radio Wales audioboo, Tuesday 25 February 2014.
Journalist and historian Max Hastings argues that the First World War was completely unavoidable - because of Germany's ambition to dominate Europe.
https://audioboo.fm/boos/1947881-audio-max-hastings-tells-jamieowenbbc-why-ww1-was-not-a-futile-war
The First World War: The Debate
British Library, Monday 24 february 2014.
A filmed debate with History Today at the British Library, in which leading historians debated the origins of the war and how it should be commemorated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvr7UJI47UM
Margaret MacMillan - The Changing Nature of European War Between 1815 and 1914
Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, Friday 14 February 2014.
A video of a presentation by Professor Margaret MacMillan, followed by a panel discussion chaired by Professor Chris Clark with the following respondents; Professor Holger Afflerbach (University of Leeds); Professor Lieven (University of Cambridge); Dr Annika Mombauer (The Open University); Professor David Stevenson (LSE); Professor Thomas Otte (University of East Anglia).
BBC World War One
BBC Radio podcasts from BBC National, Local, Regional and World Service Radio including documentaries exploring the causes, politics and impact of WW1 and its legacy.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ww1
Paxman on World War One Podcast
History Extra, Thrusday 23 January 2014.
Jeremy Paxman discusses Britain in the First World War.
http://www.historyextra.com/podcast/paxman-world-war-one
How Europe went to War in 1914
Lecture by Professor Christopher Clark, held at the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset), Oslo. Saturday 23 November 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1yJo-g5cH8&feature=youtube_gdata_player%20
Preventing another Great War: Lessons from 1914
Margaret MacMillan lecture, hosted by Brookings Institution, 7th November 2013.
Audio of MacMillan in conversation about modern conflict points and how world leaders must learn the lessons of 1914 and work together to build a more stable international order.
http://www.brookings.edu/events/2013/11/07-great-war-lessons-1914
First World War Commemoration, transcript from House of Commons Debate
Transcript form the House of Commons Debate, 7th November 2013, discussing the commemoration of the First World War.
Blood + Chocolate - The Web Stream
Pilot Theatre, Slung Low and York Theatre Royal production. Uploaded Thursday 17 October 2013.
The full performance of Blood + Chocolate as streamed on October 17th 2013, with optional captions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DgqP6TqHSo
July 1914 Crisis Lecture
Historian Vernon Bogdanor delivers a lecture entitled "Diplomacy: Sir Edward Grey and the Crisis of 1914" at the Legatum Institute in London, Thursday 26 September 2013.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03mtlps/July_1914_Crisis_Lecture/
The Origins of World War I
Lecture by Professor Christopher Clark at the 'The First World War as a turning-point in the European history' conference in Doorn, on the 21st September 2013.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRIdt75wEnE
First World War: the hundred years view
A filmed panel discussion focussing on commemorating the First World War. Panellists include; Lesley Katon, Creative Director of Pagefield; Sir Hew Strachan, Chichele Professor of the History of War, University of Oxford; Paul Lay, Editor ofHistory Today; and Kevin Rooney, Head of Social Science & Deputy Head of Queen’s School Sixth Form, Bushey.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCBPbUH3mHM&list=PLUJGOCM8cUJk-aQ7wBBhuVscAUbAFy4nP&index=3
First World War: New Perspectives
University of Oxford Podcasts, 29 Oct 2012 - 18 July 2013.
A series of short introductory talks from experts in the field presenting new perspectives on the First World War.
http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/first-world-war-new-perspectives
BLOGS
Parramatta and World War One
A series of blog posts and diaries of Parramatta people and events 100 years to the day that they happened.
http://arc.parracity.nsw.gov.au/projects/parramatta-and-world-war-one-blog/
The ‘White Warfare of the South’: Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition and the First World War
The History of Parliament Blog, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
This week the country is marking the 100th anniversary of Britain’s entry into the First World War. As Dr Robin Eagles, Senior Research Fellow in our House of Lords 1660-1832 section, explains, this was rather unfortunate timing for the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton.
Innocence: Coda
Blueglass Boy blog, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
This is a follow-up to personal reflection based on family photographs taken during one long weekend, in the year 1914.
http://blueglassboy.wordpress.com/2014/08/05/innocence-coda/
The pioneers who mapped WW1 battlefields
Ordnance Survey, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
A blog about ITV’s Simon Parkin exploring the aerial photography and modern surveying techniques during the war.
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/blog/2014/08/the-pioneers-who-mapped-ww1-battlefields/
East End Soldiers Of World War One
Spitalfields Life, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
A blog with biographies of individuals from the East End who served in the conflict. These photographs are selected from those gathered by Tower Hamlets Community Housing for their exhibition which runs until 29th August at 285 Commercial Rd.
http://spitalfieldslife.com/2014/08/05/east-end-soldiers-of-world-war-one/
World War One in the Classroom
Beyond the Trenches, Monday 04 August 2014
A blog about a research project that has considered secondary schools in England as sites of cultural knowledge transmission and the way that teaching the history and literature of the war has contributed to the way in which the war is remembered.
http://beyondthetrenches.co.uk/world-war-one-in-the-classroom/
Jessica Meyer’s Letter to an Unknown Soldier
Beyond the Trenches, Monday 04 August 2014
In this guest post, marking the British declaration of war on 4th August 1914, Dr Jessica Meyer of the University of Leeds addresses herself to the unknown soldier in the statue at London Paddington, and to the many others who lost their lives in the conflict.
http://beyondthetrenches.co.uk/jessica-meyers-letter-to-an-unknown-soldier/
The Manchester Courier takes a different view of World War One
British Newspaper Archive, Monday 04 August 2014.
"The Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, like other British newspapers, reported that Britain joined the First World War on 4 August 1914. The Courier makes for especially fascinating reading because it reported the news in a very different way."
4-10 August 1914: The Outbreak of War
ww1wandsworth, Monday 04 August 2014
Blog post about the days following the outbreak of war in Battersea.
http://ww1wandsworth.wordpress.com/2014/08/04/the-outbreak-of-war/
REMEMBERING THE FORGOTTEN WAR: KOREAN VETERANS AND THE POWER OF PUBLIC MEMORY
History Matters Blog, Monday 04 August 2014
A blog about how "we often fail to recognise the contribution of more recent veterans. While they fought for the same values and many of the same reasons as generations before, they remain obscure and largely forgotten figures."
How should we commemorate wars? Lessons from the nineteenth century
History and Policy, Monday 04 August 2014
A post about the wider questions of how and why wars should be remembered.
Prime Ministers in the First World War
History of Government Blog, Monday 04 August 2014
A blog about the prime ministeral responses to war.
https://history.blog.gov.uk/2014/08/04/prime-ministers-in-the-first-world-war/
Living in World War One Britain
RightMove blog, Monday 04 August 2014
To commemorate the event, Rightmove takes a look at what it would have been like to live in Edwardian Britain at the outbreak of war.
Innocence
Blueglass Boy blog, Saturday 02 August 2014.
This is a personal reflection based on family photographs taken during one long weekend, in the year 1914.
http://blueglassboy.wordpress.com/2014/08/02/innocence/
The war that was meant to end all wars, but did not
Michael Meacher Blog, Saturday 02 August 2014.
A reflection on the First World War.
http://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2014/08/the-war-that-was-meant-to-end-all-wars-but-did-not/
Remembering the Centenary of the Outbreak of the First World War
Jean Bull's Writing Blog, Saturday 02 August 2014
http://jeanbullswritingblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/remembering-centenary-of-outbreak-of.html
World War One – How did the Eastern Front differ from the Western Front?
History is Now Magazine Blog, Saturday 02 August 2014
"The Eastern Front in World War One is often largely unknown to many Westerners. The situation there was quite different to that on the Western Front. Here, Rebecca Fachner writes about the spark that caused war to break out".
Cartoon: The War to End All Wars
The English Blog, Friday 01 August 2014.
A post from an educational blog that provides teaching resources.
WW1: The hidden story of soldier’s mutinies, strikes and riots
Left Foot Forward, Friday 01 August 2014.
An article arguing that in 1919, Britain came close to a workers’ and soldiers’ uprising but it’s not a story the official WW1 commemoration wants to highlight.
http://leftfootforward.org/2014/08/ww1-the-hidden-story-of-soliders-mutinies-strikes-and-riots/
How did the first world war actually end?
Channel 4 Blog, Friday 01 August 2014.
Paul Mason writes about how and why did the First World War ended.
http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/world-war/1240
How World War One changed the car you drive today
Car Wow Blog, Friday 01 August 2014.
With the centenary of the outbreak of war on 4 August 1914 Car Wow looks at the car firms with the most prominent connections to the First World War.
http://www.carwow.co.uk/blog/Car-Companies-World-War-One-027
LOVE LETTER FROM A WORLD WAR ONE SOLDIER
Forces War Records Blog, Friday 01 August 2014.
A blog about a love letter sent to Forces War Records by the relatives of a soldier who died during the Arras Offensive.
Lord Northcliffe – The Press baron at the heart of World War One.
JOMEC, Thursday 31 July 2014.
A blog about "the press baron of that era with whom Murdoch can on many levels be compared: Alfred Harmsworth, the 1st Lord Northcliffe."
Remembering World War One
Alan Ranger Photography, Thursday 31 July 2014.
A blog focussing on poppies and the The Royal British Legion plans to plant rows of bright and colourful poppies in the grounds of Lydiard Park.
http://www.alanranger.com/alan-ranger-blog/2014/7/31/remembering-world-war-one
World War One: Every Man Remembered Database Launched
Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter Blog, Thursday 31 July 2014.
The Royal British Legion is working with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to keep alive the memory of those who fell in the First World War, for future generations. The goal is to commemorate every man and woman from across the Commonwealth who fell. A total of 1,117,077 service personnel from what was then the British Empire died in the war, which began in 1914.
http://blog.eogn.com/2014/07/31/world-war-one-every-man-remembered-database-launched/
Slideshow: Military Life in London during the First World War
History Today Blog, Thursday 31 July 2014.
A collection of photographs by Christina Broom, the UK's first female press photographer, showing military life in London during the First World War.
http://www.historytoday.com/blog/2014/07/slideshow-military-life-london-during-first-world-war
Rightmove launches Then & Now – An interactive journey around World War One Britain
Rightmove Blog, Thursday 31 July 2014.
To commemorate 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War, Rightmove has created ‘Then & Now’, an interactive journey into the past told through archive photos and Google Street View.
The Great War: A Conflict From Another World
History Today, Tuesday 29th July 2014
A blog post by Editor Paul Lay
http://www.historytoday.com/blog/2014/07/great-war-conflict-another-world
A Century On, the First World War Casts a Long Shadow across the Middle East
Hurst Publishers, Monday 28 July 2014
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen considers the lasting impact of the First World War on the Middle East
http://www.hurstpublishers.com/century-first-world-war-casts-long-shadow-across-middle-east/
The Enduring Words of War
fifteeneightyfour, the blog of Cambridge University Press, Wed 23 July 2014.
The Great War left behind a legacy of pain, suffering, and anger. The writers who captured it tell a heartbreaking story of a generation lost to war.
http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2014/07/notes-from-the-battlefield/#sthash.9CLd5xw6.dpuf
New Virtual Exhibition: “To My Peoples!”
Europeana Blog, Wed 23 July 2014.
Together with the Austrian National Library and Google Cultural Institute, Europeana have created a new virtual exhibition to commemorate the First World War. Based on the physical exhibition curated by renowned historian Univ.-Prof. Dr. Manfried Rauchensteiner, aspects of the First World War’s history are presented in seven chapters and illustrated by material accessible through Europeana.
http://blog.europeana.eu/2014/07/new-exhibition-to-my-peoples/
The (Army) Lives of WW1
Europeana Blog, Tuesday July 8, 2014
The (Army) Lives of WW1 is a new Pinterest board by Europeana to commemorate the beginning of World War One. All the images are sourced from the Europeana 1914-1918 website.
http://blog.europeana.eu/2014/07/the-army-lives-of-ww1/
How anti-slavery hero ED Morel became public enemy no.1 in the first world war
NO GLORY, Wednesday 25 June 2014
The acclaim ED morel received for exposing slavery and corruption in the Congo changed when in 1914 he became Britain's most effective anti-war campaigner
Music behind barbed wire in World War One
British Library, Sat 21 June 2014.
A blog about music and internment in WW1.
WORLD WAR ONE IN OUR OWN WORDS: MAY 1914
British Red Cross, May 30 2014.
Blog about the British Red Cross volunteers who were fundraising and competing to be crowned the champions of first aid skills during WW1.
http://blogs.redcross.org.uk/world-war-one/2014/05/in-our-own-words-may-1914/
British Pathe wireless films from World War One
Innovating in Combat: telecommunications and intellectual property in the First World War, Thursday 22 May 2014.
A blog featuring Pathe's films from the First World War.
http://blogs.mhs.ox.ac.uk/innovatingincombat/british-pathe-wireless-films-world-war-one/
Mapping for War and Peace
Ordnance Survey, Tuesday 20 May 2014
"Ordnance Survey has a surprising history, because as Britain’s national mapping authority, today’s suppliers of business intelligence were originally charged with gathering military intelligence."
http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/about/news/2014/mapping-war-peace.html
Complex Yet Energising Art of Collective Remembrance
Academic IT: Education Enhancement Team blog, Thursday 01 May 2014.
Blog post reflecting on how research projects that explore meaningful ways to commemorate the war can offer public platform so that others can gain from it.
http://blogs.it.ox.ac.uk/eet/2014/05/01/complex-yet-energising-art-of-collective-remembrance/
From Hampton Wick to the turmoil of the Western Front…via Romford
IN TO JOURNEY'S END AND BEYOND - THE RC SHERRIFF PROJECT BLOG, Thursday 01 May 2014.
An introductory blog about R C Sherriff Project cataloguing Sherriff’s papers.
http://www.exploringsurreyspast.org.uk/sherriff-blog-1/
Letters of the First World War: “Terrible goings on”
Wednesday 30th April 2014.
Blog posting the letters of Rifleman Stephen Brown, 17, to his mother.
http://www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/blog/terrible-goings-on/
World War I, Prisoner of War Camps, and the forgotten wartime history of Denby
The History Nest blog, Wednesday 30th April 2014.
Blog post about Denby's industrial and First World War history.
Saddling up on the front line with the Lancashire Hussars
The Feast Bowl, Tuesday April 29 2014.
The Lancashire Hussars will be performing at Wartime Experience on Sunday 11 May at National Museum of Flight, East Fortune.
http://feastbowl.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/saddling-up-on-the-front-line-with-the-lancashire-hussars/
Oxford University Press during World War I
OUP Blog, Saturday 26 April 2014.
A blog about how the "very settled life" of Oxford University Press was turned upside down at the outbreak of the First World War
WORLD WAR I CHARACTERS BRING EXHIBITION TO LIFE
Woburn Abbey Blog, Friday April 25 2014.
Blog post about the Valiant Hearts exhibition and World War I characters they brought to life.
http://www.woburnabbey.co.uk/abbey/abbey-today/blog/easter-character-days/
ANZAC Day – 25 April
The British Newspaper Archives, Thursday April 24 2014.
The British Newspaper Archives mark ANZAC Day with an interesting story from ‘The Western Daily Press’ of October 1916, regarding the plethora of marriage proposals that ANZAC soldiers received during World War One.
http://blog.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/2013/04/24/anzac-day-25-april/
Student helps to highlight contribution of Sikh soldiers in first World War
Asian Image, Thursday April 24 2014.
A student is take part in a major project by the UK Punjabi Heritage Association to document the role of Sikh soldiers in World War One.
Dating and Identifying Soldiers in First World War Photographs
Doing Our Bit blog, Monday 24 March 2014.
A blog offering assistance on how to trace soldiers fro mthe First World War. List bosoks and links that are useful.
Shot at Dawn
Oxford Arts Blog, Monday 24 April 2014.
Award-winning photographer and Ruskin School of Art graduate Chloe Dewe Mathews will present a series of images focusing on the sites of 300 executions for desertion.
http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/arts-blog/shot-dawn
Advertising the War – Your Country Needs You!
The Europeana Blog, Monday 24 April 2014.
A blog about the EFG1914 project, launched by the European Film Gateway to digitise and bring together films and film-related materials from 21 European film archives in an online portal accessible to everybody.
http://blog.europeana.eu/2014/04/advertising-the-war-your-country-needs-you/
Reading War: a new literacy and learning site for WW1
Barrington Stoke, Monday 24 April 2014.
A blog marking the launch www.readingwar.co.uk, an online resource packed with information on World War 1. The site explores the themes of the novels Over the Line by Tom Palmer and Tilly’s Promise by Linda Newbery, covering topics including soldiers in the trenches, football and football battalions, nursing and the Home Front.
http://www.barringtonstoke.co.uk/blog/2014/04/24/reading-war-new-site-full-resources-ww1/
Foot-slogging in the desert
National Library of New Zealand Blog, Tuesday 22 April 2014.
A blog post that describes and shows examples of the photographs taken by the ‘vest pocket’ cameras that could fit inside a soldier’s pocket.
http://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/foot-slogging-in-the-desert
The somme Still Flows
Invisible Works Blog, Tuesday 22 April 2014.
Reflection on the experiences of those men who left civilian life tio jojn the army in the First World War.
http://www.norwichghosts.co.uk/pages/about-2/
TRUE STORIES FROM WWI: THE CRIMSON FIELD AND OUR PYJAMAS
British Red Cross Blog, Friday 18 April 2014
To accompany the BBC series The Crimson Field, the British Red Cross Blog is sharing some First World War stories, letters and diaries from their archives. This post explores the meticulous detail of the programmes' costume designs.
TRUE STORIES FROM WWI: THE CRIMSON FIELD AND HOSPITAL FOOD
British Red Cross Blog, Friday 11 April 2014
To accompany the BBC series The Crimson Field, the British Red Cross Blog is sharing some First World War stories, letters and diaries from their archives. This post explores "sheep-brain soup, ‘egg flip’ and what happens when your cook can’t cook."
Blog: Some things you can do to mark the WW1 centenary
whatson-greentourism. Wednesday 09 April 2014.
A blog with suggestions about how to commemorate thewar.
TRUE STORIES FROM WWI: THE CRIMSON FIELD
British Red Cross Blog, Friday 04 April 2014
The British Red Cross Blog will be following the BBC series The Crimson Field with diaries, letters and photos from real Red Cross nurses. This post explores "rats, rules and hairy legs".
http://blogs.redcross.org.uk/world-war-one/2014/04/true-stories-from-wwi-the-crimson-field/
Four things we get wrong about World War I
The Coversation, Wednesday 02 April 2014.
An article about the dominant myths of the First World War.
https://theconversation.com/four-things-we-get-wrong-about-world-war-i-24990
Professor Gary Sheffield blogs about the UK's 'lights out' Centenary plan
Centenary News, Wednesday 02 April 2014.
Professor of War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, Gary Sheffield, has blogged about an initiative which calls on Britons to turn off their ligths to mark the Centenary.
http://www.centenarynews.com/article?id=1566
Call for 'lights out' across UK on August 4 to mark First World War Centenary
Centenary News, Friday 28 March 2014.
People across the UK will be invited to commemorate the First World War Centenary by turning off their lights on 4th August 2014, the 100th anniversary of Britain declaring war on Germany. The project has been announced as part of an official programme of cultural events marking the Centenary, called 14-18 NOW.
http://www.centenarynews.com/article/?id=1550
COMMEMORATING WORLD WAR ONE: LIGHTS OUT!
Forces War Records, Friday March 28 2014.
A blog post about the mass public event backed by the Government to commemorate the centenary i na way that will echo Sir Edward Grey's famous epitaph "the lamps are going out all over Europe".
https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/blog/2014/03/28/commemorating-world-war-one-lights-out
Bellewaarde 1915 - the Attack of The 1st Battalion, Honourable Artillery Company, 16th June 1915
Illustrating the Great War, Wednesday 19 March 2014.
A drawing of the Attack of The 1st Battalion, Honourable Artillery Company, 16th June 1915 by Tim Fox-Godden.
http://illustratingthegreatwar.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/bellewaarde-1915-attack-of-1st.html
Royal Mail First World War Database Goes Live
The British Postal Museum, Monday 17 March 2014
Royal Mail has published a searchable database of war memorials in its care as part of its First World War Centenary commemorations.
http://www.postalheritage.org.uk/page/royal-mail-first-world-war-memorials-database-goes-live
Blog: Introducing and educating students about the Great War
QA Education Blog, Monday 17 March 2014.
A reflection on the centenary commemorations and the educational material being produced.
ROYAL MAIL'S FIVE-YEAR PROGRAMME TO COMMEMORATE THE GREAT WAR
Norvic Philatelics Blog, Monday 17 March 2014.
Royal Mail will issue a landmark series of Special Stamps each year from 2014 to 2018 to commemorate the Great War. The set will feature 30 stamps, with six being produced each year. The first set of stamps will be issued in July this year.
http://blog.norphil.co.uk/2014/03/royal-mails-five-year-programme-to.html
Myth, Memory and the Great War: the Strange Case of Henry Williamson
Jonathan Boff, Thursday 13 March 2014.
A reflection on the BBC releasing a series of interviews conducted in 1963 for the Great War TV series and the highlights of13 interviews being cut together into a documentary, ‘I Was There’ (Friday 14 March 2014).
Shakespeare and Stratford in World War 1
The Shakespeare Blog, Monday 10 March 2014.
A blog about Shakespeare and the First World War
http://theshakespeareblog.com/2014/03/shakespeare-and-stratford-in-world-war-1/
Tis Pity He’s A Law (Unto Himself)
John David Blake, Sunday 02 March 2014.
A blog post reflecting on the BBC's cross-format debate about whether Britain was right to fight in World War One.
http://johndavidblake.org/2014/03/02/tis-pity-hes-a-law-unto-himself/
#ww1 #bbcww1 Debate Fri 28 Feb 2014: A Few Thoughts
Jonathan Boff, Saturday 01 March 2014.
A blog post reflecting on his experience of the BBC's online debate about whether Britain was right to fight in World War One, which took place on Friday 28 February 2014.
http://jonathanboff.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/ww1-bbcww1-debate-fri-28-feb-2014-a-few-thoughts/
Fire away!
Europeana blog, Monday 24 February 2014.
A blog post containing interesting photographs of soldiers and animals interactin gwith cannons during 1915.
http://blog.europeana.eu/2014/02/fire-away/
A Letter From Home
Illustrating the Great War blog, Friday 21 February 2014.
An individual post from a blog containing drawings by Tim Fox-Godden that depict soldiers and the environments of the First World War.
http://illustratingthegreatwar.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/a-letter-from-home.html
I Came Out Willingly To Serve My King & Country
Paul Reed for his Somme Battlefields blog, Sunday 16 February 2014.
A blog post offering an insight into the history of Eric Rupert Heaton, a soldier in World War One. It includes a teanscript of Heaton's last letter home before his death.
http://somme1916.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/i-came-out-willingly-to-serve-my-king-country/
Soldiers’ experiences of World War I in photographs
OUP Blog, Saturday 15 February 2014.
A selection of photographs taken from The Great War: A Combat History of the First World War by Peter Hart
WW1 - what a decent Secretary of State for Education would do
Michael Rosen, Thursday 06 February 2014.
This blog offers a criticism of Michael Gove's approach to commemorating World War One by presenting a new strategy. Rosen states that current digital platforms offer a unique opportunity to have an instant European-wide debate about the First World War.
http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/ww1-what-decent-secretary-of-state-for.html?spref=tw
Europeana 1914-1918 website relaunched!
Europeana blog, Wednesday 29 January 2014.
Blog post about the Europeana 1914-1918 online resource which now brings together resources from three major European projects each dealing with different types of First World War material.
http://blog.europeana.eu/2014/01/europeana-1914-1918-website-relaunched/
Jeremy Paxman: Britain’s Great War
Paul Reed, Monday 27 January 2014.
A blog post about the BBC's launch of Britain’s Great War, the criticism it has generated prior to broadcast, and the hope that it will generate interest and discussio namongst audiences.
http://ww1centenary.net/2014/01/27/jeremy-paxman-britains-great-war/
A First World War scheme of work – very early sketch of ideas
The Kenradical School of History, Sunday 26 January 2014.
A history teacher's blog post detailing a revised scheme of work focussed on the First World War.
From the office: Appealing against conscription
Who Do You Think You Are blog, Thursday 23 January 2014.
Sarah Williams, editor, responds to the The National Archives' release of 8,000 conscription appeal records.
http://www.whodoyouthinkyouaremagazine.com/blog/magazine-team/office-appealing-against-conscription
Thousands of conscription appeal records made available online by the UK National Archives
1914.org, Thursday 23 January 2014.
Post about the National Archives making the digitised records of over 8,000 individuals seeking exemption from conscription into the Army in Middlesex during the First World War available online.
Music Hall – not just a lovely war?
jimjepps for objectingtowar, Tuesday 21 January 2014.
A blog post examining the influence of the music hall during World War One.
http://objectingtowar.wordpress.com/2014/01/21/music-hall/
Storify: BBC iWonder Guides
Rob Lee @monkeyhelpr, Sunday 19 January 2014.
A curated timeline of the responses to the BBC's iWonder WW1 Guides found on Twitter.
http://storify.com/rjlee/bbc-iwonder-guides
War commemorations and politics: Lessons from the nineteenth century
Karine Varley for History and Policy, January 2014
An article examining the different purposes that politicians and historians have when engaging with historical narratives.
http://www.historyandpolicy.org/opinion/opinion_135.html
Dealing With the ‘Blackadder’ View of the First World War: The Need for an Inclusive, Bi-Partisan Centenary
Professor Gary Sheffield for RUSI Analysis, Monday 13 Jan 2014.
"In this personal reflection, historian Gary Sheffield argues that it is not too late to disentangle the Centenary of the First World War from crude partisan politics."
http://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C52D3C5B606225/#.UtZcwvRdWSr
Shot at Dawn
George Campbell Gosling, Monday 13 January 2014.
This post examines a debate that features within one of the author's seminars: whether or not the government was right in 2006 to grant a blanket pardon to the 306 men ‘shot at dawn’ by the British Army.
http://gcgosling.wordpress.com/2014/01/13/shotatdawn/
The Complex Origins of the First World War
Sam Fowles for History Today, Monday 13 January 2014.
An article exploring why there is no single definitive cause for Europe’s collective decision to fight in 1914.
http://www.historytoday.com/blog/2014/01/complex-origins-first-world-war
Michael Gove, Tristram Hunt, the Labour Party & the First World War: a note
kmflett, Sunday January 12 2014
A blog post that both agrees with Tristram Hunt's criticism of Gove's view that the left didn't support the war. The post also acknowledges that Hunt failed to mention that a significant sections of the left it did not support the war.
Lions led by donkeys?
Clio et cetera, Saturday 11th January 2014.
This post looks at the recent debates about how the First world War should be commemorated from the perspective of a history teacher, identifying the important role schools play in determining the historical consciousness of the country.
http://clioetcetera.wordpress.com/2014/01/11/lions-led-by-donkeys/
WW1 Centenary: ANZACS – Remembering We Forget?
Paul Reed, Friday 10 January 2014
A response a published article on an Australian news website that claims the British government will not sufficiently commemorate the efforts of troops from Australia or New Zealand.
http://ww1centenary.net/2014/01/10/ww1-centenary-anzacs-remembering-we-forget/
Lions Led by Donkeys, Pageants made by Patriots
Jvieira for Historicalpageants.ac.uk, Thursday 9 January 2014.
An article addressing a concern that current debates surrounding commemoration don’t reflect or allow space to engage with the many complex ways in which people reacted to the war.
http://www.historicalpageants.ac.uk/blog/lions-led-by-donkeys/
A War of Conscience
History on the Dole blog, Monday 6 January 2014.
A blog post responding to Michael Gove’s comments documented in the Daily Mail.
http://historyonthedole.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/a-war-of-conscience/
Of historians and politicians
Jessica Meyer, Armsandthemedicalman blog, Monday 6 January 2014.
A blogpost exploring the comments made by Michael Gove about the commemorations of the First World War and how they neglect the personal narratives that display the range of complex reasons that men fought in the war.
http://armsandthemedicalman.wordpress.com/2014/01/06/of-historians-and-politicians/
WW1 Centenary: Blackadder A War Crime?
Paul Reed, Monday 6 January 2014.
This blogpost discusses the politicisation of debates surrounding the commemoration of the First World War (following Michael Gove's comments in the Daily Mail) and representations of the war in television and theatre.
http://ww1centenary.net/2014/01/06/ww1-centenary-blackadder-a-war-crime/
Britons prefer solemn centenary to marking Great War victory
British Future blog, Sunday 5 January 2014.
Blog post discussing results from the Do Mention The War report which looked at the public understanding of the First World War.
http://www.britishfuture.org/blog/britons-prefer-solemn-commemoration-to-marking-great-war-victory/
2014: Dawn of the Great War Centenary
Paul Reed, Saturday 4 January 2014.
This post anticipates the upcoming commemorative broadcast material and articulates a desire to see "genuinely" new content and ideas within these.
http://ww1centenary.net/2014/01/04/2014-dawn-of-the-great-war-centenary/
History National Curriculum: Gove on ‘Start the Week’
A response piece to the BBC's Start the Week programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Monday 30 December 2013, which discussed the history curriculum. Tuesday 31st December 2013.
http://www.guywoolnough.com/history-national-curriculum-gove-on-start-the-week/
Having fun with Hansard
Hatful of History blog, 24 November 2013.
A blog post about the author’s search for popular culture references in the Houses of Parliament. Baldrick fromBlack Adder hasbeen mentioned in both Houses of Parliament 17 times since 1990.
http://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2013/11/24/having-fun-with-hansard/
Poppies and Remembrance Sunday: Multicultural and Multifaith Britain Joins In
Royal United Services Institute, Friday 8 November 2013.
Drawing on research from the thinktank British Future, the article identifies the importance of exploring the roles that commonwealth troops had during World War One.
http://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C527D0DA2105A6/#.Un-BP_m-1Th
Charity and the First World War
George Campbell Gosling, Saturday 14 September 2013 (Originally posted on the VAHS blog 29 April 2013).
A post that acknowledges the increasing recognition of charity and volunteer work that existed within the wider war effort.
http://gcgosling.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/charity-and-the-first-world-war/
Open Letter: How should we remember the First World War?
No Glory in War 1914-1918, written on Wednesday 14 August 2013.
An open letter declaring the collective's dissaproval and concern that the government's funding of the commemorations will neglect narratives that remember the human loss and suffering.
http://noglory.org/index.php/open-letter
REMEMBERING THE FIRST WORLD WAR
By Amy Ryall for the University of Sheffield’s History Matters blog. Tuesday August 6th 2013.
A blogpost which calls for greater understanding of the complex histories of the Great War.
http://www.historymatters.group.shef.ac.uk/remembering-world-war/
JOURNALISM
A number of critical and dissonant voices responded to announcements of Government and broadcasting plans for commemorating the First World War. These articles directly respond to proposed plans and also interrogate the areas, the tone and the ways that World War One is often remembered publicly.
For all of the BBC News coverage of the First World War commemorations click below
http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=world%20war%20one&video=on&audio=on&text=on
Spectra: the dazzling column of light over London
The Guardian, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
"After eight months of secrecy, a jaw-dropping pillar of light shot into the London sky last night to commemorate the first world war. Sean O'Hagan was given exclusive access to the artist and his artwork at the nerve-racking trial run."
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/aug/05/ryoji-ikeda-spectra-first-world-war-artangel
Britain switches off lights to commemorate WWI victims 100 years on
France 24, Tuesday 05 August 2014
"Lights across Britain switched off for an hour on Monday night in a tribute to the dead of World War One inspired by the prophetic observation of Britain’s foreign minister on the eve of war 100 years ago."
http://www.france24.com/en/20140805-britain-lights-commemorate-wwi-victims-100-years-westminster/
First world war centenary: we're slow to learn war's lessons, Peter Cosgrove says
The Guardian, Tuesday 05 August 2014
Australian governor general makes comments at Glasgow Cathedral service to mark 100 years since outbreak
First world war: newspaper editors bow their heads in remembrance
The Guardian, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
Roy Greenslade on how the national titles covered the great war centenary
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/aug/05/firstworldwar-national-newspapers
The Guardian view on the first world war commemorations
The Guardian, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
Editorial: Where was the great historic statement that the people of this and other countries abhor the prospect of war in Europe?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/05/guardian-view-first-world-war-commemorations
Europe has a duty to Gaza
The Guardian, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
Shirley Williams: Civilian suffering shocked the public in the first world war, but we have become numb to it
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/05/europe-gaza-civilian-suffering-first-world-war
Our universities helped fuel this century of war
The Guardian, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
Higher education's inventions and ideas have been used in past conflicts, can we be a moral voice to challenge future ones?
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/aug/05/universities-help-fuel-century-of-war
On a peaceful evening, nations once at war stood in harmony
The Independent, Tuesday 05 August 2014
A calm evening light settled over Saint Symphorien cemetery in Mons yesterday as dignitaries, soldiers and families of the fallen gathered to mark the day the world plunged into darkness. Before them
TV review - Horrible Histories: Frightful First World War Special, CBBC
The Independent, Tuesday 05 August 2014
Horrible Histories: Frightful First World War Special is not, strictly speaking, last night's TV. It first aired on CBBC at 9am yesterday morning, but it would be remiss of me not to recommend an i
How the PM and I mourned the hero in our family: Harry Mount and second cousin David Cameron visits battlefield where their shared great uncle died in 1915
The Daily Mail, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
Francis Mount was 43 with a wife and two sons when he fell on the last day of the Battle of Loos in 1915, writes HARRY MOUNT.
DOMINIC SANDBROOK: The lesson our sabre rattling leaders can learn from the Great War carnage
The Daily Mail, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
The war was a catastrophe for Britain. We went from being the world’s biggest creditors to one of its greatest debtors, and lost our position as the greatest superpower.
We remember the cost of past wars but fail to learn the lessons
The Daily Express, Tuesday 05 August 2014
Ass we mark the start of the First World War politicians tell us we must learn the lessons it taught but they seem determined to do the opposite.
A precious moment, the Queen pays her personal respects to First World War heroes
The Daily Express, Tuesday 05 August 2014
THE Queen attended a service of commemoration for First World War soldiers at Crathie Kirk in Aberdeenshire yesterday.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/royal/495655/WW1-centenary-Queen-pays-her-respects
Nation pays tribute to the ‘sacrifice of a generation’
The Daily Express, Tuesday 05 August 2014
THE skies were grey over Glasgow yesterday morning as they quite likely were on the same August day exactly 100 years earlier when Germany invaded Belgium.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/495669/Nation-pays-tribute-to-the-sacrifice-of-a-generation
Newspaper round-up: A nation unites to remember those who gave their lives in WW1
The Daily Express, Tuesday 05 August 2014
A look at the day's front pages.
'War stopped play' cricket match to resume at The Lee
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014
A village cricket match that never finished due to the start of World War One is to be resumed this weekend.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-28655512
Cannon fire from Cowes marks first shot anniversary
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014
A cannon has been fired from the Isle of Wight to mark the 100th anniversary of the first shot fired at sea by the Royal Navy in World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-28656686
Tour of the factory making poppies for the Tower of London
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014
A tour of the factory in Derby where hundreds of thousands of ceramic poppies are being made for the World War One Memorial at the Tower of London
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28659671
World War One: Events held in Northern Ireland to mark centenary of start of war
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014
The head of the Anglican church in Ireland has said that commemorating the outbreak of World War One fuses sadness, pride and horror.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-28631002
World War One centenary dominates papers
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014
All the national newspapers record in some way on their front pages the way the UK marked the centenary of Britain's involvement in World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-28651964
World War One and its lasting legacy
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014
World War One lasted for four years and had an immense impact on British society. Fergal Keane reports on the legacy of the conflict.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28650811
1914: the Great War has become a nightly pornography of violence
The Guardian, Monday 04 August 2014.
The centenary has been seized as a military propaganda opportunity. So-called lessons learned have been ignored or forgotten
The truth about Ed Miliband's WW1 wreath message
The Independent, Monday 04 August 2014.
An article about how Twitter users were angered when Ed Miliband "apparently scrawled an insincere message on a wreath he put on the Cenotaph in Glasgow as part of today’s World War One centenary commemorations."
http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-truth-about-ed-milibands-ww1-wreath-message--xyH07upvMl
Ed Miliband's wreath was a mistake, but can we really call him unpatriotic?
The Independent, Monday 04 August 2014.
Article arguing that "questioning a leader's allegiance has always been an easy way to tarnish their image"
Ed Miliband writes First World War Centenary letter to Unknown Solider
The Independent, Monday 04 August 2014.
He was among 20,000 other people to memorialise those who died in the war by writing a letter
First world war commemorations - live coverage
The Guardian, Monday 04 August 2014.
Live coverage of Belgium's national commemoration ceremony in Liège, Glasgow's cathedral service to mark start of the war and peace rally in London.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2014/aug/04/first-world-war-commemorations-live-coverage-ww1
First World War Centenary: Brothers in arms and in death - the four who went to war
The Independent, Monday 04 August 2014.
The Independent's Robin Scott-Elliot pays tribute to his great-grandfather and his brothers, none of whom came back
First World War centenary: as it happened
The Daily Express, Monday 04 August 2014.
Follow the latest as royalty and political leaders from around the world join commemorations on the centenary of Britain's entry into WW1
Download The Yorkshire Post from August 1914
Yorkshire Post, Monday 04 August 2014
“ENGLAND declares war against Germany” was the matter-of-fact headline that greeted readers of The Yorkshire Post exactly 100 years ago. You can read it in full by downloading it as a PDF file.
Sombre TV moments filled a day when we were reminded of how war’s lessons are never learnt
The Independent, Monday 04 August 2014.
There was so much dignity in the generation that endured this horror
First World War Centenary: Glasgow switches from sporting triumph to sober recollection
The Independent, Monday 04 August 2014.
"From the ecstasy of sporting glory to the the hell and horror of remembered war."
A century after WW1, there is little danger of history repeating itself
The Independent, Monday 04 August 2014.
Article stating that "Tensions may be running rife around the world, but the stakes have become too high"
The first world war was about decadence as well as death
The Guardian, Monday 04 August 2014.
From 1914 to 1918 no fewer than 150 illegal nightclubs opened up in Soho alone. With new attitudes to gender and sex, the war might be regarded as a catalyst for positive social change
First World War Centenary: Powerful images that capture the moment cheering Europe heralded the declaration of war.
The Independent, Monday 04 August 2014
Photos make stark contrast with those from bloody battlefields in years that followed
First World War Centenary: Powerful photographs bring wartime Britain to life.
The Independent, Monday 04 August 2014
Composite images put moments from the conflict in the present day
First World War Centenary: Lights go out at 10pm across Britain to mark outbreak of war
The Independent, Monday 04 August 2014
Tower Bridge, Blackpool Tower and Cardiff Castle will go dark
First world war still has ability to shape Australia's future, says Tony Abbott
The Guardian, Monday 04 August 2014.
Prime minister describes conflict in which more than 60,000 Australian died as ‘a tragic waste, but it was for a good cause’
Why we need literature to remember the first world war
The Guardian, Monday 04 August 2014.
Teenage site member alannahbee argues that we need literature, not facts and figures, to help young people fully understand that the war was fought by people just like them
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/aug/04/first-world-war-remember-need-literature
This Remembrance Day, it's more important than ever that we remember the Great War
The Telegraph, Monday 04 August 2014.
When we come together to reflect this Sunday, let’s remember our duty to educate future generations of our forebears’ sacrifices, says Sayeeda Warsi.
The lamps begin to go out
The Telegraph, Monday 04 August 2014.
Britain went to war on August 4 1914. In the third part of a four-day series, we document the dramatic events leading up to the declaration of war as they happened, hour-by-hour
First world war centenary: 'the lamps are going out all over Europe'
The Guardian, Monday 04 August 2014.
Candlelit vigils among commemorations to be held in tribute to the millions who died during four years of warfare in Europe.
French and German presidents hold joint First World War ceremony in Alsace
The Telegraph, Monday 04 August 2014.
Francois Hollande and Joachim Gauck embrace on Hartmannswillerkopf mountainside, known to soldiers as 'The Man-eater' and scene of a stalemate that claimed 30,000 lives
Never seen before, the Queen at prayer in her private chapel: Monarch remembers the war dead - including her mother's beloved brother - in Crathie Kirk
The Daily Mail, Monday 04 August 2014.
Queen Elizabeth II attended a local service close to Balmoral at Crathie Kirk in Aberdeenshire, while Prince Philip was at Sandringham Church in Norfolk.
Cameron leaves elegant hand-written note on WW1 wreath while Ed Miliband is ridiculed for 'pathetic' and 'distasteful' scrawl - but were he and Clegg stitched up?
The Daily Mail, Monday 04 August 2014.
The note, scrawled with a black marker, was left at the Cenotaph in Glasgow yesterday and has been branded 'pathetic' and 'distasteful'.
The night the lights went out across Britain: Young royals bow their heads as millions take part in moving tributes to the fallen - exactly a century since WWI was declared
The Daily Mail, Monday 04 August 2014.
Homes, businesses and public buildings across the UK were asked to leave on a single light or candle to commemorate the moment then-prime minister Herbert Asquith declared Britain had entered the First World War at 11pm on August 4, 1914.
FORMER ENEMIES 'FRIENDS AND ALLIES'
The Daily Mail, Monday 04 August 2014.
The Duke of Cambridge marked the 100th anniversary of Britain's entry into the First World War and said: "We were enemies more than once in the last century, and today we are friends and allies."
Former enemies unite for World War I commemoration
The Daily Mail, Monday 04 August 2014
Article focussing on how former enemies united on 4th August to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I.
The modern-day Wipers Times: Newspaper produced by British troops for their comrades in bid to keep up morale in the trenches is recreated
The Daily Mail, Monday 04 August 2014
A newspaper inspired by the historic Wipers Times created by First World War soldiers has been recreated to mark the centenary of the First World War
WAR 'PROFOUNDLY CHANGED OUR WORLD'
The Daily Mail, Monday 04 August 2014
The First World War "profoundly changed our world", Prime Minister David Cameron said as he paid tribute to the sacrifice made by those who lost their lives.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2715294/WAR-PROFOUNDLY-CHANGED-OUR-WORLD.html
Maggot-infested trenches and taking rifles from dead comrades: The haunting stories from soldiers in Australia's most iconic WWI photograph as the world marks 100 years since the start of the bloody conflict
The Daily Mail, Monday 04 August 2014
James Rule was 24 when he joined the Western Australian Imperial Regiment and embarked for Northern Africa in 1914. After training in Egypt, he was deployed to Gallipoli where he quickly learnt the difficulty of war.
'On a summer's day 100 years ago, the world changed': Prince Charles and David Cameron lead Glasgow Cathedral commemoration to mark Britain entering the First World War
The Daily Mail, Monday 04 August 2014
One hundred years to the day since Britain entered the First World War a series of events are being held in Britain and abroad to remember the glorious dead.
World War One: The war that changed women’s lives
France 24, Monday 04 August 2014
In this programme, France 24 take a look at women's unsung contribution to World War One.
http://www.france24.com/en/20140801-the-51-percent-world-war-one-women-bombgirls-gamers-afghanistan/
WWI centenary: Remembering those executed by their fellow soldiers
France 24, Monday 04 August 2014
"The French army executed about 650 soldiers for such things as disobedience and desertion - twice as many as the British army and more than 12 times that of the German military. Now, 100 years on, French families are fighting to restore the honour of their ancestors." Programme prepared by Elise Duffau and Patrick Lovett
HARRY UNVEILS WW1 MEMORIAL ARCH
The Daily Mail, Monday 04 August 2014
Blazing sunshine welcomed Prince Harry as thousands of people turned out to commemorate millions of men and women who travelled to and from the Western Front.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2715520/HARRY-UNVEILS-WW1-MEMORIAL-ARCH.html
In war and peace, Britain can be proud
The Telegraph, Monday 04 August 2014.
Plans have been unveiled to mark the centenary of the start of World War I. An article arguing that "the world is unimaginably more prosperous and peaceful now than in 1914. For its role in building that peace and prosperity, this nation can be justifiably proud."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11009364/In-war-and-peace-Britain-can-be-proud.html
'We salute those who died to give us our freedom. We will remember them': William and Kate join global commemorations to honour the brave men who fought in the trenches exactly 100 years after Great War began
The Daily Mail, Monday 04 August 2014.
Prince William and his wife's first appearance today was in Liege, Belgium
1914: The day World War One broke out...how we reported the outbreak 100 years ago
The Daily Express, Monday 04 August 2014.
"EVERYONE wanted to make the most of the early August Bank Holiday of 1914. Cloudless skies, warm sunshine and the gentle, refreshing breeze that makes English summer days so special, meant it was a long weekend to enjoy."
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world-war-1/495282/WW1-The-conflict-that-altered-everything
'We will remember them' William, Kate and Harry honour Britain's heroes
The Daily Express, Monday 04 August 2014.
THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, along with Prince Harry, joined world leaders today in Belgium to mark 100 years since Britain entered the First World War.
Prince Harry unveils memorial as part of WW1 centenary commemorations
The Daily Express, Monday 04 August 2014.
PRINCE Harry today unveiled a memorial arch and laid a wreath to commemorate the thousands of soldiers who marched through a port town on their way to war, only to never return.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world-war-1/495485/WW1-centenary-Prince-Harry-unveils-memorial-in-Kent
Harry Patch: The stirring words of Britain's 'last fighting Tommy'
The Daily Express, Monday 04 August 2014.
"WAR isn't worth one life," Harry Patch - the man nicknamed "the last fighting Tommy" - said before his death on July 25, 2009.
'Disrespectful': Ed Miliband under fire for 'awful' message on poppy wreath
The Daily Express, Monday 04 August 2014.
ED Miliband has come under fire for laying a wreath of remembrance poppies, which had a "disrespectful" message attached.
Memories of the First World War 1914 to 2014
The Independent, Sunday 03 August 2014
The war was fought with good cause. But a spirit of vengeful nationalism corrupted the peace, and lives on today
First World War Centenary: Could this be the most moving ceremony of all?
The Independent, Sunday 03 August 2014
Both German and British dead lie in the Saint Symphorien cemetery in southern Belgium
My father threw away his poppy in disgust
The Independent, Sunday 03 August 2014
"My family was haunted by my father’s experience on the Somme and the loss of his friends. Why do we pay homage to the dead but ignore the lessons of their war?"
Declaration of war... but the show goes on
The Independent, Sunday 03 August 2014
"It took a while for the county game to come to terms with the conflict in the summer of 1914 – but then W G Grace stepped in."
French president marks World War I centenary
Yahoo News, Sunday 03 August 2014
French President Francois Hollande commemorated the 100th anniversary of World War I on Sunday with an appeal to players in the Gaza conflict to put animosities aside
http://news.yahoo.com/french-president-marks-world-war-centenary-125714062.html
Inside the brothels that served the Western Front: How one First World War soldier found love in the arms of a French sweetheart
The Independent, Sunday 03 August 2014
"Theirs was an impossible relationship – the Welsh officer and his young French sweetheart. Yet when Lieutenant William Morgan's granddaughter discovered a biscuit tin of photographs from the Great War, it wasn’t the shots of their affair that shocked."
First World War centenary: When the Albert Hall went to war
The Independent, Sunday 03 August 2014
A quarter of its staff enlisted to fight, but there was also important work to be done by the rest.
A foreign secretary's pyrotechnic display of mixed signals that sentenced 800,000 British soldiers and sailors to death
The Independent, Sunday 03 August 2014
Historians are split over what Sir Edward Grey thought he was doing in early 1914. In any event, it was fatal
PM criticised over RAF trips at our expense: Cameron accused of wasting taxpayers' money after flying home one day into holiday to attend Commonwealth Games closing ceremony and World War I commemorations
The Daily Mail, Sunday 03 August 2014.
David Cameron was flown home from Portugal by the Royal Squadron so he could attend the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.
The Depths of Hell: 1914-1918
France 24, Sunday 03 August 2014.
International commemorations have begun to honour all those who fought and died in World War One. France 24 looks back at the main moments of World War One along the Western Front, examining the major battles of Verdun and the Somme but also looking at the innovations the war incited.
http://www.france24.com/en/20140801-reporters-1914-1918-ww1-the-depths-of-hell-world-war-one/
CATHEDRAL SERVICE FOR WAR CENTENARY
The Daily Mail, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Dignitaries from across the Commonwealth have been gathering in Glasgow Cathedral for a service to commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2715307/CATHEDRAL-SERVICE-FOR-WAR-CENTENARY.html
WAR CEREMONIES IN UK AND BELGIUM
The Daily Mail, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Royalty, political leaders and families of the fallen will unite in Belgium and the UK today in marking 100 years since Britain entered the First World War.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2715084/WAR-CEREMONIES-IN-UK-AND-BELGIUM.html
Mons prepares to mark centenary at place where first and last British soldiers fell
The Guardian, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Kevin McKenna makes an emotional journey to Belgium's Saint-Symphorien military graves, the final resting place of both British and German dead
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/03/mons-war-centenary-british-soldiers
Tower Of London marks WWI centenary with dramatic art installation
The Metro, Sunday 03 August 2014.
The Tower Of London has marked the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War with a striking art installation. Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red by Paul Cummins features thousands of ceramic poppies pouring out of the tower flowing into the moat and will officially be unveiled on August 5.
FIRST WORLD WAR ANNIVERSARY MARKED
The Daily Mail, Sunday 03 August 2014.
More than 1,100 people including dignitaries from around the Commonwealth have attended a service to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2715464/FIRST-WORLD-WAR-ANNIVERSARY-MARKED.html
1914 Goodbye to All That: Writers on the Conflict Between Life and Art review – war reimagined from different vantage points
The Guardian, Sunday 03 August 2014.
An international group of essayists consider our awkward obsession with commemorating war
Time to honour the first world war’s peacemakers
The Guardian, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Thousands said no to the call up and killing of the first and second world wars – many were tortured and some died as a result
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/03/time-honour-first-world-war-peacemakers
Ghosts of soldiers: memories of my grandfather's first world war service
The Guardian, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Seymour Norton-Taylor continued to suffer pain from crude amputations, but never talked of the event that almost killed him
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/03/seymour-norton-taylor-first-world-war-service-memories
In Flanders Fields, a century on: Trenches, shell-scarred forests and rows of recovered shells still preserved on Ypres battlefield as Europe gathers to remember the start of the conflict
The Daily Mail, Sunday 03 August 2014.
In a corner of the battlefield dubbed Sanctuary Wood sheltering soldiers, relics can be seen 100 years on, as memorial services were planned across the UK.
CHRISTMAS TRUCE MATCH RE-ENACTED
The Daily Mail, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Article about how one of the most recognised moments of the First World War was re-enacted by professional football veterans
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-2714878/CHRISTMAS-TRUCE-MATCH-RE-ENACTED.html
The first to fall: Mystery remains over death of 17-year-old British soldier who was killed just two weeks after the start of WWI
The Daily Mail, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Teenager John Parr was the first British soldier to die in the war, which would end up taking the lives of almost a million more of his countrymen before it ended in 1918.
Could this bullet-proof vest have changed history? Replica of silk jacket said to be owned by Archduke Franz Ferdinand whose assassination sparked WWI is tested by experts
The Daily Mail, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Researchers at the Royal Armouries in Leeds hope to find out whether the Great War could have been stopped by a silk vest.
The lights go out... PM and Royal Family lead nation's candle tributes to Great War dead
The Daily Mail, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Prime Minister David Cameron is urging people to turn off all the lights in their homes except one lamp or candle between 10 an 11pm tomorrow evening to remember those who died in WW1.
The Guardian view on the lessons the first world war has for today
The Guardian, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Editorial: Should we be worried about the parallels between the state of the world in 1914 and the international situation today?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/03/guardian-view-lessons-first-world-war-today
First world war centenary: Monday's events
The Guardian, Sunday 03 August 2014.
A full list of the events that are taking place on Monday 4 August to mark 100 years since Britain declared war on Germany
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/03/first-world-war-centenary-mondays-events
French and German presidents mark 100 years since start of first world war, Joachim Gauck and François Hollande embrace
The Guardian, Sunday 03 August 2014.
François Hollande and Joachim Gauck embrace at monument in Alsace where remains of 12,000 soldiers are interred
Mons prepares to mark centenary at place where first and last British soldiers fell
The Guardian, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Kevin McKenna makes an emotional journey to Belgium's Saint-Symphorien military graves, the final resting place of both British and German dead
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/03/mons-war-centenary-british-soldiers
French and German leaders mark WW1 anniversary
BBC News, Sunday 03 August 2014.
The French and German presidents have commemorated the 100th anniversary of Germany's declaration of war on France on 3 August 1914.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28628335
100 years ago: The disturbed spirit of the day
The Guardian, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 5 August 1914: The ripening, sun-browned corn, the placid cattle grazing in the fields, the beauty of the fertile summer land...
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/aug/03/country-diary-disturbed-spirit-of-the-day-1914
World War One commemorated in events across UK
BBC News, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Services and events have been held across the country on the eve of the centenary of the UK's entry into World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28631147
Isle of Man holds WW1 centenary service
BBC News, Sunday 03 August 2014.
A service of commemoration will be held in the Isle of Man on Sunday to mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-isle-of-man-28441831
Friesthorpe church bells to ring for Beechey brothers killed in WW1
BBC News, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Three restored church bells will ring together for the first time in 100 years to remember five brothers killed in World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-28605337
Australian War Stories project researches individual tales of our First and Second World War soldiers
News.au.com, Sunday 03 August 2014.
A book publishing venture, which narrates the personal wartime experience of men and women who served their country in World War I and World War II, is today being launched by the Australian Associated Press (AAP).
Brothers in Arms: 'hypnotic and humbling'
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
A review of the ITV documentary focusing on the recollections of First World War veterans.
BBC Proms War Horse review: 'movingly elegiac'
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
A review about the 'beautiful reimagining' of Michael Morpugo's classic story at this year's proms.
Stumbling through the fog of war
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Strict military censorship covered up much of what was really happening in the trenches, says Michael Nicholson
Leaders pay tribute to WWI fallen
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
French President Francois Hollande and his German counterpart Joachim Gauck pay emotional tributes to the millions of soldiers who died during World War I, exactly 100 years after Germany declared hostilities against France
French and German presidents hold joint First World War ceremony in Alsace
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Francois Hollande and Joachim Gauck embrace on Hartmannswillerkopf mountainside, known to soldiers as 'The Man-eater' and scene of a stalemate that claimed 30,000 lives
Britain owes a debt of gratitude to the Commonwealth
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
As we work for peace, prosperity and human rights, we need the Commonwealth as much as ever, writes Hugo Swire
Palace where Kaiser declared First World War to be rebuilt
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Building in the heart of Berlin to be reconstructed as Germany reaches deep into its past
WWI women at work: In pictures
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Rare images of women working during the First World War
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11006588/WW1-women-at-work-In-pictures.html
A mother’s anguish over the first man to fall
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
John Parr’s death is shrouded in mystery but a ceremony in Belgium on Monday honours his memory, and his family’s quest for the truth
A musical tribute to the First World War enemies who now lie at peace
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
The small, evocative cemetery at Saint-Symphorien in Belgium will be the poignant setting for a British and German musical commemoration of shared sacrifices
August 3 1914: the countdown to cataclysm across the world
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
The build-up to hostilities of the First World War was met with joy in Berlin, disinterest in France, disbelief in America and fear in Russia
The First World War still touches Britain
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
An article arguing that the lost lives we commemorate have added meaning in light of the troubles of today
August 3 1914: the countdown to cataclysm
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Pre-war Edwardian Britain was not a happy place, says A N Wilson. Millions lived in overcrowded city slums, unable to earn enough to feed their families, Ireland was a tinderbox and suffragettes were dying
How the First World War changed motoring
The Telegraph, Sunday 03 August 2014.
Despite the carnage, technological advances and greater use of motorised vehicles revolutionised post-war society
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/11008552/How-the-First-World-War-changed-motoring.html
Whitehall medal snub for millions of veterans on eve of First World War centenary
The Telegraph, Saturday 02 August 2014.
Exclusive: Millions of veterans of the British Armed Forces are denied a medal to recognise their service on the eve of the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War
Never forget the bravery and the selfless sacrifice
The Telegraph, Saturday 02 August 2014.
Commentary: As Britain prepares to remember, Sajid Javid, the Culture Secretary, on why we should never forget
Great War Diaries, BBC Two, review: 'a bland blancmange'
The Telegraph, Saturday 02 August 2014.
This dramatised account of the First World War could have done with a smidge less self-importance, says Gerard O'Donovan
The Red Arrows: Inside the Bubble; The Secret History of Our Streets; Great War Diaries – TV review
The Guardian, Saturday 02 August 2014.
A documentary about the Red Arrows never really took off, but Glasgow's Duke Street and first world war diaries provided gripping narratives, writes Phil Hogan
The Muslims who fought for Britain in the first world war
The Guardian, Saturday 02 August 2014.
Presentation at Living Islam festival points up role of 400,000 from pre-partition India who fought on Britain's side
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/02/muslim-soldiers-first-world-war
First world war: how the Manchester Guardian fought to keep Britain out of conflict
The Guardian, Saturday 02 August 2014.
A hundred years ago this weekend, on the eve of war, the newspaper argued passionately in a series of editorials for UK neutrality
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/02/sp-first-world-war-manchester-guardian-uk-neutrality
Home Front: Radio 4's first world war drama will fight out the full four years
The Spectator, Saturday 02 August 2014.
The ambitious new series, Home Front, will run from 2014 and 2018, creating ‘a patchwork of impressionistic stories from the war’
Jingoism was only one front in Kipling’s war
The Telegraph, Saturday 02 August 2014.
The Nobel laureate was not the reactionary figure of popular prejudice – his works should be celebrated this year, says Andrew Lycett
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/11005978/Jingoism-was-only-one-front-in-Rudyard-Kiplings-war.html
WWI: The lost gardeners of Heligan
The Telegraph, Saturday 02 August 2014.
A series of events tomorrow commemorates the workers who left the idyllic Lost Gardens of Heligan in Cornwall for the First World War trenches
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/11007666/The-lost-gardeners-of-Heligan.html
River retreat of the man who took Britain to war
The Telegraph, Saturday 02 August 2014.
Every year, Adrian Graves, great-great-nephew of Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary at the outbreak of World War One, comes to the river on which his ancestor fished to pay a personal tribute. Joe Shute joins him ahead of the centenary commemorations
Great War Diaries: a global remembrance
The Telegraph, Saturday 02 August 2014.
BBC Two's Great War Diaries is a commemorative drama with a difference, says Toby Dantzic
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11002864/Great-War-Diaries-a-global-remembrance.html
The road to war: Germany's ultimatum to Belgium
The Telegraph, Saturday 02 August 2014.
Britain went to war on August 4 1914. In the second part of a four-day series, we document the dramatic events leading up to the declaration of war as they happened, hour-by-hour
World War One in numbers: the shocking figures behind the slaughter
The Telegraph, Saturday 02 August 2014.
As World War One Centenary commemorations get underway, the Telegraph takes a look at the conflict in figures. The human cost of the War is laid bare in the massive numbers of soldiers maimed or killed
Pictures of the week: first world war prison camps, by John Ritson
The Guardian, Friday 01 August 2014.
David Pallister inherited an extraordinary box of glass slides from his grandfather who worked for Colonel John Ridley Ritson. The pictures reveal a life of relative luxury for officers interned in first world war prison camps
World War One: rare archive footage from the start of war in 1914
The Telegraph, Friday 01 August 2014
From the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914 to Britain’s declaration of war on Germany in August of that year, the Telegraph looks at the momentous events which defined the The Great War.
World War One biplanes dogfight in the skies above New York
The Telegraph, Friday 01 August 2014
Video articleIt has been a century since the First World War began but the sights and sounds of war aircraft are recreated regularly at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in the US state of New York.
Germany’s Great War commemorations are filled with shame
The Independent, Friday 01 August 2014
Article arguing that "for many, the ‘Ur-Katastophe’ of 1914-18 only ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989."
Imagine... it’s 2014 and the drums of war are beating again
The Independent, Friday 01 August 2014
"We don't know what World War Three might look like, but here's my calculated guess."
Hearts, the team that went to war for Britain
The Independent, Friday 01 August 2014
Heart of Midlothian started the 1914-1915 season with a 2-0 victory over Celtic after giving their all. The players went on to give even more on a foreign field, many sacrificing their lives for King and country.
Lost portraits of the Somme: 100 images of Tommies posing before they went over the top. Now can you help to identify them?
The Independent, Friday 01 August 2014
A cache of a local photographer's portraits has come to light in a study.
Royal Mint issues £20 coin to commemorate first world war
The Guardian, Friday 01 August 2014.
Mint produces 250,000 coins, which will be available at face value but could become a collectors' item
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/aug/01/royal-mint-20-pound-coin
First world war altar frontal back at St Paul's Cathedral
The Guardian, Friday 01 August 2014.
Historic cloth embroidered by injured soldiers is on display for first time since second world war bombing of London
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/01/first-world-war-altar-frontal-st-pauls-cathedral
Editorial: England's duty
The Guardian, Friday 01 August 2014.
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 1 August 1914: Russia has ordered a general mobilisation, Germany has proclaimed martial law throughout the Empire and may begin at any moment now to mobilise
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/01/englands-duty-1914
Australia missed the memo about start of first world war, archives reveal
The Guardian, Friday 01 August 2014.
Cable from Britain was mistaken for a routine message before being passed to Australian prime minister, who couldn’t decode it
Interactive Map Offers Global View of the First World War
History Today, Friday 01 August 2014.
A new interactive map launched today by The National Archives shows the global reach of the First World War, highlighting key people and places often overlooked when considering the history of the conflict.
http://www.historytoday.com/blog/2014/08/interactive-map-offers-global-view-first-world-war
Silver £20 coin produced to mark 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War
The Daily mail, Friday 01 August 2014
A £20 silver coin to commemorate one hundred years since the outbreak of the First World War has been produced by the Royal Mint.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2712981/COIN-COMMEMORATES-FIRST-WORLD-WAR.html
The catastrophe approaches
The Guardian. Thursday 31 July 2014
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 1 August 1914: Europe is very near war. Last night even the firmest friends of peace were almost without hope
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/31/catastrophe-approaches-war-1914
Millions of Britons do not know what their ancestors did in the First World War
The Daily Express, Thursday 31 July 2014.
THE lauded poet Laurence Binyon famously wrote that Britons would never forget the sacrifice of those who laid down their lives for our freedom in the Great War.
Gaiety girls go to war
The Daily Express, Thursday 31 July 2014.
THE tradition of glamorous singers going to battle zones to entertain the troops began during the First World War and continues to this day.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world-war-1/493901/Gaiety-girls-go-to-war
5 News's Andy Bell retraces his grandfather's steps on the First World War battlefields
The Independent, Thursday 31 July 2014
Andy Bell only knows his grandfather from the compelling diary he kept during the war. But when he returned to the killing fields where Edwin Vaughan suffered so much, his ancestor came to life
We will remember them: relatives still honour those who fought in the Great War
The Independent, Thursday 31 July 2014
Any direct connection with the conflict has gone but we’re not ready to consign it to history, says John Lichfield
In Europe 1914 every leading player had his hand on a smoking gun
The Guardian. Thursday 31 July 2014
Richard Norton-Taylor: For Britain’s leaders the run-up to the first world war was marked by love letters and visits to the zoo – their complacency stands as a shocking lesson for us today
First world war ministers were warned of ‘eternal stalemate’ in January 1915
The Guardian. Thursday 31 July 2014
Cabinet papers show Lloyd George despairing of ‘throwing away’ Kitchener’s citizen army as cabinet colleagues searched for a ‘blow to end the war once and for all’
World War One Centenary: Your stories
BBC News, Thursday 31 July 2014.
On Monday 4th August the BBC is marking the anniversary of the outbreak of World War One by crowdsourcing stories and photos to feature as part of BBC News coverage on the anniversary.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-28584147
Commemorative events to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War.
The Ministry of Defence, Thursday 31 July 2014.
On Monday 4 August, events across the UK and in Belgium will take place to remember the start of the First World War 100 years ago. MOD will be covering the events on social media so you can stay updated throughout the day.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/100-years-on-lest-we-forget
Siegfried Sassoon's moving poems and diary entries from the frontline of the First World War go online for the first time
The Daily Mail, Thursday 31 July 2014.
The diaries of Siegfried Sassoon, including his Soldier's Declaration and poem 'They', are to be put online by the University of Cambridge for the first time.
Timewarp: Photographs from WWI combined with images from today
The Daily Mail, Thursday 31 July 2014.
Scenes from Britain and northern France have been made into composites, comparing 1914 with the present day, to mark the centenary of the First World War.
Lest we forget: Sacrifices of more than 1million soldiers lost to history as quarter of Britons don't know what their ancestors did in the First World War
The Daily Mail, Thursday 31 July 2014.
An estimated 7.5million Britons are in the dark about their military heritage, according to Ancestry.co.uk, which says over a million soldiers have been 'forgotten'.
Hedd Wyn: poetry that echoes from the first world war
The Guardian, Wednesday 31 July 2014.
Hedd Wyn was born on a farm in Gwynedd and died with half a million others in the battle of Passchendaele. In between he wrote some of Wales's most moving poetry. Laura Barton visits his home – and meets the relative who keeps his memory alive
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/30/hedd-wyn-welsh-poet-first-world-war
Germany drifting into war against her will
The Guardian, Wednesday 30 July 2014.
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 30 July 1914: News has been received that steps of mobilisation have been decided upon in Russia as will make it necessary for Germany under her treaty with Austria to put her own army on a war footing
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/germany-war-austria
Extraordinary story of injured WWI soldier saved at Gallipoli by brother... before sheet was placed over him by nurses who then noticed movement and realised he was alive
The Daily Mail, Wednesday 30 July 2014.
Montague Parish, of London, was hit by a sniper’s bullet during a bayonet charge in 1915, before his brother Stanley went back to unknowingly save his life.
Great War 100 years: Anthony Seldon shares his grandparents' tale of love, loss and courage
The Daily Mail, Wednesday 30 July 2014.
As this week marks the centenary of Britain entering the Great War, Anthony Seldon (right) reflects on his grandparents' incredible tale of passion and suffering.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2711061/Love-loss-shadow-war.html
The peace of Europe depends upon the will of Russia
The Guardian, Wednesday 30 July 2014.
Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 20 July 1914: The peace of Europe depends upon the will of Russia. If she decides to support Servia in the field nothing can save Europe from a great war
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/30/russia-orders-out-her-troops
Great War Centenary marked in Leeds
The Ministry of Defence, Wednesday 30 July 2014.
The 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War was marked by a large military parade in Leeds, which marched through the city to a special commemoration service at Leeds Minster on Saturday.
http://www.army.mod.uk/news/26459.aspx
World War One anniversary: meet the man with a trench in his garden
The Telegraph, Thursday 30 July 2014.
Meet the military historian with a 60ft trench in his back garden, an exact replica of the British system of ditches in Ypres used during the First World War
Tests prove that a bulletproof silk vest could have stopped the first world war
The Guardian, Tuesday 29 July 2014.
The Royal Armouries has verified that silk has bullet-stopping capabilities – but Archduke Franz Ferdinand forgot to wear his the day he was assassinated, writes Maev Kennedy
War poets, a child soldier and poppies: Royal Mail to issue series of special stamps each year from 2014 to 2018 to commemorate First World War
The Daily Mail, Tuesday 29 July 2014.
The set will feature 30 stamps covering a number of themes associated with the Great War, from haunting images of no man's land to famous war poetry.
First World War: Stars back bid to remember EVERY Commonwealth serviceman who fell
The Daily Express, Monday 28 July 2014.
THE Royal British Legion has launched a campaign to help people pay tribute to each of the 1,117,077 Commonwealth servicemen and women who died in the First World War.
Magnificent Man in a Flying Machine: The 'finest' first World War work of Warren Merriam
The Daily Express, Monday 28 July 2014.
NO PARACHUTES, pilots taking pot-shots with rifles from their cockpits, and life expectancy measured in weeks - our fledgling First World War air force was a shambles until Warren Merriam came along
'Why did you been fighting?': The moving letters to the Unknown Soldier of World War One written by today's children as young as four
The Daily Mail, Monday 28 July 2014.
Thousands of children write personal letters to an Unknown Soldier
Church to mark the real centenary of the start of First World War
The Independent, Monday 28 July 2014
Service will commemorate the initial declaration of war by Austria-Hungary against Serbia that ultimately led to all the other declarations of war by the other great powers
First world war – a century on, time to hail the peacemakers
The Guardian, Monday 28 July 2014.
On the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War, we should remember those who tried to stop a catastrophe
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/28/first-world-war-century-anniversary-peacemakers
The Bullingdon Club 1914: From the Queen's uncle to a Russian prince, they belonged to the wild Oxford dining society. Within four years, a quarter would die in the trenches
The Daily Mail, Monday 28 July 2014.
This rare photograph carries an altogether greater poignancy - within a few weeks of the picture being taken in 1914, those 24 men’s futures evaporated as the world went to war.
Harrowing photos show the horror of the First World War
The Daily Mail, Monday 28 July 2014.
These archive images show in vivid detail the brutal conflict which began 100 years ago to the day when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, with unimaginable
World War One battle which saw Germany inflict critical defeat on Tsarist Russian invasion force is recreated almost 100 years on (except now the battlefield is in modern Poland)
The Daily Mail, Sunday 27 July 2014.
The engagement between the Russian Second Army and the German Eighth Army took place in the early days of the First World War in modern-day Poland.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2707550/Key-World-War-I-battle-enacted-Poland.html
Thousands take to streets of Liverpool to tell the story of the Pals Battalions of World War One (assisted by three giant puppets of a girl, a granny and a dog)
The Daily Mail, Sunday 27 July 2014.
Tens of thousands took to the streets to watch the giants touring the city, telling the story of the volunteers who joined up in 1914.
Just a poetic day: Stars read line each from WW1 poem for Perfect Day video tribute
The Mirror, Sunday 27 July 2014.
To mark 100th anniversary of outbreak of war, some of UK's best-loved stars have helped the Sunday Mirror create a moving tribute
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/just-poetic-day-stars-read-3921019#ixzz39O7Cu1uh
First world war: how state and press kept truth off the front page
The Guardian, Sunday 27 Jul 2014
Roy Greenslade: Threatening journalists with arrest seems unthinkable now – but that was just one of the obstacles they faced at the start of WW1
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jul/27/first-world-war-state-press-reporting
Witness to war: 1914-18 remembered in personal photographs and journals
The Guardian, Sunday 27 Jul 2014
To commemorate the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war, our readers have been contributing to GuardianWitness the photos, diaries and journals of their relatives. Here is a selection of the best – from the mundanity of life at the front to the full horror of battle.
http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2014/jul/27/witness-to-war-1914-18-remembered
Graphic World War One etchings discovered a century after French ban
The Telegraph, Sunday 27 July 2014
The ten images chronicle 'the rape of Belgium', a campaign of murder, pillage and rape inflicted on civilians by the German Army.
'Find a reason to go to war with Germany': Shocking letter documents how King George V urged his foreign secretary to justify conflict two days before outbreak of First World War
The Daily Mail, Saturday 26 July 2014.
The incredible note, sent during one of the most difficult times in British history has been made public by Adrian Graves.
Mateship, courage... and squalor: Amazing photographs of WWI Diggers reveal the horrid reality of Gallipoli, one of Australia's bloodiest battlefield
The Daily Mail, Friday 25 July 2014.
As a commemoration of the First World War centenary, the Australian War Memorial released the 39 images on Friday. Photos from the travelling exhibition - A Camera on Gallipoli - were taken by Melbourne surgeon Charles Ryan while he was serving with the Australian Imperial Force in Turkey in 1915.
Mystery of First World War officer's portrait solved as researchers discover he was a teenager killed by a shell at the very beginning of the conflict
The Daily Mail, Friday 25 July 2014.
For years the painting of the unknown soldier hung in Carmarthen County Museum in Wales but no one knew his name or if he survived the horror of the First World War.
Rarely seen postcards show how Britain's king of saucy seaside humour McGill turned his hand to the First World War effort
The Daily Mail, Friday 25 July 2014.
Known for his saucy seaside postcards, Donald McGill produced more than 1,500 patriotic efforts to boost morale in the First World War.
A global guide to the first world war - interactive documentary
The Guardian, Wednesday 23 July 2014
Ten historians from 10 countries give a brief history of the first world war through a global lens. Using original news reports, interactive maps and rarely-seen footage, including extraordinary scenes of troops crossing Mesopotamia on camels and Italian soldiers fighting high up in the Alps, the half-hour film explores the war and its effects from many different perspectives. You can watch the documentary in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Arabic or Hindi thanks to our partnership with the British Academy.
Warning: contains images some viewers may find disturbing
WW1: Was it really the first world war?
BBC News, Tuesday 29 June 2014
Article examining whether it was it really a global war? And was it really the "first"?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28057198
World War One centenary: statue to assassin who sparked Great War unveiled
The Telegraph, Sunday 27 June 2014
Serbian leaders unveil a life size statue of the young radical, Gavrilo Princip, whose assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, sparking World War One
Untold stories of the war
The Guardian, Saturday 26 July 2014
Jeremy Paxman, Michael Morpurgo, Pat Barker and other writers tell some of the surprising and heart-rending stories still emerging from the conflict
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/26/untold-stories-first-world-war-leading-writers
Top 10 artistic talents lost in the first world war
The Guardian, Thursday 24 July 2014.
24 Jul 2014: Jonathan Jones: The first world war coincided with one of the most creative periods in the history of art, and among all the other tragic losses, we should count the future masterpieces that we never got to see
The Germans resist a heroic view of war – if only we could
The Guardian, Thursday 24 July 2014.
Martin Kettle: In Berlin the first world war centenary carries a warning about nationalism and conflict. Britain prefers to ignore the awkward issues
Telling the story of the first world war with 2014 technology
The Guardian, Wednesday 23 July 2014.
The Guardian's special projects editor, Francesca Panetta, outlines how we created an innovative multimedia guide to the first world war.
http://www.theguardian.com/help/insideguardian/2014/jul/23/first-world-war-2014-technology
The first world war and the colour of memory
The Guardian, Tuesday 22 July 2014
Santanu Das: Eurocentric views of the conflict ignore the millions from across the globe who fought on the same side
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/22/first-world-war-whitewashed-eurocentric
How to teach… the first world war
The Guardian, Monday 21 July 2014
Teacher Alex Ogg shares a range of lesson resources to help you teach students about the war to end all wars and its centenary
http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/jul/21/how-to-teach-first-world-war
Imperial War Museum's film collection
The Guardian, Thursday 17 July 2014
Letters: Without the Imperial War Museum's film archive, TV series such as The Great War or The World at War would have been impossible
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jul/17/imperial-war-museums-original-war-footage
Prince William on local papers - they are trusted by their communities
The Guardian, Thursday 17 July 2014
He writes an article to launch centenary field initiative
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/jul/17/prince-william-local-newspapers
Imperial War Museum's new look at a century of warfare
The Guardian, Wednesday 16 July 2014
Museum reopens after £40m revamp by Foster + Partners, with a spectacular first world war gallery as its centrepiece
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/jul/16/imperial-war-museum-reopens-after-revamp-london
Imperial War Museum opens – in pictures
The Guardian, Tuesday 16 July 2014
After a huge transformation, the Imperial War Museum in London is reopening to the public this weekend
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2014/jul/16/imperial-war-museum-opens-in-pictures
London 'battle bus' used as first world war troop carrier to visit France again
The Guardian, Tuesday 16 July 2014
Bus restored by London Transport Museum is one of only four surviving examples of the open-top B-type bus
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/london-battle-bus-first-world-war-troop-carrier-france
The Daily Mail's 'historic 1914 edition' is not quite as billed...
The Guardian, Sunday 14 July 2014
An article questioning the historic accuracy and credibility of the Daily Mail's "historic 1914 edition of the Daily Mail."
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/jul/14/dailymail-firstworldwar
Public will see 1918 footage of George V visiting airbase for first time
The Guardian, Saturday 13 July 2014
Film will be part of a major first world war digitisation project for the Imperial War Museum
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/13/imperial-war-museum-george-v
Great War Centenary: Was 'jihadist' Serbia a rogue nation?
The Daily Express, Saturday 13 July 2014
POOR SERBIA. The country used to be "Plucky Little Serbia", the southern European mirror image of "Plucky Little Belgium", a small country that stood up to Teutonic bullying in the Great War.
One of only three surviving 'Lord Kitchener Wants You' First World War recruitment posters sells for world record £30,000
The Daily Mail, Thursday 11 July 2014.
One of only three surviving 'Lord Kitchener Wants You' First World War recruitment posters has gone under the hammer for a world record £30,000.
Watch LIVE coverage of World War I centenary commemoration at Paris’s Bastille Day parade
Euronews, Thursday 11 July 2014.
France’s annual Bastille Day parade in Paris on July 14 will commemorate 100 years since the start of World War I with representatives of all the countries involved in the Great War invited to attend.
The lights to go out across the UK to mark first world war's centenary
The Guardian, Wednesday 10 July 2014
Buildings across the country will be plunged into darkness 100 years to the hour after Britain declared war on Germany
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/10/lights-out-lamps-mark-first-world-war-start
New websites to help families find graves of first world war dead
The Guardian, Monday 08 July 2014
Commonwealth War Graves Commission puts 300,000 original documents online for public viewing for the first time
Saving the bacon during the first world war
The Guardian, Sunday 07 July 2014
In a herd, one pig pokes his or her muddy snout through a wire fence 7 Jul 2014: Were vegetarian sausages invented during the first world war? Why did the German government slaughter 9 million pigs in 1915? Vanessa Heggie explores the surprising connections between war and pork products
http://www.theguardian.com/world/the-h-word/2014/jul/07/saving-the-bacon-during-the-first-world-war
July 1914 crisis shows economic rebirth can be long and painful process
The Guardian, Sunday 06 July 2014
Without tackling underlying problems, the near collapse of the global economy can breed conditions for the next disaster
Great War Centenary: Kaiser's 'blank cheque' for war
The Daily Express, Sunday 06 July 2014
"SOME damned foolish thing in the Balkans.” Such was Otto von Bismarck’s prediction in 1888 as to the event that would one day trigger a European war.
The Machine Gun and Skye's Band of Brothers – TV review
The Guardian, Saturday 05 July 2014
Weaving together the story of the Maxim gun with that of a community ripped apart by the first world war brings brings home the weapon's devastating impact
Edith Cavell, British nurse executed in WW1, to be commemorated on £5 coin
The Guardian, Saturday 05 July 2014
Royal Mint to honour nurse shot by Germany for helping allied soldiers escape to Netherlands during first world war
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/05/edith-cavell-nurse-coin-first-world-war
First world war facts - quiz
The Guardian, Friday 04 July 2014
The author of 50 Things You Should Know about the First World War asks some frightful questions to test your knowledge of the
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/quiz/2014/jul/04/quiz-first-world-war-facts
Top 10 animal war heroes
The Guardian, Friday 04 July 2014
We know about War Horse, but what about Jackie the baboon or Sergeant Stubby the dog? Megan Rix applauds the animals which played a vital role in the first world war
Tony Bradman's top 10 books about the first world war
The Guardian, Thursday 03 July 2014
Tony Bradman recommends his top ten books about the conflict
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/jul/03/top-ten-childrens-books-first-world-war
Why should young people find out about the first world war?
The Guardian, Wednesday 02 July 2014
Ex-war reporter turned children's writer Rowena House has witnessed the horrors of conflict first hand, but nothing shocked her as much as reading Wilfred Owen's poetry when she was at school
How I adapted Private Peaceful for the stage and screen – in pictures
The Guardian, Tuesday 01 July 2014
Simon Reade tells the story of how and why he turned Michael Morpurgo's moving first world war novel about an ordinary young soldier into a stage play, a film and a radio play.
Remembering the Tour de France riders who died in the first world war
The Guardian, Tuesday 01 July 2014
Many of the early Tour de France champions who were killed in battle will be remembered at this year's race
A quest for truth: why I made Only Remembered
The Guardian, Tuesday 01 July 2014
Michael Morpurgo's new book for all the 10 million soldiers of the first world war who never grew old enough to know and be known by their children or their grandchildren
Michael Morpurgo: We are who we are now, in large part, because of the first world war
The Guardian, Tuesday 01 July 2014
The author of War Horse and Private Peaceful talks to site members Orli and JDBookGroup's Fernando about how writing about war helps him cope with his own feelings about it – and how for him pity always comes before patriotism
Irishmen and Indians, actors, comedians and working class boys: How Britain's World War One airmen came from every corner of the Empire to battle in the clouds
The Daily Mail, Monday 30 June 2014
Records released by National Archives reveal the history of the Royal Air Force in First World War.
What are the best first world war books for children?
The Guardian, Monday 30 June 2014
Authors including Michael Morpurgo, Melvin Burgess and Adele Geras recommend their favourite books for children and teens about the first world war – what would you add?
The Queen and Prince Philip pay tribute to First World War volunteers on the 100th anniversary of the shot that sparked the conflict
The Daily Mail, Saturday 28 June 2014
"The Queen has paid tribute to First World War volunteers today at the Royal Hospital Chelsea during a Solemn Drumhead Service of Remembrance"
If we care about Britain's future, we must not forget our past
The Guardian, Saturday 28 June 2014
Harry Leslie Smith: 100 years on from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand we should remind ourselves of the struggles our ancestors endured to ensure we have a decent life
Fighting talk: how Tommies found a common language in the trenches
The Guardian, Saturday 28 June 2014
First world war soldiers would fight side by side but often not share a language – so they invented their own
Unthinkable? What-if worlds
The Guardian, Friday 27 June 2014
Like futile fantasies of achieving a brilliant Scrabble score with just one different letter from those you've actually got, counterfactual history misses the point
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/27/unthinkable-what-if-worlds
Ernst Stadler: the German war poet's last post
The Guardian, Friday 27 June 2014
Stadler, like other German poets, responded with enthusiasm to the outbreak of the first world war, but there was no poetry to be found in the trenches.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/27/ernst-stadler-german-poet-first-world-war
Exhibition to tell story of forgotten British role in Battle of Marne
The Guardian, Friday 27 June 2014
Exhibition at French museum to tell story of 1914 battle which forced German retreat and prevented enemy from taking Paris
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/forgotten-british-role-battle-marne-france
Foreign Office to 'live' tweet key events leading up to the first world war
The Guardian, 27 June 2014
Special feed to mark 100th anniversary since archduke's fateful assassination will chart diplomatic traffic until declaration of war
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/foreign-office-tweets-archduke-events-100th-anniversary
Cameron and European leaders attend first world war ceremony in Ypres - video
The Guardian, Thursday 26 June 2014
European leaders including David Cameron and German chancellor Angela Merkel attend a ceremony in Ypres, Belgium, kicking off a two-day EU summit
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jun/26/cameron-merkel-europe-first-world-war-ypres-video
Blackadder characters found to have real-life military namesakes
The Guardian, Wednesday 25 June 2014
The stars of the BBC series share names with British soldiers who fought in the first world war
Thousands cycle through Sarajevo in race to promote peace - video
The Guardian, Sunday 22 June 2014
Thousands of cyclists ride through Sarajevo in a race organised by the Tour de France to promote peace 100 years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/jun/22/sarajevo-peace-cycle-tour-de-france-bosnia-video
Blackadder and company really did fight in World War One, records show
The Telegraph, Wednesday 25 June 2014
Captain Blackadder and the other characters from the hit BBC comedy had real-life namesakes who fought in the First World War, military records have shown
In pictures: Never before seen photographs from World War One frontline
The Telegraph, Wednesday 25 June 2014
World War One anniversary: what if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had lived?
The Telegraph, Saturday 21 June 2014.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated 100 years ago on Saturday - an event that triggered the First World War. But would conflict have occurred if he had lived, asks Tim Stanley
World War One: Children should bake 'trench cake' in memory of fallen relatives
The Telegraph, Tuesday 17 June 2014.
Young people should bake fruit cakes from rationed ingredients and local bands should perform First World War bandstand concerts, Government guidance on how to commemorate the centenary says.
Rugby's All Blacks honour WWI heroes in France
France 24, Wednesday 11 June 2014
"A European tour by New Zealand’s famed national rugby squad included on Wednesday an unusual stop: the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris, where players honoured the memory of former All Blacks who gave their lives during World War One."
A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: Lord Kitchener, father of the ‘New Army’, is lost at sea
The Independent, Monday 26 May 2014
Jamie Merrill on a naval disaster that spawned a host of conspiracy theories.
Broken gargoyles: the disfigured soldiers of the first world war
The Guardian, Monday 26 May 2014
The amputees, the blind and the shell-shocked formed the public, stoic face of Australia’s Great War ‘sacrifice’
Downton Abbey: 'Highclere Castle was a healing house during the war'
The Telegraph, Sunday 25 May 2014
Lady Carnarvon explains why she is inviting Germans to a commemorative First World War event at Highclere Castle, the 'home' of Downton Abbey
Meet the company behind our Remembrance poppies
The Telegraph, Saturday 24 May 2014
Producing paper poppies is an all-year operation, says Mark Cropper
Salisbury International Arts Festival diary - Day One
The Telegraph, Saturday 24 May 2014
Matthew Stadlen introduces this year's festival and is moved by a choral performance remembering those who fought in the First World War
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/10853927/Salisbury-International-Arts-Festival-diary-Day-One.html
How Downton Abbey's Highclere Castle became a World War One field hospital
The Telegraph, Saturday 24 May 2014
Lady Carnarvon explains the fascinating World War One history of Highclere Castle in Berkshire, as the estate prepares to mark the centenary of the Great War
Curiouser and curiouser: Lewis Carroll's Alice takes to the stage
The Guardian, Thursday 22 May 2014
Metta Theatre's interpretation of the children's story uses people and puppets to disappear down the rabbit hole of the first world war. Director Poppy Burton-Morgan discusses her inspiration
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/may/22/alice-in-wonderland-theatre-play-poppy-burton-morgan
First world war diaries reveal 'sports' played in the trenches
The Guardian, Thursday 22 May 2014
'Games programme' including pillow fights and other diversions among documents now published online by National Archive
Pillow fights and wheelbarrow races: life on the Western Front
The Telegraph, Thursday 22 May 2014
Newly released diaries show the lighter side to life on the Western Front during the First World War
A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: ‘The bomb had given him its full explosion’
The Independent, Wednesday 21 May 2014
A diary entry by Siegfried Sassoon conveys the texture of his traumatic experiences in the trenches
A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: ‘Dearest Win, I have a feeling that I shall not come back again’
The Independent, Tuesday 20 May 2014
Frank Bracey, of the Royal Garrison Artillery, was on leave and staying with his mother when he wrote this letter – to be opened in the event of his death
Johnny Got His Gun: adapting the 'unstageable' anti-war novel
The Guardian, Tuesday 20 May 2014
Director David Mercatali and actor Jack Holden explain how Dalton Trumbo's blistering diatribe has been brought to the stage
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/may/20/johnny-got-his-gun-first-world-war-play
Celebrities pay tribute to WW1 fallen at Chelsea Flower Show
The Telegraph, Monday 19 May 2014.
Rowan Atkinson among celebrities who read war poetry in a Chelsea Flower Show garden inspired by the First World War
Cast-iron insights into war as the enemy saw it
The Telegraph, Sunday 18 May 2014
The British Museum is displaying a small but astonishing selection of German medals until November 23.
Where have all the conscientious objectors in literature gone?
The Guardian, Thursday 15 May 2014
The Guardian celebrates Conscientious Objectors Day by tracking down literary conscientious objectors.
My father and uncle stood against the tide when they refused conscription
The Guardian, Thursday 15 May 2014
By caring for wounded soldiers in the first world war Chris Lawson'sy father sought to show that conscientious objection was not about cowardice
Petition for heroine war nurse to feature on £2 coin
The Telegraph, Thursday 15 May 2014
Around 100,000 people call for recognition for Edith Cavell, the British nurse sentenced to death for saving the lives of hundreds of soldiers
How Cadbury brothers took different paths in first world war
The Guardian, Thursday 15 May 2014
One future chocolate firm boss refused to fight but became pro-war, while his pilot brother railed against those in command
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/15/cadbury-brothers-first-world-war
Honouring pacifism
The Guardian, Wednesday 14 May 2014
A letter from Pat Gaffney, member of the First World War Peace Forum
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/14/conscientious-objector-first-world-war
'To show their contempt for death, some Sikhs had refused to hide in the trenches'
The Guardian, Wednesday 14 May 2014
Excerpts from a collection of Guardian reportage from the first world war
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/14/excerpts-guardian-reporting-first-world-war
War of words: reporting from the trenches
The Guardian, Wednesday 14 May 2014
A century ago correspondents fought for the right to write about the first world war, and today their successors' dilemmas remain unchanged
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/14/first-world-war-reporters-trenches-dilemmas-kate-adie
Ignore the propaganda, conscription was not so popular
The Guardian, Wednesday 14 May 2014
An article stating that 'there were many more first world war conscientious objectors than the public were led to believe.'
Art of the apocalypse: Otto Dix's hellish first world war visions – in pictures
The Guardian, Wednesday 14 May 2014
An article about Der Krieg, the series of prints Otto Dix published in 1924, on show at De La Warr Pavilion from 17 May to 27 July.
Poirot unmasked: the Belgian refugee who inspired Agatha Christie character
The Telegraph, Monday 12 May 2014
A retired Belgian policeman who fled to England during the First World War may have been the inspiration for Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot
The Other Side of the Medal, review: 'the pity of war not the politics'
The Telegraph, Monday 12 May 2014
A new exhibition at the British Museum is one of the most thought-provoking commemorations of the First World War that Richard Dorment has seen
Digital memorial for First World War dead
The Telegraph, Monday 12 May 2014
Lives of the First World War project at the Imperial War Museum is first ever digital memorial to the eight million men and women who served Britain
A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: On an Albanian mountain top, a British woman joins Serbia’s army
The Independent, Monday 12 May 2014
Born in England, of Irish descent, Flora Sandes became a Serbian military heroine. Louise Miller explains how a Suffolk nurse found fame and fulfilment as a soldier far from home.
The Crimson Field, final episode, review: 'soapy and disappointing'
The Telegraph, Sunday 11 May 2014
The forgotten women of the First World War deserved better than this drama, says Ben Lawrence
A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: White feather for winner of Victoria Cross
The Independent, Sunday 11 May 2014
Carnoustie, 12 October 1915: George Samson is humiliated as a coward. A few female patriots liked to humiliate young men they saw on the streets out of uniform. Even a war hero, in his home town, was not exempt.
A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: 'Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness...'
The Independent, Sunday 11 May 2014
As a British nurse in occupied Belgium, Edith Cavell helped soldiers avoid captivity until she was betrayed and shot by a German firing squad in 1915. This remarkable account is by the Reverend H Stirling T Gahan, British chaplain in Brussels
A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: ‘It was a short life. I’m sorry all the years’ work ended in one afternoon’
The Independent, Friday 09 May 2014
Rudyard Kipling was one of the war’s great literary voices of patriotism. Then his own son went into battle, and was never seen again.
Sarajevo reopens historic city hall and library destroyed in war
The Telegraph, Friday 09 May 2014
Sarajevo City Hall, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been attending a reception shortly before he was shot dead and which was destroyed in 1992 by Serb shelling, reopens
Duke of Cambridge launches football truce memorial competition
The Telegraph, Friday 09 May 2014
Schoolchildren are being invited to design a memorial to the 1914 no-mans land football match, with the winning design being built at the National Memorial Arboretum
Children to mark WWI's 'Christmas Truce' with plays and football
The Guardian, Friday 09 May 2014
Football Remembers will commemorate in schools the famous fraternisation in 1914 between enemy troops in no man's land
A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: Britain’s ‘enemy aliens’ get their own railway
The Independent, Wednesday 07 May 2014
Tens of thousands of Germans living in the UK were interned during the war. Simon Usborne finds out where they went.
Tower of London to remember WWI dead with 880,000 ceramic poppies
The Independent, Wednesday 07 May 2014
One of Britain’s most historic landmarks is to transform into a giant artwork, with the moat at the Tower of London to be filled with more than 800,000 ceramic poppies in an installation by artist Paul Cummins and theatre designer Tom Piper.
Tower of London moat to become 'sea of poppies' to mark WW1 centenary
The Telegraph, Wednesday 07 May 2014
Almost 900,000 ceramic poppies - one for each British and Colonial fatality of the war - being hand-made in Derby for 'epic' installation
Poppies to fill Tower of London moat in first world war commemoration
The Guardian, Wednesday 07 May 2014
888,246 ceramic flowers, one for every death among allied forces, will then be sold off to raise money for service charities
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/07/tower-london-moat-filled-ceramic-poppies-ww1-dead
A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: Over the top, and into an apocalyptic bombardment
The Independent, Tuesday 06 May 2014
The novelist Henri Barbusse saw 17 months of active service in the French infantry, much of it in the trenches around Vimy Ridge. This is his description of a dangerous and terrifying advance on the German lines.
Gavrilo Princip: hero or villain?
The Guardian, Tuesday 06 May 2014
As Balkan countries prepare to mark the start of the first world war, history books show widely different interpretations
Immortal soldiers join battle on the Somme
The Telegraph, Sunday 04 May 2014.
David Jones's memoir of the First World War has an unusual combination of deep feeling and detachment
Best war and history books of all time
The Telegraph, Sunday 04 May 2014.
The Telegraph selects the best war and history books ever written
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10630791/Best-war-and-history-books-of-all-time.html
A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: British women demand a share of the burden
The Independent, Sunday 04 May 2014.
Article about how the war offered a rare chance for gender equality in the workplace.
Should Britain have joined World War One? Keep these points in mind during the argument
The Independent, Sunday 04 May 2014.
The unique place of this war in our national story must be understood in terms of class
A Unique Tribute to a Generation of Heroes FREE INSIDE this weekend's Mail on Sunday
The Daily Mail, Sunday 04 May 2014.
An 80 page edition of The Mail on Sunday’s EVENT magazine commemorates the 100th anniversary of the start of the First World War.
Pets trained for the trenches and children raising funds: How the home front helped to win the First World War
The Telegraph, Sunday 04 May 2014.
We all know the images of carnage in the trenches. But a new book claims that the pivotal role of the home front in winning the First World War has been overlooked.
Turkish PM offers condolences over 1915 Armenian massacre
The Guardian, Sunday 04 May 2014.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan refers to 'our shared pain' in unexpected statement on eve of 99th anniversary of start of deportations
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/turkey-erdogan-condolences-armenian-massacre
The horror of the First World War: Veteran photographer who has covered conflicts for 50 years picks six photographs that show the true desperation of the Western Front
The Daily Mail, Sunday 04 May 2014.
These six pictures have been hand-picked by Don McCullin that show the reality of life on the Western Front for British soldiers during the First World War.
A History of World War One in 100 Moments: 'I'd never seen a dead man... then 300 all at once'
The Independent, Sunday 04 May 2014.
Next installment in The Independent's series A History of World War One in 100 Moments: Leonard Thompson, a Suffolk farm-labourer, describes his experiences in the Dardanelles.
The Victoria Cross winner who stormed the shores of Zeebrugge in a heroic act of self-sacrifice
The Guardian, Saturday 03 May 2014.
Lt-Cdr George Bradford gave his life in an attack designed to knock out a Zeebrugge U-boat base and it earned him a Victoria Cross – an award that was a long time coming
War letter home: ‘No man has an ounce of patriotism left’
The Guardian, Saturday 03 May 2014.
In a gushing letter to his future wife, Cpl Rowlands reveals how – with political and religious allegiances dwindling – front line soldiers came close to giving up the fight
The female spies whose lives made fiction look tame
The Telegraph, Saturday 03 May 2014.
Spying inspired pre-war bestsellers, but the true stories of Edith Cavell and Mata Hari – arguably two of the First World War's greatest agents – were far more dramatic
Hemingway’s mission: to tell the truth about war
The Telegraph, Saturday 03 May 2014.
No American writer is more associated with writing about war than Ernest Hemingway. His words, he said, will supplement wartime experience but never replace it
Sardonic humour: ‘The General’ by Siegfried Sassoon
The Telegraph, Saturday 03 May 2014.
An archetype for affably incompetent military leadership, the subject of Siegfried Sassoon's The General echoes popular consensus of First World War failures
Let's hear it for the girls! From the only female to fight at the front to the football team in frilly hats
The Daily Mail, Saturday 03 May 2014.
Kate Adie tells the stories of the women's contributions during the First World War.
Paths of Glory: Stanley Kubrick's greatest war film?
The Telegraph, Saturday 03 May 2014.
As Paths of Glory is re-released, David Gritten pays tribute to Stanley Kubrick's fierce condemnation of war
The conscientious objectors paid a high price
The Guardian, Saturday 03 May 2014.
Government authorities often regarded conscientious objectors as cowards, which left the men who refused to enlist fighting a very different kind of war
The Germans were terrified of the Daily Mail and Helena Bonham Carter's great-granddad ran the country: 100 amazing things you didn't know about World War I
The Daily Mail, Saturday 03 May 2014.
A list of little-known facts about the First World War.
The art of darkness: Brian Sewell salutes the artists who witnessed death and destruction in WWI
The Daily Mail, Saturday 03 May 2014.
Brian Sewell addresses the subject of First World War artists.
The war that launched the American Century
The Guardian, Saturday 03 May 2014.
When the US joined the First World War in defence of liberty it established itself as leader of the free world and shaped the Russian revolution
John Lavery: The Ordnance CO’s Cookhouse (1919)
The Guardian, Saturday 03 May 2014.
Despite failing to make it to the front line as an official war artist, painter John Lavery served a vital role in portraying the roles of women in post-Armistice France
Wisden publish profound tribute to fallen cricketers of first world war
The Guardian, Friday 02 May 2014.
Article about a publication of more than 500 pages profiling British cricket players who swapped white for khaki and met tragic destiny a century ago.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/may/02/wisden-tribute-cricketers-first-world-war
Paths of Glory review – Kubrick's first world war masterpiece
The Guardian, Thursday 01 May 2014.
The horror of war is laid bare when soldiers face execution to placate tyrannical officers after their plans go awry
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/01/paths-of-glory-review-kubrick-first-world-war
Front: a play that views the hell of war from all sides
The Guardian, Thursday 01 May 2014.
An article about director Luk Perceval's latest theatre project – an unflinching 'polyphony in four languages' – examines the first world war from German, Flemish, British and French perspectives
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/may/01/front-theatre-first-world-war-luk-perceval
The Lusitania and the secrets of war, revealed
The Guardian, Thursday 01 May 2014.
A Comment is Free post stating that the "details of the sinking of the Lusitania aren't mere footnotes to history. They can teach us how people make decisions in times of conflict."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/01/lusitania-secrets-of-war-revealed-sinking
Lusitania divers warned of danger from war munitions in 1982, papers reveal
The Guardian, Thursday 01 May 2014.
Foreign Office warning that operation 'could literally blow up on us' reopens debate over German rationale for sinking liner
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/01/lusitania-salvage-warning-munitions-1982
Blast fear scuppered salvage of Lusitania: Government issued panicked warnings about danger to life to salvage companies over rumours of explosives on board
The Daily Mail, Thursday 01 May 2014.
70 years after RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat, it has been revealed civil servants were worried that rumours she was carrying explosives were true and would ‘blow up on us, literally’.
Ghosts of the RMS Lusitania could have come back to haunt Britain
The Telegraph, Thursday 01 May 2014.
Previously secret files reveal government fears that "high explosives" would be found by divers surveying the wreck of RMS Lusitania - discrediting the premise on which the Americans were drawn into the First World War
The road to the battlefields of Ypres in 1919 … and now – interactive
The Guardian, Wednesday 30 April 2014
In the latest of our weekly series of interactive photographs to mark the centenary of the first world war, the destroyed Belgian city of Ypres is seen from the Menin Road.
Downton Abbey star to make musical album of war poetry
The Telegraph, Wednesday 30 April 2014.
Downton Abbey star Jim Carter and his wife Imelda Staunton join folk music band Show Of Hands to make album called Centenary: Words & Music Of The Great War
'You keep wondering if it's going to be your turn': Letters discovered in a loft uncover amazing story of the WW1 soldier who survived a U-boat attack only to be killed a few months before the end of the war
The Daily Mail, Wednesday 30 April 2014
Letters from a First World War soldier to his sister which reveal how he survived a German U-boat attack months before he was killed at the end of the conflict have been found hidden in a battered suitcase.
'There were 18 blokes on that plane and only five legs – two were mine'
The Guardian, Tuesday 29 April 2014.
Last week, 50 veterans and descendants of the original Anzacs travelled from one end of Australia to the other on board the Ghan. Paul Daley joined them as they met old comrades, pondered their history and remembered the dead
Devon Farm that inspired War Horse opens museum about WW1 and the real-life stories behind Michael Morpurgo's book
The Daily Mail, Tuesday 29 April 2014.
The War Horse farm in Devon that author Michael Morpurgo based his book on, has opened a museum for visitors.
David Cameron plants poppies with school children
The Telegraph, Monday 28 April 2014.
Video: Prime Minister David Cameron is joined by local school children in Downing Street to plant poppies as part of the Royal British Legion's poppy seed campaign
War cemeteries: gardeners' labour of love to honour the fallen
The Telegraph, Monday 28 April 2014.
An army of devoted gardeners keeps the memory of sacrifice alive in rigorously maintained war cemeteries around the globe
First World War soldier stood on live grenade to save comrades... then refused to have foot amputated before going on to play professional football for 15 years
The Daily Mail, Monday 28 April 2014.
Article about a First World War soldier stood on a live grenade to save his comrades - and then went on to play professional football for 15 years.
Anzac Day: Honouring the Australian and New Zealand war dead
The Telegraph, Friday 25 April 2014.
Tens of thousands of Australians and New Zealanders turned out to honour their war dead, with moving tributes to fallen mates and calls not to forget those injured in conflict. The commemorations are held every year on the April 25 anniversary of the ill-fated 1915 landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) at Gallipoli in modern-day Turkey during World War I.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/10787320/Anzac-Day-commemorations.html
Chelsea Flower Show 2014: promise of peace in war-inspired gardens
The Telegraph, Friday 25 April 2014.
Two wars, a century apart, are honoured in two poignant gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show
Conscientious objectors: men who fought a different kind of battle
The Guardian, Friday 25 April 2014.
As the centenary of the first world war approaches, men who chose not to fight because of their pacifist principles will also be remembered by their families. Joanna Moorhead meets the descendants of three 'conchies'
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/apr/25/conscientious-objectors-men-fought-different-battle
Harlem Hellfighters: The all-black regiment of WW1
BBC News, Thursday 24 April 2014.
Video: This work of historical fiction tells the 369th Regiment's little-known tale, from discrimination in training to brutality and victory in the trenches of France.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-27130132
Ready for action: London men queue up to enlist for war in 1915 … and now – interactive
The Guardian, Thursday 24 April 2014.
In the fourth of a weekly series of interactive photographs to mark the first world war centenary, scores of men wait outside Deptford town hall to enlist in December 1915.
From Street to Trench: bringing history alive
The Telegraph, Wednesday 23 April 2014.
The exhibition From Street to Trench at the Imperial War Museum North turns the unknown soldiers of the First World War into real people, says Sarah Crompton
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/10772100/From-Street-to-Trench-bringing-history-alive.html
Turkish PM offers condolences over 1915 Armenian massacre
The Guardian, Wednesday 23 April 2014.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan refers to 'our shared pain' in unexpected statement on eve of 99th anniversary of start of deportations
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/23/turkey-erdogan-condolences-armenian-massacre
Top five women writers of the First World War
The Telegraph, Tuesday 22 April 2014.
From Sylvia Pankhurst to Vera Brittain, the historian Jerry White picks his favourite female authors writing under the shadow of the Great War
Vandals desecrate war graves in Northern Ireland
The Guardian, Tuesday 22 April 2014.
Headstone smashed and war memorial covered in expletives and anti-police slogans in spate of cemetery vandalism in Belfast
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/22/vandals-desecrate-war-graves-northern-ireland-belfast
Pocket watch that stopped WWI bullet found in dusty attic
The Telegraph, Monday 21 April 2014.
A pocket watch belonging to a First World War soldier has been unearthed by his family who revealed the story about how it stopped a German bullet and saved his life
How British pilot 'buzzed' the Kaiser
The Telegraph, Monday 21 April 2014.
Story emerges of how daredevil pilot "buzzed" the Kaiser in an audacious stunt just days before the outbreak of the First World War
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10776318/How-British-pilot-buzzed-the-Kaiser.html
Stanley Spencer's war murals: 'The greatest'
The Telegraph, Saturday 19 April 2014.
Currently on show at Chichester's Pallant House, Stanley Spencer's murals were the finest art from World War One, says Laura Thompson.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/10774962/Stanley-Spencers-war-murals-The-greatest.html
Surrey probation teams in £70,000 war memorials clean-up
BBC News, Saturday 19 April 2014.
A four-year project to clean up war memorials across Surrey has begun. The project, called Respect and Remember, has been funded by a £70,000 grant from the deputy police and crime commissioner Jeff Harris.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-27088422
Kipling knew about the paschal mystery
The Telegraph, Saturday 19 April 2014.
As I found at the grave of Bill Hannan, who died at the Somme, our grief is second-hand but the tragedy touches us across the century
Devon's 'War Horse farm' opens up museum
BBC News, Saturday 19 April 2014.
A Devon farm which featured in the children's book War Horse has opened a museum dedicated to the story.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-27087752
France: The Great War coach tour
The Telegraph, Friday 18 April 2014.
As more visitors than ever will be touring Great War battlefields this year, Anthony Peregrine joined one group on a trip to Ypres and the Somme.
Diaries reveal the courage of daredevil World War One pilot
Western Morning News, Wednesday 16 April 2014.
Article about the First World War pilot Major Robert Loraine, who coined the phrase ‘joystick,’ and his newly-found diaries which details his fantastic aerial exploits.
First world war: was Gavrilo Princip a terrorist or a freedom fighter?
The Guardian, Tuesday 15 April 2014.
Article arguing that "It was not the 'shot heard around the world' that caused the 1914-18 war but imperialism – anything else is revisionism."
10 inventions that owe their success to World War One
BBC News, Sunday 13 April 2014.
An article listing and describing ten inventions that were developed during the First World War.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26935867
The great survivor: First World War veteran's name appears on Cardiff memorial for the fallen even though he survived the Great War... and the Second World War
The Daily Mail, Saturday 12 April 2014.
An article about a Cardiff hero whose name appears on a monument to the fallen of the First World War actually survived the conflict.
World War I remembered: The story of the Scottish hockey captain who gassed his own troops because of direction of the wind
Daily Record, Saturday 12 April 2014.
Article about Charles Foulkes who was entrusted to poison German soldiers with chlorine gas, but the way the wind was blowing was misjudged and the deadly cloud swept back on Allied troops.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/world-war-remembered-story-scottish-3402480
Sport should always remember its debt to the first world war fallen
The Guardian, Saturday 12 April 2014.
Article suggesting that tributes to the soldiers who fell during the 1914-18 conflict should include the many elite sportsmen who gave their lives.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/apr/12/first-world-war-fallen-sport
Exploits of WW1 'Boy's Own' flying ace emerge
The Telegraph, Friday 11 April 2014.
The exploits of a pioneering First World War pilot responsible for series of aviation firsts are revealed in newly-emerged documents
The Crimson Field: Recreating a WW1 army hospital
BBC Blog, Friday 11 April 2014.
Cristina Casali, Production Designer on the BBC's drama The Crimson Field, blogs about her role in designing the set: choosing the ideal location, deciding on the layout, designing all the different areas and selecting the style and decoration.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/posts/The-Crimson-Field
Secret WW1 spy files have been made available online
BBC News, Thursday 10 April 2014.
Interrogation reports and photographs are among secret MI5 files about World War One spies being made available online for the first time.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26959349
Top-secret MI5 files released online to mark first world war centenary
The Guardian, Wednesday 09 April 2014.
Top-secret MI5 files are being made available online for the first time on Thursday 10 April to mark the 100th anniversary of the first world war.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/09/mi5-files-released-world-war-centenary
How one woman stepped in when the men marched off
The Telegraph, Tuesday 08 April 2014.
Article about "how a country wife played her part in the First World War, sending out almost 1,000 letters and 6,000 parcels to enlisted men from her village."
Saddles, Somme and snow: a tale of the toughest cycle race ever
The Guardian, Tuesday 08 April 2014.
An article about the extraordinary bicycle race around the battlefields in the spring of 1919, the Circuit Cycliste de Champs de Bataille (The Tour of The Battlefields).
The Crimson Field, episode 1, review
The Telegraph, Sunday 06 April 2014.
BBC period drama The Crimson Field is the First World War by way of Call the Midwife, says Serena Davies.
From battlefield to buttonhole: the poppies made of shells
The Telegraph, Sunday 06 April 2014.
Shells fired on the Western Front are to be turned into commemorative “poppies” by the Royal British Legion to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War
The St Pauls Cathedral cruciform to mark the WW1 centenary
The Telegraph, Sunday 06 April 2014.
Two 20ft high cruciforms are hung in St Pauls Cathedral to mark the centenary of the start of the First World War.
Kingussie and Kyles' WW1 fallen to be honoured
BBC News, Saturday 05 April 2014.
Nine shinty players who featured in the Camanachd Cup Final 100 years ago, before losing their lives in World War One, will be honoured later.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-26882593
The forgotten Irish soldiers who fought for Britain in the first world war
The Guardian, Saturday 05 April 2014
Elaine Byrne tells the story of the thousands of Irish men who joined up to serve with the British army in the first world war.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/05/irish-soldiers-who-fought-for-britain
The bravest street in England: Cul-de-sac where 161 men joined up for WWI - and 50 gave their lives for their country
The Daily Mail, Friday 04 April 2014.
Article about the 161 residents of Chapel Street in Altrincham who served in the Great War. Of those 29 were killed in action while a further 20 would succumb to their injuries on their return.
Hour of the Dreadnought: the titans clash at Jutland
The Telegraph, Friday 04 April 2014.
The Battle of Jutland debuted the immense destructive power of new technology. But despite facts showing a strong British advantage, the result was less clear-cut.
How Henry Moore turned the horror of Cambrai into art
The Telegraph, Friday 04 April 2014.
Article about how "Artist Henry Moore maintained the First World War was a romantic experience of comradery and heroism."
A bird's-eye view of the battlefield: aerial photography
The Telegraph, Friday 04 April 2014.
Aerial photography became an essential weapon for Britain in the First World War, following the high-flying successes of ally reconnaissance missions.
Defiant and ruthless: Mannock, the top-scoring pilot
The Telegraph, Friday 04 April 2014.
An article about Major Edward 'Mick' Mannock who was awarded more medals for courage than any other British fighter pilot of the First World War.
William Orpen: 'Dead Germans in a trench' (1918)
The Telegraph, Friday 04 April 2014.
An article about Dead Germans in a Trench, an oil painting that reflects the war artist's sensitivity to the putrefying atmosphere on the Somme front.
War letters home from a hero pilot: ‘Do not think me bloodthirsty – it is only my duty’
The Telegraph, Friday 04 April 2014.
Article about James McCudden, VC, a fighter pilot whose exploits earned him the reputation as one of the greatest WW1 pilots.
Killing machines: weapons of the First World War
The Telegraph, Friday 04 April 2014.
The battlefield was a test bed for a range of technologies and weapons that transformed the nature of war and helped shape the 1939-45 conflict.
How the first world war changed north-west England – in pictures.
The Guardian, Thursday 03 April 2014.
An insight into some of the images that feature in an exhibition to mark 100 years since the start of the first world war, opening at the IWM North on Saturday 05 March 2014.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/apr/03/first-world-war-north-west-england-in-pictures
From Street to Trench exhibition offers personal insights into first world war
The Guardian, Thursday 03 April 2014.
A description of the Imperial War Museum North's upcoming exhibition From Street to Trench which includes locals' memorabilia and emotional letters alongside national treasures.
A history of the First World War in 100 moments: Our unique series captures sense of what it was like to be in the Great War
The Independent, Thursday 03 April 2014.
The first part of a daily series that "attempts to make sense of an incomprehensibly huge chapter in human history by distilling it to a mere 100 'moments'".
Ypres in the first world war ... and now – interactive
The Guardian, Wednesday 02 April 2014.
The first of a weekly series of interactive photographs for the first world war's centenary.
World War One: The many battles faced by WW1's nurses
BBC News, Wednesday 02 April 2014.
An article that examines the exhausting, often dangerous work that the women who volunteered as nurses in WW1 experienced first hand.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26838077
Christina Broom, the UK’s first female press photographer
The Guardian, Monday 31 March 2014.
A remarkable collection of around 2,500 photographs including many images from the First World Warm taken by Christina Broom, the UK’s first female press photographer, has been acquired by the Museum of London.
The gun which kicked off the First World War goes on display
The Telegraph, Monday 31 March 2014.
The gun which fired the first British shot of the First World War has gone on display as the centrepiece of an £11.5 million series of new visitor attractions devoted to the Royal Navy.
Don't be dazzled: why redecorating first world war ships is so cowardly
The Guardian, Monday 31 March 2014.
Jonathan Jones suggests that the decision for ocvntemporary artists to paint battleships in the 'dazzle' camouflage of 1914-18 is a "disturbingly celebratory way to remember a monstrous war".
Museum of London photo collection features tragic son Kipling sent to war
The Guardian, Sunday 30 March 2014.
A trove of 2,500 photographs taken by Christina Broom, the UK's first female press photographer, is on show at museum
Britain to turn off the lights for First World War centenary
The Telegraph, Thursday 27 March 2014.
The lights will go dark across Britain at 11pm on August 4 under Government plans to mark the centenary of the First World War
Lights to go out to commemorate World War One
BBC News, Thursday 27 March 2014.
News item about the mass public 'Lights Out' that is one of a series of arts events planned to mark the centenary of World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26767807
Time to remember the First World War
The Telegraph, Thursday 27th March
The article asks 'Is it really necessary for the Government to try to coordinate the entire nation’s commemoration of the Great War?'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10727340/Time-to-remember-the-First-World-War.html
Did artists foresee the first world war?
The Guardian, Thursday 27 March 2014.
An article exploring whether pre-war was already sensing a catastrophic change was on its way?
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/27/did-art-foresee-first-world-war
Artists come together to commemorate centenary of outbreak of first world war
The Guardian, Thursday 27 March 2014.
Stephen Fry joins letter-writing project, with his missive to soldier read aloud to crowd at launch of programme of cultural events
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/27/artists-mark-first-world-war-centenary
'Lawrence of Arabia's saddlebag' goes on display for first time
The Guardian, Tuesday 25 March 2014.
The case, believed to have been lent to Lawrence of Arabia during first world war, is to be part of a reopening exhibition at the Bank of England.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/25/lawrence-arabia-saddlebag-bank-england-vaults
For Edmund Blunden, surviving the war was the easy part
The Telegraph, Tuesday 25 March 2014.
An article exploring the poet Edmund Blunden’s experiences at Ypres and the Somme, which haunted him all his life.
Dustman saves 5,000 rare First World War photos from rubbish dumps
The Telegraph, Monday 24 March 2014
An article documenting the story of a former dustman who salvaged more than 5,000 historic photographs from the First World War from rubbish tips and wastebins.
Tory MPs block EU funding for first world war centenary events
The Guardian, Sunday 23 March 2014.
Eurosceptics on key Commons committee fear money may assist cause of political integration.
Hermione Norris: 'My grandfather lived with shell shock for the rest of his life'
The Telegraph, Sunday 23 March 2014.
Actor Hermione Norris discusses her family links to the First World War and how they made BBC Drama 'The Crimson Field’ a pet project for her.
Soldiers killed during WW1 named via DNA from relatives
BBC News, Saturday 22 March 2014.
Ten soldiers who died in World War One and whose bodies were found in France five years ago have been named after DNA analysis of samples from relatives.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26690387
World War One: The great and the good who were spared
BBC News, Thursday 20 March 2014.
Article describing the many prominent 20th Century figures who survived the war.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26170799
First World War: larky-in-khaki angels deserve a statue for their bravery
The Telegraph, Thursday 20 March 2014.
An article exploring the work of First World War nurses, Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm, and the commisioned statue that will commemorate them.
First World War: larky-in-khaki angels deserve a statue for their bravery
The Telegraph, Thursday 20 March 2014
Elsie Knocker and Mairi Chisholm were two feisty and fearless nurses whose bravery in the First World War should be recognised
Bombs on wheels: young artists invited to create first world war memorials
The Guardian, Tuesday 18 March 2014.
A major new art collaboration spans three French and British cities and shows how the artists of today respond to war
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/18/bombs-wheels-young-art-first-world-war-france-uk
Edinburgh international festival highlights to reflect on war
The Guardian, Tuesday 18 March 2014.
Event to coincide with centenary of first world war but conflicts including apartheid and the Trojan war will also be remembered
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/mar/18/edinburgh-international-festival-highlights-war
First World War soldier who enrolled at 15 remembered on stamp
The Telegraph, Monday 17 March 2014.
Article about Private William Tickle, who secretly signed himself up to become a First World War soldier despite being under age, and the stamp issued by the Royal Mail that will commemorate him.
I Was There, BBC Two
The Arts Desk, Saturday 15 March 2014.
A review of the BBC's I Was There: The Great War Interviews.
http://www.theartsdesk.com/tv/i-was-there-bbc-two
I Was There –TV review
The Guardian, Saturday 15 March 2014.
Lucy Mangan responds to the BBC's I Was There: The Great War Interviews, suggesting that war stories are humbling enough and audiences don't need 'musical cajoling'.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/mar/15/i-was-there-tv-review
Tommies finally laid to rest, 100 years after they died in battle
The Telegraph, Friday 14 March 2014.
AN article documenting the twenty British soldiers who died in the Battle of Loos in 1915 that have been laid to rest with full military honours after their bodies were discovered during clearance work.
British Jews in the first world war: spirit of the Maccabees
The Guardian, Friday 14 March 2014.
Article on an exhibition that reveals the hidden contribution of British Jews on the frontline and at home, from the poetry of Isaac Rosenberg to Mark Gertler's painting.
Radio 2 broadcast helps Oh What a Lovely War go out with a whizzbang
The Guardian, Friday 14 March 2014.
Article arguing that with the BBC's broadcasting of the musical, radio is doing more for the stage than TV.
TV review: I Was There shows the sad horror of the Great War
The Herald, Scotland, Friday 14 March 2014.
A review of the BBC's I Was There: The Great War Interviews.
I Was There: The Great War Interviews
BBC Blog, Friday 14 March 2014
Detlef Siebert, director of the BBC's I Was There: The Great War Interviews, offers his thoughts on the process of working on the programme.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/posts/I-Was-There-The-Great-War-Interviews
Why the Great War still fascinates the young
BBC News. Friday 14 March 2014.
With the approaching centenary of the outbreak of the war, a major conference in London has been examining how secondary schools should commemorate the conflict.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26546416
'What if' is a waste of time
The Guardian, Thursday 13 March 2014.
Richard Evans writes that counterfactual history is misguided and outdated, as the BBC's first world war debate programmes show.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/13/counterfactual-history-what-if-waste-of-time
Clive James: What a cast, what costumes, what talk
The Telegraph, Thursday 13 March 2014.
Clive James reviews 37 Days (BBC Two).
Schools must teach realities of First World War, says PM
The Telegraph, Thursday 13 March.
David Cameron says teachers must not "shy away" from teaching pupils the realities of the conflict and the debt owed to a generation.
German soldier's kindness denied Tommy war grave
The Telegraph, Thursday 13 March 2014.
An article about the story of a German soldier who carried out a British counterpart's last wish and posted a photo home, but denied him a grave as his body was never identified.
Cats of war: Animals suspected by British of spying on WW1 trenches
The Telegraph, Thursday 13 March 2014.
Article about the First World War British intelligence officers on the Western Front who suspected two cats and a dog of spying for the Germans.
I Was There: The Great War Interviews, BBC Two, review
The Telegraph, Wednesday 12 March 2014.
BBC Two's previously unseen interviews from eyewitnesses to the First World War were exceptional, deeply meaningful viewing, says Jake Wallis Simons
Never before seen personal accounts of Great War offer vivid picture of life at the Front
The Independent, Wednesday 12 March 2014
An article anticipating the BBC programme I Was There: The Great War Interviews.
Our timber Tommies: WWI diaries tell how dummy troops fooled the Germans
The Daily Mail, Thursday 13 March 2014
An article about newly published diaries that reveal wooden cut-outs made for front line that were designed to trick opposition into moving defences or opening fire.
Tamara Rojo's all-star war dance for English National Ballet
The Guardian, Tuesday 11 March 2014.
The English National Ballet's artistic director and the choreographers Liam Scarlett, Russell Maliphant and Akram Khan discuss Lest We Forget, their reflection on the First World War.
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/mar/11/tamara-rojo-english-national-ballet-first-world-war
New British woodlands to mark first world war centenary
The Guardian, Tuesday 11 March 2014.
An article about the Woodland Trust creating four new woodlands and planting millions of trees as a memorial to The Great War.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/11/new-woodlands-mark-first-world-war-centenary
Giant forests of up to 200,000 trees to be planted around country as memorial to First World War victims (and at 640 acres one of them will be BIGGER than the Olympic park)
The Daily Mail, Tuesday 11 March 2014.
An article about the Woodland Trust's plan to plant up to 200,000 trees to mark the centenary of the First World War.
Tributes to Australians killed in First World War as British ministers pledge stronger ties with counterparts from Down Under
The Daily Mail, Tuesday 11 March 2014.
A brief article about the joined presence of UK Foreign Secretary William Hague and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop at a wreath laying ceremony in London, marking the start of talks between the two countries on greater military co-operation.
My great uncle started World War One: Relative of the man who assassinated Franz Ferdinand caught in the middle of diplomatic row as Bosnia plans to mark centenary of his act
The Daily Mail, Tuesday 11 March 2014.
Soldier's WWI dog tags head back home after being discovered in Liverpool's Sefton Park
Liverpool Echo, Tuesday 11 March 2014.
Article about Canadian soldier Leopold Wellington Cadman’s identity tag, complete with an engraved bullet, which were dug up in Sefton Park’s Field of Hope more than 20 years ago and are being returned to Canada.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/world-war-one-dog-tags-6795413
Jeremy Paxman: why we would not fight the Great War now
The Telegraph, Sunday 09 March 2014.
An article covering BBC broadcaster Jeremy Paxman's suggestions that Britain is too self-obsessed and hedonistic to become involved in a conflict like the First World War.
37 Days – review
The Guardian, Saturday 08 March 2014
A review of the BBC's First World War Drama 37 Days.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/mar/08/37-days-line-of-duty-mind-the-gap-review
Personal stories from the First World War told in BBC programme ‘I Was There: The Great War Interviews’
1914.org, Friday 07 March 2014.
An article providing links to source material used in BBC's ‘I Was There: The Great War Interviews’
37 Days – TV review
The Guardian, Friday 07 March 2014.
A review of the BBC's First World War Drama 37 Days.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/mar/07/37-days-tv-review
37 Days: Changing my perspective of WWI
BBC Blog, Friday 07 March 2014.
A blog post by Mark Hayhurst, writer of 37 Days, about the process of working on the programme.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/posts/37-Days
WW1 veteran describes being 'haunted' by pleadings of man he left behind
The Telegraph, Friday 07 March 2014.
An article about a series of previously unseen interviews with First World War veterans that are to be made available online via the BBC iPlayer from Tuesday 18th March 2014. This is a transcript of one of them:
Replica First World War battlefield found
The Telegraph, Friday 07 March 2014.
Trench network spotted in aerial photograph identified as mock frontline for recruits.
Lost first world war training battlefield discovered in Hampshire
The Guardian, Friday 07 March 2014.
An article about an elaborate trench network that has been identified from old aerial photographs on land that is still owned by Ministry of Defence.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/07/lost-first-world-war-battlefield-discovered
37 Days, TV review: A political thriller that grippingly uncovers the countdown to war
The Independent, Thursday 06 March 2014.
A review of BBC Two's World War One drama 37 Days.
37 Days: Catastrophic events leading to First World War makes for must-see historical drama
Metro, Thursday 06 March 2014.
A review of BBC Two's World War One drama 37 Days.
Unseen interviews with WW1 veterans recount the horror of the trenches
The Telegraph, Thursday 06 March 2014
Precious cache of previously unseen interviews emerges, in which veterans recount their First World War experience in their own words
A walk through WW1 practice trenches
The Telegraph, Thursday 06 March 2014.
A Video of Corporal Mark Short of the 42 Engineer Regiment inspecting the trenches used as a practice battlefield for soldiers during the First World War, which have been discovered in Hampshire.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10682581/A-walk-through-WW1-practice-trenches.html
37 Days, BBC Two, review
The Telegraph, Thursday 06 March 2014.
Christopher Howse reviews BBC Two's First World War drama 37 Days.
Germany's low-key plans for first world war centenary criticised
The Guardian, Sunday 02 March 2014.
Article comparing international funding for sommerating the First World War. Germany puts aside €4m whilst the UK and France spend €60m each.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/02/germany-plans-first-world-war-centenary
Bring the literary giants of the great war to life
The Guardian, Sunday 02 March 2014.
An article looking at initiatives by Project Gutenberg and Oxford University's poetry archive that are making the literature of the First World War more accessible.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/02/ebooks-literature-of-great-war-gutenberg
Immigration lessons from the first world war
The Guardian, Sunday 02 March 2014.
An article reflecting the changing attitudes to black labour before and after the Great War: "black labour was welcomed during the great war - but afterwards, black jobseekers were shunned, denied benefits, attacked and even driven out of the country."
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/mar/02/immigration-lessons-first-world-war
First world war bravery was not confined to the soldiers
The Guardian, Thursday 27 February 2014.
A Comment is Free article which argues that we must not forget those who were "ridiculed, jailed and worse for daring to fight for peace."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/27/first-world-war-bravery-fight-for-peace
Was Britain right to go to war in 1914?
BBC, Tuesday 25 February 2014.
A debate scheduled for 8pm on Friday 28th February. Send us your comments or follow @BBCWW1 and tweet using the hashtag #WW1. Comments will be published from Friday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01nl00x/live
The Necessary War, BBC Two, review
The Telegraph, Tuesday 25 February 2014.
Max Hastings' BBC Two documentary comes out victorious against Niall Ferguson's very different approach to the First World War.
Was Britain right to enter the Great War?
The Radio Times, Tuesday 25 February 2014.
An article comparing the views of Max Hastingand Niall Ferguson in relation to the question ‘Was Britain right to enter the Great War?’
The Great War in Portraits review: 'They were people, not statistics'
The Guardian, Tuesday 25 February 2014.
An article abour the National Portrait Gallery's first world war exhibition.
A Russian revelation: where the mythical Cossacks of WW1 were really from
The Telegraph, Sunday 23 February 2014.
An article that looks at new research which claims to unravel "myths and legends" of the First World War, such as the rumour that "a million Cossack warriors had been shipped to Britain."
The last post: letters home to India during the first world war
The Guardian, Friday 21 February 2014.
As the British Library's collection of their correspondence is put online, Daljit Nagra reflects on the million Indian soldiers that fought in the first world war.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/21/found-translation-indias-first-world-war
First World War: Losing one child in war is a terrible thing, so just imagine losing five
The Telegraph, Friday 21 February 2014.
An article exploring the impact on families who lost more than one relative during the war.
Window cleaners and teachers - the 'bravest' professions of WW1
The Telegraph, Wednesday 20 February 2014.
Window cleaners and teachers were more likely than those of any other profession serving in the British armed forces in the First World War to be decorated for bravery, research finds.
University of Manchester letters from WW1 trenches go on show
BBC News, Tuesday 18 February 2014.
Wartime letters and drawings from university students serving at the front to their Professor have gone on show for the first time at the University of Manchester's John Rylands Library.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-26228228
First World War: Around the war in a handful of objects
The Telegraph, Monday 17 February 2014.
An article presenting artefacts from the Great War with contextual information.
One woman’s moving story of love, loss and happiness from the Great War
Yorkshire Post, Monday 17 February 2014.
An article detailing a story that forms part of the Wartime Hospital at Beckett Park project. This project features as part of this year’s Headingley LitFest and will also be included in a future publication.
Was Britain right to fight WW1? History Extra readers divided
History Extra, Monday 17 February 2014
A poll asking whether Britain was right to have gone to war in 1914 has revealed a split in opinion among History Extra readers.
http://www.historyextra.com/news/was-britain-right-fight-ww1-history-extra-readers-divided
WW1: Fenton First World War soldier John Buckley had 'half his head missing' as he lay injured at The Somme
The Sentinel, Monday 17 February 2014.
An article about Private Buckley, a former miner, who suffered a severe head injury at the Somme.
Distant voices of the Great War
Yorkshire Post, Friday 14 February 2014.
A video and accompanying article which looks at some of the University of Leeds' First World War collection.
Every family has first world war memories. These are mine
The Guardian, Friday 14 Feb 2014.
Polly Toynbee identifies The Great War as this year's crucible for national self-examination and explores her own family's First World War history.
With love from the frontline
ITV Calendar, Friday 14 Feb 2014.
An article about a letter that was unearthed as part of the University of Leeds' Legacies of War centenary research and public engagement project.
http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2014-02-14/with-love-from-the-frontline/
Home front heritage revealed in new study of WWI Scotland
War History Online, Friday 14 February 2014.
An article about an extensive audit of hundreds of sites and structures of built heritage established for the defence of Scotland in the First World War.
How are theatres across the country commemorating the Great War?
What's On Stage, Wednesday 12 February 2014.
An article that lists World War One related theatrical productions within UK theatres in 2014.
Britain's War poets: the finest introduction to poetry
The Telegraph, Wednesday 12 February 2014.
An article that looks at the poetry written after the outbreak of World War One.
World War One: 10 interpretations of who started WW1
BBC News, Wednesday 12 February 2014.
As nations gear up to mark 100 years since the start of World War One, academic argument still rages over which country was to blame for the conflict.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26048324
Report shows lack of knowledge about World War One's global impact
University of Exeter, Wednesday 12 February 2014.
Research by the British Council in the UK and six other countries shows that knowledge of the conflict - which began 100 years ago - is largely limited to the fighting on the Western Front.
http://humanities.exeter.ac.uk/news/college/title_356369_en.html#.UvzC8vdrwxw.twitter
Legacies of the war that changed the world
Yorkshire Evening Post, Monday 10 February 2014.
Professor Alison Fell, who heads the University of Leeds’s Legacies of War project, looks at the impact the conflict had.
The 'German Tommy' who fought for Britain
The Telegraph, Sunday 09 February 2014.
An article about a soldier of German ancestry that hid his identity to serve with the British Army, ending up being decorated by the King.
The barrister killed in WW1 at the age of 68
The Telegraph, Sunday 09 February 2014.
An article about the changing of historical records that document thevoldest British battle casaulty of the First World War.
Top Gear host James May has told BBC bosses he now wants to front a new POETRY programme
The Daily Mail, Sunday 09 February 2014.
James May hopes to convince BBC bosses to make a special programme about the works of First World War poets.
Oh What a Lovely War: No agitprop play has had a better audience
The Telegraph, Friday 07 February 2014.
An article about Oh What a Lovely War ahead of its revival in London's West End.
Don't celebrate first world war, says minister in charge of centenary
Conservative Helen Grant says there should be no ‘dancing in the street’ during four years of commemorations
The Guardian, Friday 07 February 2014
War focus fuelling anti-German feeling
The Guardian, Friday 07 February 2014
Readers' letters detailing the effect of anti-German sentiment in British history teaching and the racism it generates.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/07/german-bashing-british-obsession-war
Minister says First World War victory should not be celebrated
The Telegraph, Thursday 06 February 2014.
Sports Minister Helen Grant has sparked controversy by saying Britain's victory in the First World War should not be celebrated even though she is tasked with marking the centenary.
Helen Dunmore: 'The First World War made us who we are’
The Telegraph, Monday 03 February 2014.
Helen Dunmore discusses her new novel The Lie, set in the aftermath of the First World War.
Diary from the Home Front: An extract from a unique First World War journal
The Daily Mail, Sunday 02 February 2014.
To mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, a unique journal by well-to-do Kent housewife Ethel M Bilbrough is being published for the first time. In this exclusive extract she provides an insightful glimpse of civilian life during wartime.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-2548186/Diary-Home-Front.html
Oh, What a Lovely War: Why the battle still rages
The Telegraph, Saturday 01 February 2014
An article which examines the impact and legacy of Oh, What a Lovely War.
Ruhleben: the WW1 camp where gardening blossomed
The Telegraph, Saturday 01 February 2014.
An article offering context for an upcoming RHS exhibition which tells the story of Ruhleben, a First World War internment camp near Berlin where inmates were able to practice horticulture.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/10606906/Ruhleben-the-WW1-camp-where-gardening-blossomed.html
Germany, I apologise for this sickening avalanche of first world war worship
The Guardian, Thursday 30 January 2014
A Comment Is Free article about the problematic nature of British self-congratulation which comes at the expense of Germany's First World War involvement.
Gary Sheffield on First World War debate: 'A German victory would have been a disaster for Britain'
History Extra, Thursday 30 January 2014.
Gary Sheffield, Professor of War Studies at Wolverhampton University, contests Niall Ferguson's suggestion that Britain made a terrible mistake in taking up arms in 1914.
World War One: How did 12 million letters a week reach soldiers?
BBC News, Friday 31 January 2014
Ex-postman and former Home Secretary Alan Johnson writes about the war-time postage system.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25934407
“Britain made mistake in joining WW1”: Twitter reacts to Niall Ferguson claim
History Extra, Thursday 30 January 2014.
Collated response from historians, journalists and members of the public on Twitter that discuss Niall Ferguson’s assertion that Britain should have stayed out of the First World War.
Niall Ferguson: “Britain should have stayed out of First World War”
History Extra, Thursday 30 January 2014.
A brief article providing details of Niall Ferguson's interview with BBC History Magazine.
Britain entering first world war was 'biggest error in modern history'
The Guardian, Thursday 30 January 2014.
Historian Niall Ferguson says Britain could have lived with German victory and should have stayed out of war
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/30/britain-first-world-war-biggest-error-niall-ferguson
Britain's Great War – TV review
The Guardian, Tuesday 28 January 2014.
A review of Britain's Great War which argues that Jeremy Paxman "offers a view of the first world war that has its insights but avoids important questions that need answering."
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jan/28/britains-great-war-jeremy-paxman-food-drink
Britain's Great War (BBC1), TV review: 'Memories from the home front humanise Paxman's war story'
The Independent, Tuesday 28 January 2014.
A review of BBC One's documentary Britain's Great War.
BBC's First World War series: 'Paxman defies my low expectations'
The Telegraph, Monday 27 January 2014.
Historian Nigel Jones says that Britain's Great War documentary isn't worried about offending Germany or appeasing 'conchies'.
Britain’s Great War, BBC One, review
The Telegraph, Monday 27 January 2014.
An articlereviewing BBC One's documentary about the Great War, Britain’s Great War, presented by Jeremy Paxman.
World War One's financial crisis - parallels with 2008
BBC News, Monday 27 January 2014
An article examining the similarities between the financial situation in 2008 and 1914.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25882943
Left, Right, Left, Right. Halt! Call to keep politics out of WW1 anniversary
The Telegraph, Sunday 26 January 2014.
The government's special representative for the centenary, Andrew Murrison, has said the First World War centenary should not be a "Left-Right" issue.
Unseen First World War photographs show troops at play
The Telegraph, Sunday 26 January 2014.
The unseen diary of a First World War nurse shows servicemen dressing up, playing games and putting on theatre productions
Gove and junior minister split over how to teach history of first world war
The Guardian, Saturday 25 January 2014.
Education secretary Michael Gove finds colleagues such as Elizabeth Truss fail to share his view of the war.
Last Post to get modern treatment under WW1 centenary plans
The Telegraph, Thursday 23 January 2014.
A Government-backed scheme to mark the First World War centenary will see hundreds of modern arrangements of the Last Post performed, featuring instruments like bagpipes, guitars and steel drums.
Before the First World War: what can 1914 tell us about 2014?
The New Statesman, Thursday 23 January 2014.
An article by Professor Richard J. Evans which examines the parallels between 1914 and our own time.
http://www.newstatesman.com/2014/01/1914-to-2014
Who were the conscientious objectors of the first world war?
The Guardian, Thursday 23 January 2014.
Guardian Data has extracted details of 654 records from the National Archive to look at who conscientiously objected to the first world war and why.
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/jan/23/who-conscientious-objectors-first-world-war
First world war: memories of the last survivors
The Guardian, Wednesday 22 January 2014
In a special project with four other Europa newspapers, The Guardian talked to some of the few who still recall those momentous events
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/22/first-world-war-memories-last-survivors
'Today's generation have it too easy': Paxo's praise for National Service: BBC presenter says conscription taught Britons the importance of duty
The Daily Mail, Tuesday 21 January 2014.
An article about Jeremy paxman's comments regarding national service.
Life on the Home Front: Extraordinary images depict women working in mills and factories during the First World War
The Daily Mail, Tuesday 21 January 2014
Photographs that show women manufacturing oil cakes, grain for food and deadly asbestos for fireproofing, taken by official Home Front photographer GP Lewis.
Lions and donkeys: Dan Snow's 10 myths about World War One debunked by No Glory
NoGlory, Monday 20 January 2014
A counter response to Dan Snow's 'Lions and donkeys: 10 big myths about World War One debunked' article.
Lions and donkeys: 10 big myths about World War One debunked
Dan Snow for BBC News, Monday 20 January 2014.
Dan Snow highlights ten common misconceptions about the First World War.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25776836
BBC launches new iWonder brand for digital content, starting with interactive World War One guides
The Next Web, Sunday 19 January 2014.
Article discussing the launch of the BBC's iWonder, an interatcive guide which the BBC hope will unlock the learning potential from its wide-ranging content. It launches with content about WW1.
Germany's youth wants to learn more about First World War
DW, Monday 20 January 2014.
An article exploring the growing interest amongst German schoolchildren to understand more about the First World War.
http://www.dw.de/germanys-youth-wants-to-learn-more-about-first-world-war/a-17373053
Secrets of Kent's WW1 German u-boat
The Telegraph, Monday 20 January 2014
Article about a recent investigation by experts for English Heritage into the hull of a First World War German submarine that washed up on the Kent coast more than 90 years ago.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/10531084/Secrets-of-Kents-WW1-German-u-boat.html
BBC iWonder brings digital World War I content online
Digital Spy, Sunday 19 January 2014.
Article about the BBC launching iWonder, a new digital service to accompany their centenary coverage of World War I with additional interactive content.
BBC stars explore Great War themes
Express and Star, Sunday 19 January 2014.
Broadcasters such as Gareth Malone, Dan Snow and Kate Adie are among the stars who will voice a series of BBC guides to aspects of the First World War.
http://www.expressandstar.com/news/uk-news/2014/01/19/bbc-stars-explore-great-war-themes/
The real Eton Rifles: the heroism of public school boys in the First World War
New Statesman, Saturday 18 January 2014
An article acknowledgign that public school alumni fought bravely and suffered disproportionately heavy losses during the Great War.
http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/12/real-eton-rifles
Was Britain right to fight WW1? History Extra readers divided
History Extra, Monday 17 February 2014
A poll asking whether Britain was right to have gone to war in 1914 has revealed a split in opinion among History Extra readers.
http://www.historyextra.com/news/was-britain-right-fight-ww1-history-extra-readers-divided
WW1: Can we really know the Lost Generation?
BBC News, Friday 17 January 2014.
An article that argues that the faces and stories of the individuals who died in WW1 are needed, as well as the statistics providing to get a sense of the devastating effects the war had.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/24526419
Far far from Ypres: Soldiers' songs shine light on WW1 attitudes
BBC News Scotland, Friday 17 January 2014.
An article with comments from Scottish folk singer and producer Ian McCalman about the songs of World War 1 often speaking of disillusionment, bitterness, boredom and a very dark sense of humour.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-25653122
Steve Bell's If ... on Michael Gove's freedom, choice and learning by rote
Steve Bell cartoon in The Guardian, Thursday 16 January 2014.
WW1 dead and shell shock figures 'significantly underestimated'
The Telegraph, Thursday 16 January 2014.
"Two new pieces of research into the First World War claim that previous figures for the conflict's death toll and the numbers who suffered from shell shock have been vastly underestimated."
Teaching the first world war: what Europe's pupils learn about the conflict
The Guardian, Thursday 16 January 2014
An article that examines how The First World War is taught to children in different countries.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/16/teaching-first-world-war?CMP=twt_gu
Echoes of 1914: are today's conflicts a case of history repeating itself?
The Guardian, Thursday 16 January 2014
Historian Christopher Clark on drawing parallels with 1914
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/15/1914-conflicts-history-repeating-first-world-war
First world war: your photographs
The Guardian, Thursday 16 January 2014
The Guardian asked readers from the UK and Europe to share their letters, diaries and photographs of friends and relatives, who were involved in WWI.
First world war: the great instructor
The Guardian, Wednesday 15 January 2014.
Drawing parallels between today and the first world war provides nothing more helpful than another perspective
An article that suggests "drawing parallels between today and the first world war provides nothing more helpful than another perspective."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/15/first-world-war-parallels
First world war: 15 legacies still with us today
The Guardian, Wednesday 15 January 2014
An article that looks at the legacy of the First World War in areas such as medicine, warfare, geopolitics and social relations.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/15/firstworldwar
Archduke Franz Ferdinand descendant: don't blame us for first world war
The Guardian, Wednesday 15 January 2014.
An article about Karl Habsburg-Lothringen's statement that the major powers were already prepared for war when Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/15/archduke-franz-ferdinand-first-world-war
Jeremy Paxman accuses Michael Gove of 'wilfully misquoting' historian
The Guardian, Wednesday 15 January 2014.
Newsnight presenter says education secretary's remarks about Professor Sir Richard Evans over first world war were unfair
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/15/jeremy-paxman-michael-gove
First World War: love letters from the trenches
The Telegraph, Wednesday 15 January 2014
A new book gathers together intimate and fascinating correspondence to and from soldiers fighting in the First World War.
Broadcast Blackadder to provoke First World War discussion, historian argues
The Telegraph, Tuesday 14 January 2014.
Historian Kate wWilliams argues that he BBC should broadcast Blackadder Goes Forth as part of its First World War commemoration.
WW1 soldier diaries placed online by National Archives
BBC News, Tuesday 14 January 2014.
Diaries from British soldiers describing life on the frontline during World War One are being published online by the National Archives.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25716569
Honoured: the WW1 pigeons who earned their wings
The Telegraph, Sunday 12 January 2014.
Article about a new exhibition that highlights the contribution made by messenger pigeons in both world wars, when they were credited with saving thousands of lives and altering the course of battles.
If only Tory attitudes to the first world war had shifted as Germany's have
The Guardian, Monday 13 January 2014
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/tories-first-world-war-michael-gove-germany
'Goveadder': the education secretary meets his fate in the trenches
David Mitchell for The Observer, Sunday 12 January 2014.
Mitchell's response to Gove's views about how the war should be commemorated. The article includes a satirical sketch based on Blackadder.
The first world war and Australia: oh, what a loopy debate
The Guardian, Friday 10 January 2014.
An article arguing that recent debates about the First World War are hindering a more nuanced understanding of history.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/10/australia-first-world-war-anzac
The first world war centenary should be about shared understanding, not political point-scoring
Margaret MacMillan for The Guardian, , Friday 10 January 2014
MacMillan argues that recent comments from politicians (of both the left and right) have politicised commemorations of the First World War and in doing so neglect to explore the complexity of the past.
Christopher Pyne: curriculum must focus on Anzac Day and western history
The Guardian, Friday 10 January 2014.
After 100 years, Britain still at war over legacy of World War I
The Japan Times, Thursday 9 January 2014.
An article from The Japan Times examining the arguments about "patriotism, historical responsibility and the place of humor in teaching history" that have been covered in the British press.
Government accused of 'social engineering' over WW1 plans
The Telegraph, Thursday 9 January 2014.
An article focussing on recent criticism and accusations that the government will not sufficiently commemorate the efforts of troops from Australia or New Zealand.
British plan ANZAC whitewash
News.com.au. Thursday 9 January 2014.
An article accusing the British government of intending to downplay the contribution that servicemen from Australia and New Zealand made during World War One.
http://www.news.com.au/world/british-plan-anzac-whitewash/story-fndir2ev-1226797568086
The first casualty: truth
John Blake for TES magazine, Wednesday 8 January 2014
Imperialist injustice, incompetent commanders and the horrors of the trenches: these are the lessons of the First World War. But are they the whole story? John Blake argues that we must abandon our unthinking acceptance of such facts and teach the conflict as it really was.
http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6373287
German historians have little time for Gove’s Blackadder jibes
The Conversation, Wednesday 8 January 2014
This artilcle provides a German perspective of the debates surrounding Michael Goves' comments and criticises the celebration of heroism.
http://theconversation.com/german-historians-have-little-time-for-goves-blackadder-jibes-21826
First World War: an imperial bloodbath that's a warning, not a noble cause
Seumas Milne for Comment is Free, The Guardian, Wednesday 8 January 2014.
A criticism of Michael Gove and Boris Johnson’s perspective on the war and how it should be commemorated.
Michael Gove's grand illusion over Oh What a Lovely War
Readers' letters, The Guardian. Tuesday 7 January 2014.
Letters responding to Michael Gove's comments about the representations of the war in television and film.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/07/michael-gove-oh-what-a-lovely-war
Blackadder – your country needs you
The Guardian, Monday 6 January 2014.
An article that explores whether satirising or criticising World War One denigrates ordinary British soldiers, in response to Michael Gove’s comments.
Michael Gove: He's not the Education Secretary, he's a very silly boy
Steve Richards for Independent Voices, Monday 6 January 2014.
An article examining Michael Gove’s comments about left-wing historians and how Gove's polemicising in turn generates criticism of his own views.
Martin Rowson on Michael Gove's First World War comments
Martin Rowson for Comment is Free, The Guardian. Sunday 5 January 2014.
Political cartoon.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2014/jan/05/martin-rowson-cartoon-michael-gove
How radio — and the digital age — help us to remember the First World War
The Spectator, Saturday 4 January 2014.
An article providing an overview of broadcasters’ plans to commemorate the First World War and how they will help the public engage with the history in a range of ways and mediums.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/arts/radio/9104382/2014-an-anniversary-to-beat-all-anniversaries/
Dear Mr Gove: you paint a curious picture of your job
The Guardian, Tuesday 7 January 2014.
A criticism of Michael Gove’s comments about commemorating the war and his credentials as Education Secretary.
Richard J Evans: Michael Gove shows his ignorance of history – again
Professor Richard J Evans, Monday 6 January 2014.
Professor Richard Evans responds to the education secretary Michael Gove’s attack on First World War historians, stating that it is an improper way to conduct the debate he claims he wants to encourage.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/06/richard-evans-michael-gove-history-education?CMP=twt_gu
Mayor of London: the First World War "was overwhelmingly the result of German aggression" and "the Left can't bear to say so"
Centenary News, Monday 6 January 2014.
An article offering an overview of the recent comments made in print journalism about commemorating the First World War by Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Tristram Hunt.
http://www.centenarynews.com/article?id=1340
Germany started the Great War, but the Left can’t bear to say so
Boris Johnson for The Telegraph, Monday 6 January 2014.
A political article responding to current debates surrounding the commemoration of the First World War, left wing ideologies and Tristram Hunt’s recent article in The Observer.
Sir Tony Robinson hits back at Michael Gove's First World War comments
The Guardian, Sunday 5 January 2014.
“Actor who played Baldrick says Gove is irresponsible for saying Blackadder is leftwing and paints war as 'misbegotten shambles'.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/05/tony-robinson-michael-gove-blackadder-first-world-war
British incompetence in World War One has been overestimated. It's politicians, not the military, who deserve censure
Nigel Farage for Independent Voices, The Independent, Sunday 5 January 2014.
Nigel Farage responds to current debates following Michael Gove’s comments about the commemorating of World War One.
Labour condemns Michael Gove's 'crass' comments on first world war
Toby Helm, Vanessa Thorpe and Philip Oltermann for The Observer, Saturday 4 January 2014.
An overview of the responses from Tristram Hunt and Margaret MacMillan following Michael Gove's criticism of left-wing academics and their interpretations of the war.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/04/labour-gove-first-world-war-comments
Michael Gove's intervention ignores the complexities of conflict
The Observer, Saturday 4 January 2014.
A response to Michael Gove’s comments that “leftwing academics [are] all too happy to feed the myths" displayed by Blackadder and The Monocled Mutineer.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/04/gove-history-first-world-war
Michael Gove, using history for politicking is tawdry
Tristram Hunt MP for The Guardian, Saturday 4 January 2014.
The British left supported the 1914-18 conflict – which was far more complex in its origins than the education secretary's simplistic assertions admit
January 1914: suffragettes, blizzards, exploration – but no hint of war
The Guardian, Saturday 4 January 2014.
An article, with input from Margaret MacMillan, axploring the questions "did those people waking up on this day in January 100 years ago actually believe Britain was teetering on the brink of war? And what kind of world greeted them when they bade farewell to the old year?"
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/04/january-1914-no-hint-war
Michael Gove defends deaths of 37 million people as "just"
New Statesman, Friday 3 January 2014.
The Education Secretary has attacked "Left-wing academics" and Blackadder for suggesting that the First World War was nothing but a "misbegotten shambles".
http://www.newstatesman.com/media-mole/2014/01/michael-gove-defends-deaths-37-million-people-just
Cambridge history professor hits back at Michael Gove's 'ignorant attack'
Jonathan Brown for The Independent, Friday 3 January 2014
An article covering Professor Richard Evans' response to Michael Gove's criticism of him.
Michael Gove criticises 'Blackadder myths' about First World War
The Telegraph, Friday 3 January 2014.
“Left wing myths peddled by left wing historians and comedies like Blackadder belittle Britain and clear Germany of blame, Education Secretary Michael Gove said,”
Why does the Left insist on belittling true British heroes? MICHAEL GOVE asks damning question as the anniversary of the First World War approaches
Michael Gove for The Daily Mail, Thursday 2 January 2014.
This article, written by the Education Secretary Michael Gove, criticises academics such as Professor Richard Evans and television programmes such as Black Adder for their percieved left-wing criticisms of the war, and as a result denigrate Britain and its victory.
Will the First World War anniversary be a launchpad for new forms of militarism in 2014?
Matt Carr for NoGlory.org, Thursday 2 January 2014.
The author highlights the Prime Minister's comments about how the country should celebrate the war and sugegsts that we should be "wary of those who plan to turn the coming year into a launchpad for new forms of militarism, and present the centenary as a cause for celebration."
First world war centenary is a year to honour the dead but not to glorify
The Guardian, Wednesday 1 January 2014.
Michael Morpurgo remembers the stories of sacrifice and valour that inspired him to write the acclaimed War Horse
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/01/first-world-war-centenary-michael-morpurgo
Peter Brookes' Cartoon for The Times
Tuesday 31st December 2013
New coin designs for 2014 unveiled by The Royal Mint
BBC News, Tuesday 31 December 2013.
Coins marking the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow and the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One will enter circulation in 2014.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25558632
Please help save our crumbling war memorials
The Telegraph, Sunday 10 November 2013
The article examines the War Memorials Trust's request for people to check the condition of local monuments and report any concerns.
The fuzzy nostalgia encouraged by Poppy Day facilitates the justification of war
The Irish Times, Saturday 9 November 2013.
The article explores what the "jingoism" that the poppy signifies and how that can hinder a deeper, more meaningful engagement with Ireland's relationship to the First World War.
Readers share their tales of the First World War
The Telegraph, Saturday 9 November 2013.
A selection of reader's stories submitted to The Telegraph following their request for readers to contact them with stories from their family and friends about the conflict.
This year, I will wear a poppy for the last time
Harry Leslie Smith for The Guardian's Comment is Free, Friday 8 November 2013.
This article examines the symbolism of the poppy and the author's reason to no longer wear it.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/08/poppy-last-time-remembrance-harry-leslie-smith?CMP=twt_gu
Hollande unites Allies and Germany in First World War commemorations
The Telegraph, Thursday 7 November 2013.
Article covering President Francois Hollande of France's invitation to all 72 countries involved in the Great War to take part in its annual Bastille Day military parade in July next year.
Judgement and understanding: Margaret MacMillan on the First World War
Jonathan Derbyshire for Prospect Magazine, Wednesday 6 November 2013.
Interview with Professor Margaret MacMillan.
WW1 centenary: cultural programme announced
The Telegraph, Monday 4 November 2014.
Article covering the four year cultural programme to commemorate the centenary of the First World War including the exhibitions, plays, performances and other announced events.
Quakers to stage 'White Feather Diaries', a series of national events to honour WWI's conscientious objectors
The Independent, Monday 04 November 2013.
The White Feather Diaries is a real-time social media storytelling project by the Quakers. It will explore the ideological positions, resistances and experiences of Quakers during the war.
Jeremy Paxman Slams Cameron's WWI Anniversary Remarks: Only A Moron Would Celebrate War
Huffington Post, Tuesday 8 October 2013.
Article about Jeremy Paxman's criticisms of David Cameron's comments about how the country should commemorate the war.
Jeremy Paxman criticises Cameron on WW1 Commemoration Speech
BBC News, Tuesday 8 October 2013.
Jeremy Paxman has criticised the prime minister for comments he made about how Britain will mark the centenary of World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24440923
We must “get out of the trenches” to understand the First World War
Historyextra, Friday 18th October 2013
An interview with David Reynolds in which he discusses the neccesity to take a broader view of the First World War "in order to properly examine how it shaped the 20th century."
http://www.historyextra.com/feature/we-must-“get-out-trenches”-understand-first-world-war
BBC unveils the star of its First World War anniversary coverage
The Independent, Wednesday 16 October 2013.
A 60-minute film, due to be screened on BBC2 in 2015, will centre on Rupert Murdoch’s father’s experience of the war.
WW1 beyond the mud and trenches: BBC’s plans for the centenary of World War One
The Telegraph, Sunday 13 October 2013.
An article outlining the BBC's plans to delivery a programme of commemorative broadcast material that will be extensive in subject and tone.
The First World War was far from futile
Gary Sheffield for The Guardian’s Comment is Free, Monday 17 June 2013.
An article critiquing the view that the war was entirely futile, which Sheffield feels it is commonly perceived as being.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jun/17/1914-18-not-futile-war
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles says 2014's £50m World War I commemorations must not turn into “anti-German festival”
The Independent, Monday 10 June 2013.
The article covers Eric Pickles and Maria Miller's comments about how the war should be commemorated throughout the four-year cultural programme of events.
How should we remember the First World War?
The Telegraph, Sunday 9 June 2013.
An article that suggest that the counbtry, when commemorating the war, should "draw on more complex, sometimes clashing emotions" to tell the broader,unconventional narratives of the war.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10109434/How-should-we-remember-the-First-World-War.html
First World War centenary plans revealed
The Telegraph, Sunday 9 June 2013.
The Queen is due to attend and lead the nation in commemorating the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War at a service where she will be joined by other heads of state.
Historians complain Government's WW1 commemoration “focuses on British defeats”
The Telegraph, Sunday 5 May 2013.
An article that focusses on the criticisms surrounding the Government’s plans to mark the centenary of the First World War.
Do those who flaunt the poppy on their lapels know that they mock the war dead?
By Robert Fisk for Independent Voices, Saturday 5 November 2011.
An article examining the symbolism of the poppy. Fisk explores this through drawing on his own father's perspective as a veteran of the First World War.
UK PROJECTS & FUNDING LANDSCAPE
The following links provide a useful insight into some of the projects that are happening across the UK, as well as some of the online resources.
Funding bodies
Department for Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS)
First World War Centenary gateway page
https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/first-world-war-centenary
'Thousands of pupils to visit First World War battlefields'
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-pupils-to-visit-first-world-war-battlefields
'Liverpool Cenotaph gets Grade I listed status'
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/liverpool-cenotaph-gets-grade-i-listed-status
Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF)
‘Understanding the First World War’
http://www.hlf.org.uk/HowToApply/whatwefund/FirstWorldWar/Pages/FirstWorldWar.aspx#.Unvwxvm-2So
‘Empire, Faith & War’
http://www.1914.org/news/empire-faith-war-major-project-on-sikhs-and-first-world-war-gets-go-ahead/
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)
‘World War One at Home’
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/News-and-Events/News/Pages/BBC-WW1-at-Home-project-researchers-announced-.aspx
AHRC & IWM PROJECT - WHOSE REMEMBRANCE?
‘Whose Remembrance?: Communities and the Experiences of the Peoples of Britain’s Former Empire During the Two World Wars’
http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections-research/research-programmes/whose-remembrance
“Whose Remembrance?” is super useful partnership project with IWM & academics funded by AHRC to demonstrate archives available that will broaden our understanding of conflict in the 20thcentury, specifically to focus on the experiences of the peoples of Britain’s former empire in the two world wars.
Therefore “Whose Remembrance?” recovers BAME histories and archives needed to be included in the mainstream narratives, and there are discussion papers and databases that you can access here, and These databases represent a work in progress. Please do send any further suggestions for items to be included to research@iwm.org.uk
- Whose Remembrance? Discussion Paper
- Published Research Database
- Literature Database
- Museum Projects Database
- Film and TV Database
Wales
Wales' commemoration plans for WWI unveiled by first minister
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-24692927
Framework Programme for the commemoration in Wales 2014–2018
http://www.walesremembers.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/19726-WW1-Brochure_E_WEB.pdf
'World War One: National Museum Wales to stage four years of events'
BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-24872596
Scotland
‘Scots World War I commemorations announced by Alex Salmond’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-22642112
Drawing exhibit: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/arts/visual-arts/wartime-drawings-to-be-displayed-at-scottish-gallery-1-3158694#.UmuNuUJQqBc.twitter
Northern Ireland
'Commemorating the First World War' CultureNorthernIreland
http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article/148/commemorating-the-first-world-war
'HMS Caroline "can be key WWI commemoration project" BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-24461229
Living Legacies 1914-18
The Living Legacies 1914-18 Engagement Centre is a focal point for connecting academic and community researchers interested in how the First World War lives on in the twenty-first century world.
http://www.livinglegacies1914-18.ac.uk/
England: London
First World War Commemoration: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/visiting-the-city/archives-and-city-history/london-metropolitan-archives/the-collections/Pages/first-world-war-commemorations.aspxs
National Portrait Gallery WW1 Show: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24655091
Florence Nightingale Museum: The Hospital in the Oatfield - The Art of Nursing in the First World War http://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk/
Islington 1914 -1918 -Islington Council is commemorating the First World War by remembering those who served on the front line and exploring everyday life in Islington 1914 - 1918
http://www.pinterest.com/IslingtonWW1/
Sheffield: https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/libraries/archives-and-local-studies/research-guides/world-war-one.html
Bradford’s First World War Roll of Honour on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bradfordww1/sets/
Bradford in the First World War Resources: http://www.bradford.gov.uk/bmdc/leisure_and_culture/library_and_information_services/local_and_family_history/First+World+War+Resources
Orford Museum, Sussex:http://www.1914.org/news/first-world-war-stories-wanted-for-suffolk-community-project/
'1914: When the World Changed Forever', York Castle Museum: http://www.yorkcastlemuseum.org.uk/Page/1914.aspx
RNLI exhibition in Cromer details WW1 rescues
http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2014-01-16/rnli-exhibition-details-ww1-rescues/
University Projects
Leeds Stories of The Great War, University of Leeds: http://arts.leeds.ac.uk/legaciesofwar/
The Great War Archive, The University of Oxford http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/
Digitisation of photograph archive, Birmingham University: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-24568259
Professorial Public Lecture Series, Bath Spa University: http://www.bathspa.ac.uk/pls?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Bath+Spa+University&utm_campaign=3674835_PLS-2014-2&utm_content=PLS&dm_i=17FV,26RIR,9IZR80,7WY8Z,1
Sassoon Journals, University of Cambridge: http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/sassoon
ARTS PROJECTS
JEREMY DELLER • LIGHTS OUT
Over the days leading up to 4 August a new short will be revealed each night at midnight, culminating in a film being revealed for just one hour from 10pm-11pm on 4 August, at the point the First World War was declared 100 years ago.
http://www.thespace.org/artwork/view/lightsoutday3#.U99H8PldWSp
Illustrating the Great War
Illustrations by Tim Fox-Godden that focus on soldiers' experience of The First World War.
http://illustratingthegreatwar.co.uk/
Letter to an Unknown Soldier
A crowdsourcing project asking contributors to write a personal message to an unknown soldier who served and was killed during World War One.
http://www.1418now.org.uk/letter/
First World War Anniversary: Wartime Photos Superimposed on the Same Scenes a Century Later
International Business Times, Monday 28 July 2014
To mark the centenary of the start of the conflict, Getty Images photographer Peter Macdiarmid compiled photos of England during the war and superimposed them onto photos of the same scenes today.
The Big Picture
"The Big Picture” is a pan-European video installation designed to creatively commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the First World War.
Great War Battlefields: A Century Later
Images of the Western Front battlefields by military historian Paul Reed showing the battlefields as they are today, 100 years after the start of WW1.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/battlefield_historian/sets/72157646095492285/#
Tower of London poppy installation: Designer explains idea
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
An art installation to mark the centenary of the start of World War One is being opened on Tuesday. More than 800,000 ceramic poppies are being planted at the Tower of London - cascading out of a window and into the Tower's dry moat - one for each of the British and Colonial soldiers who died in the conflict.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28658498
WW1 centenary: Column of light illuminates London commemoration
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
A column of white light reaching high above the London sky has been switched on to mark 100 years since Britain entered World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28655977
Lights Out to mark WW1 centenary
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
Lights have been turned out across the country to mark the centenary of Britain's entry into World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-28654911
'Poppy explosion' in Dorset commemorates WW1 deaths
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
More than one million poppies were blown into the air in Dorset to mark every Commonwealth death during World War One. The release of 1.1m poppies from a tank - described as a "poppy explosion" - took place at Bovington Tank Museum.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-28640338
WW1 lights out ceremony held at Llandaff Cathedral
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
Lights went out across Wales to mark the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-28655085
UK turns lights out to commemorate first world war - in pictures
The Guardian, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
Lights went out on Monday in a tribute to the dead of world war one inspired by the prophetic observation of Britain’s foreign minister on the eve of war 100 years ago.
World War One: 'Lights Out' vigils held
BBC News, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
Lights have been switched off for one hour across Northern Ireland to commemorate the outbreak of World War One.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-28649486
Duke and Duchess of Cambridge join Prince Harry to plant poppies at the Tower of London
The Guardian, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
THE DUKE and Duchess of Cambridge joined Prince Harry at the Tower of London today to plant a ceramic poppy in remembrance of those who gave their lives in the First World War.
LIGHTS OUT: Single beam pierces the sky as the nation marks the dark days of the Great War
The Daily Express, Tuesday 05 August 2014.
BRITAIN was plunged into sombre darkness last night as lights all over the country were turned off to commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World War.
Art Marks Great War With Ceramic Poppies, Films and Ghost Sculptures
Artlyst, Monday 04 August 2014
To mark the 100 year anniversary of the First World War, which began at 23:00 on 4 August 1914 and continued until 11 November 1918, the Tower of London is mounting a major new installation, 'Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red' is an evolving installation by ceramic artist Paul Cummins, with staging by set designer Tom Piper.
http://www.artlyst.com/articles/art-marks-great-war-with-ceramic-poppies-films-and-ghost-sculptures
Tower Of London marks WWI centenary with dramatic art installation
The Metro, Sunday 03 August 2014
The Tower Of London has marked the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War with a striking art installation. There will be a total of 888,246 poppies planted, with each flower representing a British military fatality from WWI.
The heat is on for ice tribute to city's Fallen
The Birmingham Post, Friday 01 August 2014.
A unique and poignant exhibition of 5,000 ice sculptures is being staged this weekend.
The western front in 1917-1919 and now – interactive
The Guardian, Friday 01 August 2014.
Photography then and now lets you move through time by tapping or clicking on a historic image to reveal the modern view. You can drag or swipe to control the speed of the transformation
888,246 Ceramic Poppies Surround the Tower of London to Commemorate WWI
This is Collosal, Thursday 31 July, 2014
To commemorate the centennial of Britain’s involvement in the First World War, ceramic artist Paul Cummins and stage designer Tom Piper has created an art installation of ceramic poppies planted in the famous dry moat around the Tower of London entitled “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red".
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/07/tower-of-london-poppies/
Canada's First World War on Canvas: Passchendaele
The Agenda, Thursday 31 July 2014.
The Agenda's look at Canada's First World War contribution through the art collection of the Canadian War Museum continues with a painting depicting one of the most brutal clashes of the war: the Battle of Passchendaele.
http://theagenda.tvo.org/blog/agenda-blogs/canadas-first-world-war-canvas-passchendaele
Rightmove launches Then & Now – An interactive journey around World War One Britain
Rightmove Blog, Thursday 31 July 2014.
To commemorate 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War, Rightmove has created ‘Then & Now’, an interactive journey into the past told through archive photos and Google Street View.
Keep the home fires burning: London marks the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI
TimeOut, Wednesday 30 July 2014.
A selection of exhibitions and art installations commemorating the First World War.
Charlie Ward review – affecting and constantly surprising
The Guardian, Wednesday 30 July 2014.
Sound&Fury's innovative installation movingly brings to life the role of Charlie Chaplin films in healing injured troops
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/jul/30/charlie-ward-review-affecting-and-constantly-surprising
FUEL PRESENTS SOUND&FURY’S CHARLIE WARD
Wed 23 Jul - Sun 3 Aug 2014
C Ward. 1914. In a makeshift hospital, behind the front line, the war’s first casualties are treated. To boost morale, medical staff arrange for a Chaplin film to be shown for the bedridden, with the ward’s ceiling serving as the silver screen.
http://www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/2014/fuel-presents-sound-and-furys-charlie-ward/
Haunting 1914 poem inspires composer of Westminster Abbey's war vigil anthem
The Guardian, Sunday 27 July 2014
Abbey choir commissions David Matthews, whose grandfather died weeks before armistice
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/27/first-world-war-westminster-abbey-vigil
New Great War exhibition 'richest and most comprehensive'
The Daily Express, Sunday 20 July 2014
LORD ASHCROFT has expressed his pride as the “richest and most comprehensive” view of the hardships and sacrifices of Britain’s First World War troops went on show yesterday.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world-war-1/490005/Great-War-exhibition-richest-and-most-comprehensive
Berlin Philharmonic and LSO join forces for first world war centenary
The Guardian, Friday 18 July 2014
Sir Simon Rattle conducts performance recorded for event at military cemetery near Mons to be attended by David Cameron
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/berlin-philharmonic-lso-first-world-war-centenary
Britain at War: Imperial War Museum unveils £40million revamp ahead of centenary
The Daily Express, Wednesday 16 July 2014
A WESTERN Front trench echoing to the sound of machine guns and artillery was today unveiled as the centrepiece of the Imperial War Museum's £20million First World War Galleries.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world-war-1/489261/Imperial-War-Museum-unveils-40million-revamp
First world war dazzle painting revived on ships in Liverpool and London
The Guardian, Monday 14 July 2014
Artists commissioned by Royal Navy 100 years ago used surreal and striking camouflage to create floating optical illusions
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jul/14/dazzle-ships-recreated-first-world-war-centenary
UK's biggest MAZE opens with poignant tribute to World War One heroes
The Daily Express, Monday 14 July 2014
ONE of the UK's biggest mazes re-opens this weekend - with a poignant reminder of the 100th anniversary of the First World War.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world-war-1/488826/Maze-pays-tribute-to-World-War-One-heroes
Aardman animates notes from frontline for Imperial War Museum reopening
The Guardian, Monday 07 July 2014
Flight of the Stories film mixes voices of actors reading extracts from diaries and letters with sounds of birds, wind and waves
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/07/aardman-imperial-war-museum-flight-of-the-stories
Line of Fire, Diary of An Unknown Soldier – in pictures
The Guardian, Saturday 05 July 2014
One winter morning French illustrator Barroux made an incredible discovery in a Paris street: the diary of a solder from the first world war. We have no idea who he was. This gallery contains extracts of the extraordinary book Barroux made from the diaries he found: the incredible graphic novel.
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/gallery/2014/jul/05/line-of-fire-barroux-gallery
Bosnia-Herzegovina marks centenary of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo - video
The Guardian, Sunday 29 June 2014
A filmed reenactment of the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Billy Bragg and the English National Ballet at Glastonbury 2014 review – emotional first world war tribute
The Guardian, Sunday 29 June 2014
Article about how Billy Bragg provided "a resonant introduction for a performance of the ballet Lest We Forget that leaves many in tears"
All quiet on the Welsh front: reliving the horrors of Mametz
The Guardian, Monday 23 June 2014
It was a five-day fight for a square mile of Somme trees that left thousands dead. Now National Theatre Wales are recreating the Battle of Mametz Wood – on a sheep farm
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/jun/23/mametz-somme-national-theatre-wales-owen-sheers-ww1
Chloe Dewe Mathews's Shot at Dawn: a moving photographic memorial
The Guardian, Sunday 29 June 2014
During the first world war hundreds of soldiers, many of them teenage volunteers, were shot by firing squad for cowardice or desertion. Chloe Dewe Mathews's photographs of the mostly forgotten sites of their execution provide a poignant memorial of their tragic fate
Christopher Maltman/Joseph Middleton – deeply compassionate - Llandinam Village Hall, Powys
The Guardian, Friday 27 June 2014
The soldiers who travelled from the Severn to the Somme were remembered with poignant and powerful results
Mametz review – A bloody battle on the Somme is evoked in a Welsh wood - Great Llancayo Upper Wood, Usk
The Guardian, Friday 27 June 2014
In this fresh, visceral, time-bending piece, scripted by the poet Owen Sheers, the audience are cast as sightseers on a battlefield tour.
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/jun/27/national-theatre-wales-mametz-owen-sheers-review
RESOURCES
Useful Resources for Research, Teaching & Learning
First World War Centenary programme of events & online resources
Imperial War Museum
Europeana 1914-1918
Explore stories, films and historical material about the First World War and contribute your own family history. Europeana 1914-1918 mixes resources from libraries and archives across the globe with memories and memorabilia from families throughout Europe.
http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en
British Library: World War One
Supported by over 500 historical sources from across Europe and in collaborationwith the Europeana 1914-1918 project, this resource examines key themes in the history of World War One. Explore a wealth of original source material, over 50 newly-commissioned articles written by historians, teachers' notes and more to discover how war affected people on different sides of the conflict.
http://www.bl.uk/world-war-one
British Pathé - The Definitive WW1 Collection
To commemorate the centenary of the First World War, British Pathé have launched their collection of WW1 films.
http://www.britishpathe.com/workspaces/page/ww1-the-definitive-collection
Adam Matthew Digital has uploaded 140,000 pages of rare First World War posters, cartoons, aerial leaflets, and government and military files, to a new digital portal titled Propaganda and Recruitment.
Adam Matthew Digital
Wellcome Library's collection of First World War material
Primary source material from the Archives and Manuscripts Collection, relating to World War I.
http://wellcomelibrary.org/using-the-library/subject-guides/war/world-war-I/
Royal Mail Group Memorials Database
To commemorate the Centenary and pay tribute to those who served in the War and made the ultimate sacrifice, Royal Mail Group has created a searchable database of all known memorials in their care.
http://www.royalmailmemorials.com/
BBC Schools: Knowledge & Learning (Primary)
A BBC World War One teaching resource for primary schools.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/0/ww1/25827997
BBC Schools: Knowledge & Learning (Secondary)
A BBC World War One teaching resource for secondary schools.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/0/ww1/25826265
Schooling and the Great War 1914-1919
An educational resource that site includes material collected from other websites and publications that examines the impact of the Great War on pupils, teachers and the schools they worked in.
http://www.ww1schools.com/introduction.html
British Libray's online First World War teaching resources
Explore a range of World War One teaching resources for use in the secondary school classroom, designed to help teachers get the most out of this website.
http://bl.uk/world-war-one/teaching-resources
Cymru 1914: The Welsh Experience of the War
Digitised primary resources relating to the First World War from the Libraries, Special Collections and Archives of Wales.
Inside the Great War
The Telegraph
This online resource, sponsored by Lord Ashcroft, offers insights and knowledge from the IWM (Imperial War Museums) and opinions from leading military historians.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-one/inside-first-world-war/
ONLINE & SOCIAL MEDIA
ONLINE - BLOGS, WEBSITES & DIGITAL PROJECTS
First World War Centenary (Imperial War Museum) homepage: http://www.iwm.org.uk/centenary
Lives of the First World War (Imperial War Museum): http://www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org/index.php
Podcasts (Imperial War Museum): http://www.1914.org/category/podcasts/
Operation War Diary
Operation War Diary brings together original First World War documents from The National Archives, the historical expertise of IWM and the power of the Zooniverse community.
http://www.operationwardiary.org
First world war: share your letters, photographs and stories
The Guardian
Crowdsourcing project asking readers to participate by uploading letters, diaries or photographs from any relatives or friends who were involved in the first world war.
https://witness.theguardian.com/assignment/52751e38e4b01fc33230d4aa?INTCMP=mic_231443
Quaker Diaries
An online Quaker storytelling project marking the centenary of World War One. It will follow in real-time the story of five Quakers in a blog and Twitter feed.
http://www.quaker.org.uk/news/white-feather-diaries
No More War
Peace Pledge Union
This website focusses on the Quaker and conscientious objector stance within the war years.
http://www.ppu.org.uk/nomorewar/
Conscientious Objectors Project
Peace Pledge Union
A website resource that documents the history of conscientious objection during the First World War.
http://www.ppu.org.uk/coproject/coww1a.html
No Glory in War 1914-1918
A partner website to the No Glory open letter. It identifies the importance of remembering the devastating impact of the war and provides links to articles that debate what it identifies as the celebratory commemoration of World War One.
Remember the World as well as the War
The British Council's report on the First World War presents findings from an international survey in seven countries (Egypt, France, Germany, India, Turkey, Russia and the UK) carried out by YouGov. It explores people's perceptions and knowledge about the First World War and highlights the truly global nature of the conflict and its lasting legacy. The report also identifies that international perceptions of the UK today are, in part, still influenced by Britain's role in the First World War.
http://www.britishcouncil.org/organisation/publications/remember-the-world
Do Mention the War
Report by British Future
This report, carried out by British Future by YouGov, draws on original research into what the public know and don’t know about the First World War, why they think next year’s centenary will matter and what they want it to be about.
http://www.britishfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/BRF_Declaration-of-war-report_P2_Web-1.pdf
War Memorials Online
A website which uses crowdsourcing to chart war memorials and their current condition with the aim of conserving these for future generations.
http://www.warmemorialsonline.org.uk
Great War Photos
This website is run by military historian and author Paul Reed.
The Rhyme of History: Lessons of the Great War
Margaret MacMillan
A digital essay in which the contemporary world is compared with the world of 1914.
http://www.brookings.edu/research/essays/2013/rhyme-of-history
Picturing the Great War
A First World War blog from the Mary Evans Picture Library.
http://maryevanspicturelibrary.typepad.com/ww1/
Social Media
Twitter is a useful resource for locating, accessing and sharing a range of material relating to the First World War. The following Twitter accounts often tweet relevant and interesting information.
Imperial War Museum WW1 Centenary
Lives of WW1
First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford
'WW1 Centenary: Continuations and Beginnings' WW1 Open Educational Resource Project, University of York
Legacies of War project, University of Leeds
Centenary News
WW1 Conference 2014
Arthur's Letters: letters from Arthur Dease (1892 to 1920)
Matthew Ward
Jessica Meyer
Paul Reed
Rob Schaefer
Dr Amber Regis
YORK & WW1: PROJECTS & RADIO SERIES
SYNOPSIS: A SERIES THAT BRINGS TO LIFE THE HIDDEN STORIES OF WORLD WAR ONE BY VISITING THE REAL PEOPLE, BUSINESSES, SCHOOLS, HOSPITALS, AND NEIGHBOURHOODS OF YORK CITIZENS
FORMAT: ILLUSTRATED DOCUMENTARY FEATURES USING READINGS FROM LETTERS, DIARIES, NEWSPAPERS, WAR RECORDS, HOSPITAL AND MENTAL HEALTH CARE FACILITY RECORDS, ORAL HISTORY FRAGMENTS
STRUCTURE: 5 x 6 MINUTE FEATURES TO PLAY OUT AS A SERIES AND/OR AS 'STAND ALONE' FEATURES: USING A MEMBER OF THE BBC RADIO YORK TEAM AS PRESENTER/NARRATOR
STORIES: CONTRASTING FEATURES WILL TELL DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF HOW THE WAR WAS EXPERIENCED IN YORK, PAYING ATTENTION TO THE OFTEN NOW FORGOTTEN STORIES OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN, WORK AND PLAY, IMPRISONMENT AND CASUALTIES.
HISTORYWORKS PROJECT with DAFX, performed at York's Guildhall example: "To Fight Or Not To Fight"
In 1916 York was a centre for conscientious objector activists, Quakers at Bootham School and the Rowntree factories. Aflred Martlew was put on a trial in the Guildhall and subsequently pressganged to the front line in France where he was tied to a barbed wire fence, but still refused to fight. This story is told through Hansard, Newspaper Accounts, and Letters to the MP Arnold Rowntree. The drama pivots on the relationship between Alfred and his fiancée, Annie, and a body found drowned in the Ouse: listen to ‘To Fight Or Not To Fight’ on Audioboo
HISTORYWORKS APP HISTORY TRAIL COMMISSIONED BY YORK MUSEUMS TRUST
‘Experiencing The Great War: York in World War One’ is a walking tour around historic York which explores a series of locations within the ancient city walls and the stories they can tell us about York and the people who lived there during the Great War.
We usually think of the conflict as one that happened overseas, in the trenches of Flanders, but this trail will illustrate how the war had an impact on York and its citizens. Along the trail we will discover stories of war horses, Zeppelin air raids, wounded soldiers back from the front, enemy aliens, and conscientious objectors.
The stories on the trail are the result of intensive research into York’s First World War history by researchers at the University of York, representing a variety of academic disciplines, joining together materials drawn from archives, alongside insights from artefacts in York Castle Museum’s collection and York’s historic centre to tell the global story of The Great War from a local perspective.
The media team at Historyworks have worked closely with the curators at York Museums Trust and drawn on the expertise of the City Archaeologist, John Oxley. Producers at historyworks have recently reversioned the script and recorded with the BBC's Jonathan Cowap, who is the voice for the audio guide on the app version.
User guide
The tour will lead you around York’s historic cityscape, exploring some of its forgotten stories. At each stop along the trail, listen along to the audio narrative provided and see the photographic illustration to position you at the location, and to reveal historic and archaeological objects from the site. These can be accessed via a script, a podcast, or an app as following:
Resources
Please find the trail leaflet here which is free to download and print
App Link: http://www.historyofyork.org.uk/mobile/home.html(opens in new tab)
Click here to see App script as a text document
Podcast of trail
http://audioboo.fm/users/165936/playlists/3573-york-wwi-trail
TRANSCRIPT: THE FIRST WORLD WAR BRITISH LIBRARY DEBATE
On Monday 17 February 2014, the British Library and History Today presented a forum for an important discussion of the myths, meaning and origins of the First World War by leading historians.
The panellists that took part in the debate are:
Professor Gary Sheffield is one of the foremost authorities on the First World War. He held the inaugural Chair in War Studies at the University of Birmingham, positions at King's College, London and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and is currently Professor of War Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. His publications include The Chief: Douglas Haig and the British Army (2011), The Somme (2003) and Forgotten Victory: The First World War – Myths and Realities (2001).
Dr Annika Mombauer is Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the Open University and has published widely on German military planning in the years before the First World War. She is author of The Origins of the First World War: Controversies and Consensus (2002).
Dr Dan Todman is Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary, University of London, and works on the social, military and cultural history of Britain during the world wars. His publications include The Great War: Myth and Memory (2005).
Dr Neil Faulkner is a Research Fellow at Bristol University, a leading First World War archaeologist, a high-profile Marxist historian, and the author of the Stop the War Coalition pamphlet 'No Glory: the real history of the First World War'.
The chair of the discussion is Paul Lay, editor of History Today.
Transcript
A transcript of the debate that took place at the Conference Centre, British Library on Monday 17 February 2014, 18.30 - 20.00.
ROLY KEATING BRITISH LIBRARY CEO Thank you very much indeed for coming, it's a pleasure to see so many people here. I'm Roly Keating, I'm Chief Executive here at the British Library and tonight we have the First World War: The Debate. I think the fact that this is a sold-out event gives a sense of just how much energy, curiosity, passion and desire to think and reflect there is in the air, particularly in the last month or so. Ever since this historical debate found its way deep into the political consciousness and the public life of the nation -from Michael Gove’s intervention, and the response from Sir Richard Evans - something happened that made us want to take this further. I hope one of the things the British Library can do as an institution is provide a safe space for big ideas to be thought through, and for people to understand and question, and maybe question themselves. I’m sure that's what is going to happen over the next hour and a half. We try to do other things here as well, particularly in commemoration of the 1914 to 1918 conflict. We’re a research library and very proud to be able to put primary research materials out there onto the web for everyone to have access to and explore. Some of you may be familiar with the Europeana 1914-1918 project where collections from all over Europe are being published online together. There are 400,000 items, never before available, not just from the traditional archival collections [as it] also contains materials from personal collections. Private papers have been brought in to the open road shows [that have taken place] all over Europe. We participate in that. From that material we've also published very recently, there is our own website – it is for an educational purpose primarily but it's great. It's focused on what can be done for young people in classrooms but I hope you will all find our World War One website because there’s material of great interest to anyone interested in the period. Beyond that, as the year unfolds, there are events and conferences. Kate Adie will be here talking about women in the war. On June 19 we will see the opening of a free exhibition in our main public space here at the library, calledEnduring WarorGrief, Grit and Humour. It’s about the personal experience on the home front and on the front, and about how people coped - of course that's what journals and manuscripts can reveal clearly. We’re also an active research institution and I’m delighted to say it is one of the collaborative doctoral students we have working here, Vincent Trott, who suggested that we do this. [He suggested] that the moment had come and that we should seize the moment to have a debate. I’m delighted that from a spark like that we can assemble such a distinguished panel.
I’m going to hand to our Chair for the evening, historian and journalist Paul Lay. A former and founding editor ofBBC History Magazine, a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham, he is on the advisory board of the Institute of Historical Research but you may well know him as the editor ofHistory Today.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Thank you Roly. We’ve got a very distinguished panel here. I should say something about the way this came about, it was a great initiative by the British Library because it actually came about from a Twitter conversation that was born of the debate (or the controversy) between Gove, Richard Evans and Tristam Hunt was there. People like Simon Schama became involved and Gary Sheffield was the main agent there. Gary is one of our main guests today and the BL responded tremendously quickly and put together this debate - it didn’t even feature in theWhat’s Onlistings. I think that the number of people present, a practically sold-out event of 290 people, shows that The Great War fatigue has not set in yet and it looks as though it won’t at all.
I will introduce you to the panel. On my far left is Gary Sheffield who is Professor of War Studies at University of Wolverhampton where he is recent appointment. He was recently at Birmingham University. He is most famous for his work on Douglas Haig and revisionism, he's associated with The Somme, The Forgotten Victory: Myths and Realities: fantastic books that have entirely reassessed our understanding of the First World War. On my left is Dr Annika Mombauer who is the Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the Open University. I think that anyone who really wants to engage with the First World War and really wants to go back to the sources should get a copy of her Origins of The First World War Controversies and Consensus, and her recent publication from Oxford University that looks at the sources and the words from the horse’s mouth. It's very, very valuable to go back to those sources and to see and escape anachronism, and hear the voices of the period. On my right is Dr. Dan Todman who is Senior Lecturer at Queen Mary University of London who engages with the social, military and cultural history of the Great War, looking at its cause and legacy. He’s the author of The Great War Myth and Memory and on my far right, although not politically, is Dr Neil Faulkner who is a Research Fellow at Bristol University, a First World War archaeologist and a high-profile Marxist Historian it says here, and he is a politically engaged one too. He wrote the Stop The War Coalition pamphlet,No Glory: The Real History of the First World War.We have a wide range of opinions but we have serious academic engagement with the subject. I think that's very important because no subject is quiet as riddled with myth as the First World War and I think what we want to do today is what Hew Strachan has asked us to do: that is to engage in controversy because controversy is the means by which we will best understand this war. But controversy and contention that is informed by the tremendous amount of academic history that's been produced in recent times. Myths do arise very quickly: I was thinking of Michael Gove’s intervention - I'm not one of those people who just has knee-jerk, negative reaction to Gove as some things he says are interesting, some things are not and some things are faintly ridiculous. What was ridiculous was the points about the origins of the First World War, the apportioning of guilt and blame, it being a left right split. It’s certainly anything but that. If one considers that John Charmley Niall Ferguson, Dominic Sandbrook, John Redwood and originally Alan Clark of the left, then one is confused. Those are all people who have argued that Britain did not benefit or should not have taken part in the First World War.
I want to start debate by going in at the deep end and asking each of the speakers to mark out there positions as to the origins of First World War where guilt, where blame is manifest, if indeed it is at all. So I start with Dr. Dan Todman.
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON It’s interesting to be put in that position as a result of a debate initiated by Michael Gove to promote his own position as scourge of the left rather than make any kind of contribution to the history of the First World War. Along with Paul, I think that there is a function of people driving debate even if that's not their actual intention. For me what was interesting about that manufactured debate was how was how much it focused on Britain’s participation rather than the mechanics of Europe going to war. As ever, these discussions were almost as if it was ab initio, that nobody had fought about these issues before, whereas actually it’s a kind of tribute to 100 years of Britons debating: is this a war that was worth it? Should Britain have entered? So I think we recognise that this was something that was controversial at the time and has continued to be controversial since. In a way that's a distinctly British argument. It’s because Britain has a choice about whether it takes part in 1914 in a way that other countries don’t have the same [choice]. Identifying this as a distinctly British argument is the reason that I’m most interested. That’s almost a way of avoiding taking a position.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Let me force you on that. Did they make the right decision on taking part?
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Depends what you mean by right. It seems to me that if we make or accept an argument that Britain needed to for geo-political reasons - which might be an argument that Gary might make – then we have to accept that there’s a particular value to the nation that exists in 1914, and perhaps we have to draw linkages to the one now. I think that’s why I’m anxious about saying that this is something that is right for Britain to do because whilst it might have been right for the Britons of 1914 – and many of them certainly thought they were engaged in a righteous conflict – I think that the Britain of 2014 is so different from that it would be very dangerous to say this is a just war. That, for me, is to draw on the rhetoric of the time in a false way. Does it matter to Britain that it ends up on the winning side if there’s a war to be fought? It’s an important facet of British history that it’s on the winning side. I don’t think you can understand the 1920s and 1930s, and its reaction to course of the rest of the twentieth century without saying victory matters. But that’s not the reason it enters battle in December 1914.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. And of course, in terms of someone like Ferguson, would be pyrrhic, but we’ll deal with that later. Annika, your position?
DR ANNIKA MOMBAUER, SENIOR LECTURER IN MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY AT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY I completely agree with you that this focus on Britain is important and also somewhat curious. We talk of the First World War but what we’re always doing is looking at Britain’s war, the Western Front and all the associations we have with the war. It’s quite important to think of the origins internationally but to also think of this debate internationally. Whilst we’ve been debating in this country, a parallel debate has been going on in Germany which is very interesting. I no longer think it’s parallel at the moment but the two have crossed. So here the main debate, until about six weeks ago, was how to commemorate the war. There wasn’t really much debate that it shouldn’t be commemorated - and I think all of us would agree that something should happen to commemorate the war - but how do you commemorate it? Historians have been quite worried that the government only seem to want to commemorate defeats rather than perhaps the fact that some battles were won and that Britain was on the winning side. That debate hasn’t taken place at all in Germany. The government there doesn’t want to commemorate at all. There are local and regional initiatives but there is no concerns from the German government to commemorate the war in a national way. While we’ve debating whether or not the war was futile for Britain, in Germany they’ve been debating whether or not Germany caused the war. In a way they’ve got their get out of jail card in a couple of publications which have made a huge splash in Germany. One of which is Chris Clarks The Sleepwalkers which has been available in German translation since September. Last I heard was that he’d sold 160,000 copies. I would say that until fairly recently you had no chance of topping the bestseller lists, unless it was a book about the Second World War. Certainly the First World War is very present in Germany and the debate about whether Germany caused it. The current consensus is that actually Germany didn’t cause it, it was everyone. As the two debates now merge, some German historians have picked up on this futility argument and they are certain that Britain could have stayed out of the war. It’s astonishing to read that. They say that Britain was the only country that had no real reason to go to war in 1914 and that it was the entry of Britain into the war that turned a European war into a global war. So they completely turn it on its head which is astonishing and quite worrying to read. In terms of declaring a position? I’d say that after a hundred years the Allies got it right in 1919 and that Germany is more to blame than anyone else, and that Britain should not have stayed out of the war. We’re looking at this in hindsight but what we need to do is look at what the options were for Sir Edward Grey in 1914. I can’t see how he could possibly have decided for Britain to stay neutral as it wasn’t just Germany threatening Britain, it was Russia. In the understanding of the Foreign Office, and everyone in Europe, Russia will be by 1916/17 an invincible power so what can Sir Edward Grey do? He can stay neutral and he’s let down France and Russia, so he’s no longer got a credible ally on the continent. There is no choice that I can see for a different decision. It’s not really an apt question to ask: could they have stayed out? In that constellation in 1914, given the values that people had, their hand was forced, primarily by Germany.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Do you think that in Germany, part of the appeal of Chris Clark’s The Sleepwalkers is because it presents a flattering picture of Germany in 1914 and in the build up to then?
DR ANNIKA MOMBAUER, SENIOR LECTURER IN MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY AT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY It is a fine piece of scholarship but it’s also extremely well-written, as well as being published and marketed at exactly the right time. He’s lucky in that this book was the first. Now there’s an absolute avalanche of books on the First World War and it’s much harder to stake that claim. Most people who bought that book will only buy one whopper of a book. They’re not going to go read everything that there is. It’s partly timing, it’s partly that it’s readable, but it’s also because a lot of people in the media and the German public where this has been debated in an unprecedented way – it really reminds me of the Fischer controversy of the 60s where there was a similar interest and public debate that you don’t normally get in this way. Something that you can do is look at the comments on Amazon and other such sites. It is astonishing how long and how knowledgeable the people that are commenting are. They do say “and finally somebody says it wasn’t us, we can’t have been the baddies in everything.” The fact that he’s not German is particularly significant and often pointed out. He’s an Australian scholar working in Cambridge. He’s got no ulterior motives, no axe to grind and if he says it wasn’t us then it wasn’t us.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Neil, what’s your position?
DR NEIL FAULKNER WHO IS A RESEARCH FELLOW AT BRISTOL UNIVERSITY It’s interesting that Annika refers to Sir Edward Grey and poses what question what should Edward Grey do? There's a tendency I think among academic historians to assume that if they were to be transported back to the period that they study, 50 years ago, hundred years ago or 200 years ago, they would be reincarnated as a great statesman, general, or a senator if they study the ancient world. I want to suggest that we really need to think about the First World War in a different way because there are two ways of looking at history. There have been two ways of looking at history for about 5000 years, since the world was divided into rich and poor. In 1914 there were two Europes, not just two Europes in the sense that there was an Entente Alliance and a Central Powers Alliance, there was another sense, a more important sense. There were two Europes: there was a Europe of all the rulers, of industrialists, of bankers, and of generals, and if you view history from above that's what you see. You see one group of bankers, industrialists, and generals gathered around the union jack in one place; and as you pan across you see another group of bankers, industrialists, and generals gathered around a French tricolour; and then you pan around little further you see another group of them gathered around a German cross, and they’re competing with each other, they’re competing for empire, they’re competing for markets, they’re competing for raw materials. They’ve gobbled up the rest of the planet among themselves and now that war for empire and profit is rebounded into Europe and created an arms race. That plunges Europe into war: a war of the great powers and a war of the great empires of 1914. That’s what you see if you look at the top, if you take the perspective of Sir Edward Grey. There is another way of looking at 1914. You can look from below. You can look at the experience of the mine worker on strike against poverty pay in South Wales and compare him with the mine worker on strike against poverty pay in the Rhineland, or the Czech mine worker in Bohemia, or the Russian mine worker in the Don basin. Their enemy is not other mine workers who have been put into uniform and sent by their rulers to kill foreign mine workers. Their enemy is the mine boss. You can look at history that way. You can look at history from the perspective of the suffragettes fighting for the right to vote, who have no say in whether or not the British ruling class decides to go to war in 1914. You can look at the war from the perspective of the Irish nationalist for whom the enemy is the British Empire, not Germany. You can look at it from the perspective of the Indian nationalist - let's remind ourselves that the British, who in 1914 adopt a holier than thou attitude to Germany, arguing that Germany is the aggressor, Germany is autocratic and threatening the peace of Europe, it was the British who control a fifth of the world's landmass and a quarter of the world’s population. Hundreds of millions of people living under British imperial rule in order to enrich a tiny minority of bankers and industrialists at the top of British society. The British ruling class, in defence of that empire and in defence of the wealth, were winning to plunge Britain into a war the cost 15 million lives. Look at history from below and it’s not a question about what Sir Edward Grey should have done but a question what ordinary people should've done when their rulers made the decision to plunge Europe into four years of modern industrialized slaughter. If what happened between 1914 and 1918 isn’t madness, a world gone mad, isn't the proof that this system was a dysfunctional system, then I don’t know what is.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Are you talking about what the European working class should have done or what they did? I’d take a lot of your points about how the British Empire is not something one would wish to fight for and it being a war of empires, but it strikes me that there’s an awful lot of South Wales miners who end up joining up. There’s a lot of across Europe [who join up] – one of the great factors of explaining that outbreak of war is the failure European socialism to prevent it.
DR NEIL FAULKNER, RESEARCH FELLOW AT BRISTOL UNIVERSITY That is absolutely right and it seems to me that the leaders of the mainstream socialist parties and the trade unions in 1914 across Europe, with some noble exceptions, but there they were a minority, betrayed the interests of their own supporters. I would put it as strongly as that because the socialist parties organized together in a second international and many of the trade unions had passed resolutions year after year at their conference in the run-up to war saying we will take mass action against war if it's declared. Many of them were committed the calling general strike action to stop the war. My view is that they should've acted on that and then we would've avoided the four years of war between 1914 and 1918. We wouldn't have to wait for that eruption of anti-war opinion from below that finally does bring the war to an end in 1917 and 1918, but only after 50 million people have been killed.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. …and with very poor terms that are imposed by Germany. One question that arises out of that, and I very much agree about the importance of understanding history from below as well as above, is that the way it’s understood now means there could be an argument that the social history, the way we understand what has become social history at least so far as public history goes, has become divorced from the politics and the diplomacy. We see a solipsistic kind ofWho Do We Think We Areculture where we trace our family. Perhaps it’s due to the decline of Marxism, one of the sad parts of the decline of Marxism is that we no longer think those social structures in terms of the way that public history is presented. So the kind of arguments that you are making, which are perfectly valid arguments, are not ones that are really getting through to the wider public because we tend to concentrate on the individual and then we can tend to concentrate on politics and to not merge the two anymore. But anyway, let’s move to Gary Sheffield who will have a different take on this.
GARY SHEFFIELD, PROFESSOR OF WAR STUDIES AT UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON I was rather embarrassed by Michael Gove’s comments because he's fingered me as a right-wing historian and I’m a soft squishy Guardian reader. I got texts from various friends of mine who work in the state school system saying do you have any influence of your new best friend’s policies? Answer: sadly no. My belief, and I must say I’ve been very influenced by reading and Annika’s work and work of many other historians, is that war was caused in 1914 by the deliberate and conscious decision of the ruling elite of two states: Austria-Hungary and Germany. Austria clearly used the assassination of the Archduke as a pretext to go to war with Serbia. They wanted to crush Serbia for a matter of prestige. The Balkans was the last place in Europe where the Austrians could still throw their weight around and it seems very clear to me that they were determined to go to war no matter what. I think the crucial activity of the Germans, and I certainly would agree with Annika that the Germany are largely to blame, was the issue of the so-called blank cheque: the blanket guarantee of support for Austria, no matter what they were going to do. The leaders of Austria and Germany, very small groups of cliques in both cases, took those decisions in the full knowledge of the likely outcome. This would be a war that would not be confined to the Balkans, it would bring in Russia and ran the hugely strong risk of converting into a general European war. Some historians, John Röhl for example and his magisterial third volume of his biography of the Kaiser has just appeared, would argue that there is conscious intent by the Germans to seek to carve out an empire in Europe. Others would say okay, maybe that's not precisely what they're aiming to do, but at the very least the German elite are prepared to run the risk of bringing about a war like that in order to achieve a bare minimum of breaking up the entente of France, Russia and Britain on the sidelines – peacefully, okay, but if it comes to war so be it. The very best thing you can say about the leaders of Germany and Austria-Hungary is that they were prepared to take criminal risks. It strikes me that The Sleepwalkers’ thesis very much speaks to our time: to a time in which we don't want to allocate blame. Chris Clark and Richard Evans have gone on record saying that we should get away from the blame game. This strikes me as being frankly ahistorical. The evidence to me is absolutely clear, that whatever the motivations those two states bear the huge burden of the war guilt. Whatever you might say about the leaders of Britain, France and particularly Russia, their actions were largely defensive and reactive. Could Britain stay out of the war? No it couldn’t. The geopolitical reasons, which Dan has already referred to, are desperately important. If we see the British decision to go to war in 1914 as part of a continuum that goes back at least to the age of Queen Elizabeth, that’s to keep the low countries, the Netherlands and Belgium, out of the hands of a hostile power, particularly a hostile naval power. That is one of the primary principles upon which British security and foreign policy are constructed. The wider issue is the balance of power. Britain has historically sought to prevent the domination of Europe by any one power and thus allied with German states against France under Napoleon, and allied with France against Germany 100 years later. Britain basically went into the Second World War for the same reason, and joined NATO in 1949 for essentially the same reason. The other issue that I must say I’ve come to believe is much more important than I did when I did some writing about this a decade ago, is the moral case. It’s clear to me that people in Britain, especially the nonconformist conscience, were so outraged by the invasion of Belgium and Germany ripping up a treaty, that it suddenly brought in Asquith’s government into the war more or less united. We’ve got so used to politicians lying that we no longer think anything of it, but in 1914 they thought differently. I think the moral as well as the strategic case is absolutely critical.
The final thing I’ll say is that even if we could somehow wave a magic wand and discover that Chris Clark’s The Sleepwalkers thesis is in fact correct, the way that Germany then proceeds to behave once war had broken out with the September program, the policy of annexations in east and west, the treatment of occupied states, and the dire threat this posed to the very existence of Britain as a sovereign state makes the First World War - for all the facts that it’s a terrible and ghastly experience – a war which have to fought and had to be won. Nobody in Britain really wanted war in 1914. I think if Germany had avoided going through Belgium there is extremely good chance would have stayed out of the war altogether or possibly have not come in until several weeks or even months later because the Asquith government had fallen apart. I think this would have meant Germany probably would have won and France and Russia would've lost. It wasn’t a war that people in Britain wanted in 1914 but it’s a war that at the time the people at the very top to the very bottom recognised as a threat and a war that had to be fought. I am profoundly glad that our ancestors took that decision, fought the war and ended up on the winning side.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. It’s very interesting what you say about the reluctance that there was in Britain to fight, I’m sure that’s true. I have a quote here from a leftish academic journalist Gilbert Murray who very much opposed the war and wrote in 1915, ‘I’ve never til this year seriously believed in the unalterably aggressive designs of Germany. Now that I see on a large part of this question I was wrong, and a large number of people whom I honour most was wrong. One is vividly reminded of Lord Melbourne’s dictum, all sensible men were on one side and all the damned fools the other, and e’gad sir, the damned fools were right.’ Now the damned fools he was talking about were people like Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener, Lord Milner, people who wanted to create in the years running up to the war a much stronger army. The British army was very small and relied on its naval power for its strength. Is there any sense that the war could’ve been avoided had Britain been more militaristic?
GARY SHEFFIELD, PROFESSOR OF WAR STUDIES AT UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON The argument had certainly been made that if Britain had introduced conscription, had effectively had a continental army to back up its quasi-alliance with France and Russia before 1914, that’s a possibility. But of course it was never to happen because Britain before 1914 was never going to allow conscription to come in. So yes it might be but it’s really not worth debating because it was not going to happen.
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON If we’re talking national interests I can’t see that it’s in Britain’s national interest to fight like France, Germany and Russia when it's not France, Germany and Russia. Britain is the workshop of the world, it doesn’t have an agricultural peasant class. It’s very good at making stuff so it should fight a war based on high technology which is what he does. If you say that Britain should have a big army then you’re missing the role that the British navy plays in winning the war. I’m not sure that just because Gilbert Murray thought that the damned fools were right and that Kitchener was right - it’s interesting that it wasn’t deployed in the way he wanted it to be deployed anyway, which is let everybody else in Europe fight themselves into a standstill then determine the peace.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Historians refer to the Court of Arbitration, was there any peaceful means by which it could have been resolved through such methods as arbitration. Neil, are you aware of any such methods that were based upon congress that could have avoided the conflict?
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON No, not really because if you have a world which is divided as the world of 1914 was, between rival European nation states, creating empires, spheres of influence in America, Asia and Africa, building great armies to back their position both in Europe and in the wider world, you don't have the material basis for international cooperation to resolve conflicts of this nature. You have to overturn what was a profoundly and still is a profoundly dysfunctional global system where instead of having a world in which there is international unity, solidarity and a resolution of human problems collectively and democratically in a rational way by agreement office as a species, you have a world that is divided in this way into nation states and corporations that are competing with each other. If that's the dynamic of the system it doesn't matter what international institutions you setup it doesn't matter if you set up a league of nations it doesn't matter if you set up the united nations it doesn't matter what kind of international organization at you set-top you are not going to be able to prevent war which is intrinsic to a system which is divided and competitive in the way the modern capitalist world is, the world that has given us a century of war. It’s a pipe dream.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. You wanted to come back?
GARY SHEFFIELD, PROFESSOR OF WAR STUDIES AT UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON Yes, the war could have been stopped by international mediation. Sir Edward Grey, on six separate occasions proposed either an international conference or mediation. In the two years, 1912 and 1913, the Balkan Wars, had seen the revival of the old [inaudible] of Europe – all sat round a table to prevent war from spreading and to decide which state would get which chunk of territory. All the indications from 1912 and 1913 were that Grey was sympathetic to the Habsburg case. Vernon Bogdanor, who gave a very important lecture last year and I believe it is coming out as the core of a book later this year, has made the point very forcefully that it was entirely possible, had the Austrians and Germans been serious about peace, which of course they were not, there could have been an international conference ending with Serbia being punished and isolated although not just destroyed. War could have been avoided, the Austrians could have got some revenge for the assassination, and the Russians wouldn’t have been drawn in but such peace processes only work if the principle parties are serious about it. Russia, France and Britain were serious, Serbia had no choice, but Germany and Austria were not.
DR ANNIKA MOMBAUER, SENIOR LECTURER IN MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY AT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY But it’s even worse than that. They even say in Vienna after the assassination that a diplomatic victory would be odious. They say we do not want a diplomatic victory. This time, particularly the chief of staff in Vienna, Conrad von Hötzendorf, who has been gagging for a war with Serbia for some time, [sees this as an opportunity]. The last thing he wants is arbitration or mediation. As you say, there are all these offers on the table in Berlin and in Vienna. What the leaders in Berlin do is they say we will pretend to pass on your mediation proposal but please don’t be fooled by this, we don’t want you in Vienna to mediate but we can’t lose face. We have to appear to be in support of the offers that are coming in from Sir Edward Grey. As you say, there is this tradition of solving crises around the conference table and I can't see why this couldn't have worked again had there been the desire to resolve it.
GARY SHEFFIELD, PROFESSOR OF WAR STUDIES AT UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON Edward Grey has come under an awful lot of criticism from a whole series of historians, normally for not being tough enough. That completely misunderstands how politically weak he is within the liberal government. For me his biggest mistake is actually believing the international processes would have worked as recently as six months before war work in the summer of 1914. His mistake is believing the Germans and Austrians are serious about peace when they are not.
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Just to follow up on a point that Neil made earlier. It seems to me that one of the problems with trying to stop the war when it’s one or two years in is the level of popular commitment throughout Europe to it, but also that these wars can’t just be fought by great statesmen and they can only be fought with popular consent. Because there isn’t that universal enthusiasm that I think people used to believe in in 1914 - you would have had popular support for a peace settlement in 1914. It would have been politically possible domestically as well as internationally. But once the war is under way, by the time you get to 1916 and 1917 that is much harder to achieve because it’s politically much more difficult on the home front.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Our mentalities are hugely different. I don’t think you can underestimate the mentality of people there if you're thinking of the Russian soldier fighting for church and fatherland, Christian patriotic duties all the time - Rupert Brooke writes at the beginning ‘Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with this hour’. These are sentiments that are unimaginable to us, but in terms of the mentality they are very real and that is what people believe, and it’s very difficult. I want to move on as I realise we are really racing through time and I want to look at the legacy of the war and the way we understood it, and why Britons are so fascinated by it. I want to look at the idea of good war versus bad. When Britons look back at the Second World War it is almost universally accepted as the right thing to do. It is almost Manichaean in the way of good versus evil. There is little regret despite the suffering that’s endured there. It was the right thing to do and that is not the way on the whole that the First World War is thought of anymore, and perhaps hasn’t been thought of as such over the last 50 years.
Dan, I wonder if you could talk about the way in which that has changed? You do get criticism of strategy for example, even with people at Churchill, Lloyd George, Basil Liddell Hart, right from the beginning but never-the-less they sense the war is the right thing to afford – it was still right to go to war, even if the strategy is wrong. We think of books Frank Richards, Frederic Manning, J.C. Dunn, that are ambivalent and ambiguous about the war but still relatively positive about the legacy of it. That changes, I wonder if you could chart that change?
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON I think you have to be very hesitant about ascribing a single view to Britons in that interval period. The war was very controversial whilst it's been fought and it remains a controversial afterwards but certainly I think there's a much broader range of opinion which says that the war was worth fighting and it was for something. Of course it's much harder to say it was worth nothing when so many people have lost loved ones. So this is a structural factor in what can actually be said. One of the ways that society deals with that idea of this kind of controversy but simultaneously this great tragedy of loss of life is to come to a kind of mutually acceptable meaning. I think you see that kind of transition in the 1920s going into the 1930s. You get this idea that this was a war justified by the achievement of peace which I think is a very important way of looking at Britain’s involvement with Europe in the 1930s and how uncontroversial the start of the Second World War is. It causes much less debate popularly and politically because it’s seen as a war for peace. So the sacrifice of 1914/18 will only be justified if Britain stands up for peace and redeems those dead soldiers. It’s only in the post-Second World War era that you have a rewriting of the experience of the First World War in purely negative terms. That’s partly because you can have a comparison. You can [now] have a good war and a bad war. Britain‘s Second World War in the sense that it loses fewer people. One of the other aspects of goodness that we associate with the Second World War is the achievement of social welfare reform of the end of it. What is often forgotten is how important [the experience of the First World War was] in terms of improving the conditions of a lot of working class Britons. The fact that trade unions take advantage of war time labour shortages to strike and get better rates of pay – more particular, in terms of working class family incomes and the sheer level of employment, makes the First World War a transformative moment as well. Wars are always repurposed and revisited over time in history. There has always been an undercurrent questioning, even when the First World War is seen in more negative terms: is it really a bad war? I mean it’s distinctive that we’re having a debate today. I think one of the things that happens with the remembrance of the First World War is that it becomes remembered in terms of debates and those debates [become] key parts of people’s political and personal identities. So even people who might not know very much about the First World War, [know] there are some debates that people argue about and I know where I stand on those debates and that’s part of what makes me who I am.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. The reasons that Britain went to war in both the First and the Second World War are actually quite similar. When you talk about the effects in terms of labour and in terms of welfare they are again strikingly similar. We did not go to war in the Second World War to save the Jews, no matter how much we’d like to think that. We did not know about Auschwitz. We went for remarkably similar reasons, for the same reasons we fought the First World War.
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON If you want to say there’s more of a mixture of geopolitics both times round I think that’s a good way of explaining why British statesman and population are persuaded to fight twice over.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. But we do seem to have a turning point around the 60s. Everyone remembers the BBC’s great series The Great War which is still striking now when you see people in their sixties and seventies who fought at the Somme and Ypres. You also get the first real public airing of Wilfred Owen’s poems and Oh What a Lovely War! comes through that. What is that turning point about? What does it represent?
GARY SHEFFIELD, PROFESSOR OF WAR STUDIES AT UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON I know Dan would place the turning point a little later which I don’t agree with him on. I think the 1960s [contains] the generation viewing the First World War through the prism of the Second World War: the good war refracts the bad war. There’s a lot of other things going on as well. J.B. Priestley for example, writes very movingly in late-50s of his experiences of the First World War. He sees this through the eyes of a founding member of the CND. The background to Oh What a Lovely War! is the cold war and the idea that the First World War was this tragic mistake and we would be going down this slippery slide again. I think Oh What a Lovely War! is premiered within six months of the Cuban missile crisis. I think the other thing is this more general idea of the 1960s and the backlash against the Edwardian conformism personified by Harold MacMillan. I think the First World War is caught up in the counterculture of the Beatles and Rolling Stones (although don’t make too much of it). MacMillan [is the symbol of this], a grenadier officer in the war. The First World War becomes involved in the wider societal changes. At this stage you have grandfathers who fought in the war sitting down with their grandchildren and talking about it, their discussions being prompted by watchingThe Great WarTV series.
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON I think that’s where you get that intersection of Clark and Joan Littlewood which once you start to analyse it looks very strange. But what links them is that Clark is writing about a different sort of class struggle, the up and coming technocrats versus the old aristocratic elite, so part of the point about writing the donkeys is just to [make a point] to the bourgeoisie and make a name for himself. He wanted to try something new and so the First World War was what it was going to be. The standpoint is that it's the middle class who are technically adept wanting to the sweep away an older system. I do think that’s a bit different from hippies tuning and dropping out which I think is much more 1970s. This is a debate that’s going on in Britain from the 1930s onwards. You see it there at the end of the 1930s, the idea that generals in the last war didn't know what they were doing, they didn’t deal with technology well. It’s significant that it’s focussed so much on technology. It’s not an accurate reflection of them but that [view] that Britain needs to remake itself by being really good at using these new weapons of war is something that you see time and time again.
DR ANNIKA MOMBAUER, SENIOR LECTURER IN MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY AT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY It’s interesting that the parallel debates that I just sketched out for the centenary also happened for the 50th anniversary. Whilst in this country these debates were going on, in Germany the debate was again about war guilt. This time round the argument that it had been Germany’s fault was debated in the media because that had been very much buried by the late 1930s. Everybody had agreed that it was nobody’s fault. The system had broken down and that was very comfortable for Germans. The contemporary background to that debate is significant. You mentioned the Cuban Missile Crisis but also you have the Berlin Wall in the 1960s, and Germany is at the very forefront of the Cold War. You get a German historian saying it was us and so that’s very uncomfortable. The debates that the Germans have about the war are completely different. Apart from the issue of the origins of the First World War itself has never been in any way problematized in Germany. It’s never been debated. The war itself is a complete non-topic. It’s obviously a non-topic in the years following the war because of the war. Not only do they feel they didn’t start it, they also feel they didn’t really lose it. You have a different relationship with that war because of its outcome. After the Second World War it was even more gruesome for Germans than after the First World War although startlingly the civilian deaths are similar. I hadn’t really clocked that until it was pointed out to me earlier. 700,000 Germans [died] if you include the influenza dead but that is completely overlooked in Germany. It’s only in the last two years that there is this sudden interest in the First World War which suddenly is called The Great War. I’m not sure why that’s significant but I think it is significant. Suddenly it’s completely changed the way Germans see the war.
DR NEIL FAULKNER WHO IS A RESEARCH FELLOW AT BRISTOL UNIVERSITY I think we seem to be shadowing the kind of Gove argument which in its essence is saying that the way we view the First World War is based upon trendy views developed in the 1960s, it's reflected in things like Oh What a Lovely War! or it's reflected a little bit later in Blackadder. That traditional view of the First World War is, in a sense, a construct of relatively recent times. That only works if you can't see what is happening inside European society and inside the European armed forces that are engaged at the time of the First World War. It is absolutely right that a very large proportion of those who were conscripted to fight, or volunteered to fight, when it broke out in 1914 were gulled by the dominant ideas of the time. [These were] the nationalism, the imperialism, the racism, or all of the other ideas that were used to mobilize people and get them into the trenches and get them killing workers in uniform and peasants in uniform on the other side. But there was a minority, a significant minority, that opposed it from the very, very beginning. That minority got bigger and bigger until across Europe and the fighting fronts there was a wave of mutinies, mass desertion and revolutionary movements amongst the soldiers which shut down the war on the Eastern Front in 1917, and then shut down the war on the Western Front in 1919. On the home front a wave of strikes that culminated in a tidal wave of revolution that swept across Europe between 1917 and 1923 brought the entire European state system, the entire European capitalist system, close to collapse. We got closer then, I think, than at any other time in human history. That creates the legacy and a mass opinion that says this was an appalling slaughter and why is the reaction so different to what is going on in 1918 than it has been before? It is because war has changed. It's because they had turned war into an industrial process. Up until this point armies were relatively small, they tended to fight discrete campaigns in particular places in distant places. What's happening from 1914 onwards is that entire societies are completely engulfed by industrialized slaughter and the products of human ingenuity, human engineering, human labour, are turned into a vast mechanism for the destruction of life. That's why the slaughter is so massive, that's why the reaction is so huge, and that's why we have today a mass anti-war movement. That is the real legacy of the First World War: the signs of the anti-war movement in Britain today.
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON In a way I do wish that was a legacy. I’d be much more pessimistic than you are. I think the really awful lesson of the First World War is that this isn’t something that creates a mass anti-war movement in many of the participant countries. The appalling lesson that we have to learn from his conflict is the ability of human societies, which in many ways bring a great deal of good to their members, to self-delude into fighting these grotesque conflicts which kill millions of people. That’s not something which is just inflicted on people from above. Sadly, this is something which is driven by popular emotion from below as well from below as well. The German army on the Eastern Front doesn’t breakdown in 1917, that's quite significant for what happens on the Eastern Front in 1917. The allied armies don't break down on the Western Front in 1918, again that's quite significant for the outcome of the war. I think the interesting point that you raise and the thing that is significantly absent from all the discussions about commemoration is how we commemorate the 1917. There has been very little about that but once you get into that period of great upheaval that lasts long after 1918, these are much more difficult for national governments to commemorate. I think one of things that we’ll agree on is that Michael Gove, if he’s still in office, is going to have terrible difficulty trying to work out how you cast a conservative narrative around 1917.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. It strikes me that the purchase of the First World War on Britons is as strong as it's ever been, perhaps stronger. I'm thinking in particular of poppy wearing which is far greater and seems more ubiquitous than when I was a child, even though there were people from the First World War there then. Newsreaders start putting them on at about late September these days. There was a very interesting point – an Irish historian, Edward Madigan, who had an interesting point about why the British, and I think he specifically said the English, were so obsessed by the First World War. He said that perhaps it was the only opportunity the English had to present themselves as victims. I think that's quite an interesting point and just on that we can open it up to the audience. You, sir?
QUESTIONER 1 The thing that seems to me to be bizarre about this basically…
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. .…can we just have questions please, not statements?
[INAUDIBLE]
To what extent did the Jameson Raid affect the First World War, Gary?
GARY SHEFFIELD, PROFESSOR OF WAR STUDIES AT UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON I’ve already said in my opening statement I think that war was caused by individual decisions by particular leaders in Austria and in Germany. That’s not to deny, of course, that there are long time factors like imperialism, like the arms race, like capitalism, and like various other isms which are important. They're important in making war not inevitable but probably more likely. However, I would immediately caveat that by saying that in relation to the arms race, there is no real evidence that arms races lead to war. The French-British naval arms race in the late nineteenth century didn't, thankfully the American-Soviet nuclear arms race of the 1970s and 1980s didn't, and by 1914 even the Anglo-German arms race had really led with the Germans being defeated. The British out-built them and so the German plan for undermining the Royal Navy's security had failed but what it had done was poison relations between Britain and Germany. It took a complete stroke for Britain to get into bed, not only with France, a traditional enemy, but Russia, its great imperial rival over India. That’s what happened between 1904 and 1907. Imperialism helped create preconditions in which war might have occurred but to quote David Stevenson, who I think is probably in my view one of the shrewdest historians writing on the First World War at the moment, he said ‘Europe might have been a house of cards in 1914 but it still took somebody to topple the cards.’
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Lady in white?
QUESTIONER 2I just want to a couple of questions. The first: what do the panel think about the whole period from the scramble for Africa to 1914 because it seems to me is absolutely central to the building up of different rivalries, to the way that you have competition between the big empires, and that this has an effect on the kind of rivalry which then leads with the arms race - and if you remember the dreadnoughts the Lloyd George built. They doubled the amount of spending on dreadnoughts in the years before the First World War. What impact does that have? And secondly I’d like to [Annika to respond to something which] I find almost unbelievable: that people can say that after the First World War that Germany didn't talk about the war. The whole of the process to 1933 and the rise of Hitler was precisely about what the war had caused, the outcome of the war, the Versailles Treaty. People of the war hating the war, they didn't want another war. That it seems to me very important. In the 1920s and 1930s people knew the consequence of the war and the picture we get of the war today comes from the witnesses to the war. It comes from Robert Graves, Wilfrid Owen, and the people who lived through it and it comes fromAll Quiet on the Western Front.It comes from all of those things. It seems to me that we have to understand that and not the Michael Gove view of the 60s which [is that it made us] soft and we need to get back to militarism again.
DR ANNIKA MOMBAUER, SENIOR LECTURER IN MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY AT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY You’re right, there isAll Quiet on the Western Frontand there is engagement with the war in that way. I don’t think it is the same as it is in this country. It is a different relationship because the attitude towards the First World War in Germany is one of anger. It is a country which does not make its peace with the end of the war in the way that Britain does make its peace. The idea is that the sacrifices were worth it because this was the war to end all wars. You can believe that until another war breaks out but in Germany that’s not really the attitude. You’re completely right that Versailles and the outcome of the war is a huge topic in Germany, and it is a topic that unites practically every German, regardless of their position. The very left or very right agree on the fact that Versailles and the war guilt ruling in particular has to be undone, that this was a victor’s peace and that this is the most shameful thing. It’s one of the reasons that Hitler comes to power because he can harness this anger. But it’s a completely different attitude to the First World War in Germany so if I said that nobody thinks about the war that is clearly not the case. They think of it differently, partly because they lost it and partly because they cannot make back their peace with the peace. When you get Hitler in the Reichstag in 1937 saying he’s finally rubbed out that signature from the treaty which was forced out of us, saying that he’s returned Germany back from being like a leper, and brought it back to its former glory, then that ends nearly twenty years of struggle about undoing the outcome of the war. It’s a very different way of relating to the war than there is in this country.
If you’re mentioning Remarque then of course it’s very controversial. It’s not like here were most people seem to share this notion that the war was a terrible experience. The Remarque book is one that gets burnt by the Nazis, precisely because that’s not what they want to hear. They want to hear that’s it’s going to be ok to fight another war and this time we’re going to win.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Woman in the black T-shirt?
QUESTIONER 3 I was wondering about the idea of popular consent, which I just don’t buy. Once you were in the trenches if you didn’t go over the top you did face getting shot. I don’t see how you can argue it is popular consent when it’s either go kill those Germans or get shot yourself. The second thing is on the idea of Britain [equals] good and Germany [equals] bad. Would you really argue that is the case? Would you really try put that argument in somewhere like India or other British colonies where there was no democracy? I don’t buy this idea of Britain as a beacon of democracy.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that, in fairness. I don’t think anyone said Germany is bad, Britain is good on this panel. I think we’re dealing with shades of grey there.
QUESTIONER 3 The gentleman on the end said that my country and my ancestors went to war and we came out on the winning side. That was my question, I think it’s more complex.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Gary?
GARY SHEFFIELD, PROFESSOR OF WAR STUDIES AT UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON I’ll take the first point about consent. You’re wrong about what kept British troops in the trenches. It was very largely a combination of comradeship, belief in cause, really basic things like having the rations arriving on time, mail arriving from home. 350ish British soldiers were executed for military crimes during The Great War out of an army of 5.4 million who served in the army at some point during the war. A large number of the people who were executed were repeat offenders. British army discipline could be pretty harsh, pretty brutal, but the idea of people being shot if they went absent without leave is simply untrue. A really key reason why people stayed in the trenches was excellent leadership at junior officer level. To put it very crudely, once the public school boys had been killed off at the beginning of the war, they were replaced by people from all parts of society. About 40% of all officers in 1918 were from a lower-class or lower middle-class background. They were paternal, they looked after their men. The soldiers were perfectly capable of telling them where to get off if their side of the bargain was broken. There were a few isolated mutinies, but they tended to be very much against local conditions, and that solidarity which saw the forces of the British Empire through to the conclusion in 1918 broke down in the French army in 1917 (although it was rebuilt). It certainly broke down in the German army in the victorious hundred days offenses in 1918. The Italians and the Austro-Hungarians went much same way. The British were the only major force whose armies were in the field any length of time which did not undergo a serious mutiny whilst the war was going on. Afterwards was a different matter, people joined up to beat the Kaiser, they did all sorts of things including burning down Luton Town Hall. But there was a basic commitment to the cause and to their officers which kept the soldiers going through the very grim conditions of the trenches.
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON In a different light I’d picture things in a much less cosy way than Gary does, not just in the armed forces but nationally. I think that question of popular consent is one where the best research historically is now being done but it’s an area where there is more research that’s needed. It seems to me that an awful lot of that is pointing to the extent to which the war is experienced at a very, very local level. So not just as Britons or Germans but inhabitants of counties, particular towns, particular villages. I think there is a very interesting question about how the dynamics of consent work at that level. How is it at this kind of micro-level societies across Europe, depending on your perspective, are persuaded, gulled, or persuade themselves to fight? For me there can't be much argument that the only way in which these societies can sustain this war for so long is because they have the consent of their populations. That's not to say this is something which everybody's willingly serving in, as that is obviously not the case, but the majority of the population in all of those combatant countries support the war for quite a long time. For me that’s a much more interesting question than whose fault is it that the war starts. [For me] it’s why do so many people across Europe keep fighting it even when it's obvious it’s not going to be over quickly, it’s going to keep going and it’s going to be horrible. There is an excellent book by Catriona Pennell called A Kingdom United which looks at responses from a very, very local archival level. If you want to know more about how people respond to the war that's where you have to go back to. [You have to go back to] the local archives and find out what people are doing. Find out what people are doing, how do they respond to this news of war arriving.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Lady there?
QUESTIONER 4 I have a question which I’d like each of the panel members to have a stab at. As we’ve been talking about the British Library, Europeana project, and next Monday the BBC announce the first 200 episodes of 1,400 World War One at Home. We are in this situation where we are really contemplating the local to the global, what are your hopes, fears and aspirations for what we might achieve talking through this debate within Britain and Britain’s place within the world within the next four to five years?
DR NEIL FAULKNER WHO IS A RESEARCH FELLOW AT BRISTOL UNIVERSITY Well, let me say that I’m not terribly interested in Britain’s place in the world because I don't see Britain as a unified entity. I see Britain as a class society and what I’m interested in is the well-being of the great majority of ordinary British people, who are at the moment under massive attack by a neoliberal elite. We talked a little bit about Second World War and the legacy - a neoliberal elite that is determined to destroy the greatest achievement of the British people in the 20th century which is the construction of the welfare state in the 25 years or so after the Second World War. When you look at who is doing that and who supports that project, it is a neoliberal elite of bankers, industrialists and millionaire politicians. It’s the same sort of people that made the decision to go to war in 1914. It is not really a question of Britain’s position in the world, it’s much more a question of how working people in Britain are going to organize themselves along with working people in other countries to resist what is coming down the road. That's partly neoliberal cuts, austerity cuts which will return us to the kind of position that we were in in in the interwar period. It’s also about support for new military interventions in other parts of the world, designed to shore up the big corporations that are based in the western world. We have no interest in those wars as ordinary people any more than we have any interest in the austerity cuts, but our rulers do. The main enemy is at home, not abroad.
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON If there are two things that I’d like to come out of the next four years, one is that some people don't know anything about the war and think they’re not interested find out more about it. [Secondly], the people who already think they know about the war have cause to think about why they know what they know and they can stick with their opinions or they can reflect on them. If we can manage that then I think that would've been some success. Fortunately there’s a solution for you there Neil because hopefully what happens is that the process of talking about why do societies consent to fight this war a hundred years ago it gets people to think about what they do not conduct greater disruption to stop wars today.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. It does seem absolutely crucial as someone involved in public history to emphasize the global aspect of the war, and to get away from this rather parochial obsession with the Western Front. This took place elsewhere, Brazil was involved, Turkey, the whole Theatre of the Middle East is important. I think one of the reasons why Christopher Clark’s book The Sleepwalkers has been a success, not just in Germany but here as well, is because its focus is essentially central Europe, about which many of us, including myself, are very ignorant of as far as the First World War goes. I think what we should do over the next few years is to try and open up those vistas - one thing that worries me about the local, is the fact that we become obsessed by the local and forget the big picture, forget the high politics, forget the diplomacy. They all matter and they have to be connected. I think what has happened with the First World War in particular, but with a lot of history lately, is that it has become focused on the individual and tracing the individual. It's some kind of sort or search for authenticity and I don’t think that’s a good thing. You have to paint the whole picture.
DR ANNIKA MOMBAUER, SENIOR LECTURER IN MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY AT THE OPEN UNIVERSITY You asked what we’re worried about. I think it goes a long way towards what [Paul Lay] is saying but I’m worried about the development of different national stories about the war. I think that is what is happening and not just with regard to the causes but with regard to the whole history of the war. [I’m worried] that we’re not integrating these stories and we’re in danger of having conflicting views of the war. I don't think that's very helpful. I’m also a bit worried that we are going to see World War One fatigue before we’ve got to 2018.
DR DAN TODMAN, SENIOR LECTURER AT QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON Since we are talking about Germany, following on from the fall the Soviet Union has there been a reassessment of World War One from a Russian perspective? I was giving a paper in Cambridge about public history and last week and I was talking to a Russian historian who said what is striking is how little interest there is in preserving any bit of World War One history there is left. There is still a very heavy archival presence but an interest in accessing it or doing anything with it. It’s not part of the story that the Russian regime wants to tell. 2017 is going to be very interesting because I can’t see how you can avoid doing something with 2017. I have no idea quite how you construct that into a Putinist narrative. Remembrance in the UK, for all that we debate it, is very easy. If the country ends up on the winning side in two wars there’s not actually that much that is controversial. Whilst there’s all sorts we can fight about – Empire and all sorts of things – remembrance for countries that are torn aside by population movements and by genocide, several times over the course of the twentieth century, is much more difficult. It seems to me that the tragedy that we ought to be talking about is not really focussed on Britain, it’s what happens on the Eastern Front. Maybe that should be our third aim: if people in Britain at the end of 2018 are cognisant that the war isn’t just fought by khaki figures in a trench somewhere in Belgium but there is something else going on over the other side of Europe, then I think that‘ll be a really useful development.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Man at the back with the beard?
QUESTIONER 5 One of the questions is how likely would the Second World War have been if the First World War had somehow been allayed or had been a minor conflict? Personally I think there’s a good chance it may not have happened – obviously Hitler’s sense of revenge about Versailles. How likely is it that Second World War would have happened?
GARY SHEFFIELD, PROFESSOR OF WAR STUDIES AT UNIVERSITY OF WOLVERHAMPTON One of the myths of the First World War is that the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 led directly to the outbreak of the Second World War. There’s all sorts of reasons why Versailles might actually have worked. There is a separate argument which is that the real problems with Versailles – well, there’s two things - the first is that Versailles, having been imposed and the Germans in 1919, the Allies then simply did not enforce it. The French were very keen on enforcing the terms, the British and Americans much less so, and so the Germans spotted weaknesses which they could exploit. The second argument is that the Treaty of Versailles brought about the worst of all worlds, that it enraged the Germans without taking away the Germany’s ability to resort to arms at some point in the future. Versailles has this reputation as a Carthaginian peace, it wasn't. Something like Brest-Litovsk, imposed on Bolshevik Russia by the drums in 1918 was a Carthaginian peace. What happens to Germany in 1945 wasn’t a formal peace process at all but it is a destruction of an existing social system, and it being rebuilt. Versailles is a very traditional form of a settlement albeit quite a harsh one, but not harsh enough or not mild enough. In my personal view, the best way to treat to Germany in 1919 would've been to regard the new republican democratic state as a successor state and blame the ills of the recent past on the now departed imperial government. Basically give Germany a clean slate. That was never going to work in the febrile atmosphere of 1919, it a non-starter. There is a very strong argument put forward by Phillip Bell and Sir Michael Howard that what causes the Second World War in the form that we know it is not Versailles but the Great Depression. +Germany is becoming reconciled, if not to defeat, but of being brought back into the wider international community at the end of the 1920s. The Wall Street Crash, followed by the Depression smashes that and wrecks what is left of political stability in Germany. Eventually, of course this brings Hitler to power, although this is not necessary a given. Once Hitler was in power he is a completely different sort of politician that anyone has ever seen before. He’s determined on war from the very beginning and he wants a major war. I can well imagine that without the Great Depression, without Hitler coming to power, there’s a further revision of the Treaty of Versailles and possibly a small localized old war between Germany and Poland at some stage in which the fronts are amended. But not the cataclysm we get in 1939. So the Second World War is a product of the First World War, that’s certainly true but I don’t think there is a direct line between Versailles and what happens in September 1939.
CHAIR: PAUL LAY,SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BUCKINGHAM, ADVISORY BOARD OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND EDITOR OF HISTORY TODAY. Thanks Gary, I’m afraid we've reached the end of the line here, thankfully not even at the anniversary of 1914 yet. We have 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918 and even 1919 to come so no doubt that we will have many, many more debates. We can see just how much interest there is in this topic from all of you who've come this evening at such short notice. I'm sure we'll have more of these debates because this is a massive, complex and challenging topic but thank you for coming and thank you for the British Library for organising this.
BBC PLANS & DEBATE
To mark 100 years since the outbreak of war the BBC has announced their plans for a unique and extensive season of television and radio programming which will span four years. In this section, we give an overview of the BBC output, nationally & locally; listing and giving clips from Radio & TV programmes from 2014 First World War broadcasts.
BBC - National Output
The BBC season of 130 commissioned television programmes will be augmented by extensive regional and local radio programmes adding up to 2,500 hours of programming in total to begin in early 2014 and continue through to 2018, mirroring the timeframe of the conflict. Starting with Britain’s Great War, presented by Jeremy Paxman, the coverage will span all areas of the BBC from documentaries, drama, live event coverage, music, children's television to international services from around the world.
An online portal located at www.bbc.co.uk/ww1 will provide a central web-based location for audiences to access the breadth of television and radio that is programmed, as well as news, features and interactive online content.
The BBC are aiming to broaden knowledge, enliven familiar stories and illustrate many of the unknown and largely forgotten aspects of the First World War through original research and new content. The Wipers Times which aired in September offered an early insight into the innovative ways that the BBC will present the histories of the First World War. A review of The Wipers Times can be found here.
More information about the plans for national programming from Adrian Van Klaveren, World War One Centenary Controller, can be accessed in the following two blog posts:
Introducing the World War One Centenary on the BBC
BBC Mediapack: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/ww1/
BBC World War One: Season Launch Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcdC_Bqmc2s&feature=youtu.be
A schedule of the BBC's programming: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01nb93y/schedules/upcoming
BBC Local and Regional Output
New twitter handle @bbcww1
One of the ways in which the BBC plans to explore how the war had and still continues to have a significant impact on families, local communities and society is through their ‘World War One at Home’ programming. Each local radio station will develop and launch 20 quality stories about their locality and its connections to the war. Through examining the effect on gender roles, domestic life, schools, and conscientious objection amongst many other areas, the BBC will be able to show how the larger global narratives of the war are linked with the intricate and often untold stories of individuals and communities.
The programmes will also have the support of academic researchers funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). These will work with broadcast journalists to assist in researching and interpretating material for the regional output.
The programmes, launched on February 24th 2014, will have a digital location on the local stations’ websites. From that site audiences will be able to connect with the rest of the BBCs regional output where they will be permanently accessible and available for download. The central digital location for the World War One at Home output can be accessed via http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01pw4fx
More information about the ‘World War One at Home’ programming can be found in the following blogs written by Craig Henderson, Head of Programming for BBC English Regions. These can be foundvia the following links:
Revealing the World War One at Home project
Counting down to World War One at Home
Overview from Culture 24 of the huge storytelling project that is hashtagged #WW1AtHome which unveils this week with the first 200 episodes of 1400 to be broadcast by Spring 2014 connecting the local to the global:
http://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/war-and-conflict/first-world-war/art468304
Digital & Online Output
To accompany their broadcast material the BBC have launched a new interactive learning guide entitled iWonder. The iWonder is accessible across a range of devices (including smartphones, tablets and desktop computers) and offers users the option to explore the BBC's content digitally. The BBC have launched iWonder interactive guides to support the World War One season and although the first iWonder content centres on the First World War, it will eventually provide content that covers all of the BBC’s factual and education genres.
The iWonder guide can be accessed here http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww1
More information about iWonder can be found via Executive Producer Tim Plyming's blog post, 'Introducing iWonder guides for the World War One season.' http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/posts/Introducing-the-BBCs-first-World-War-One-iWonder-guides
World War One newsletter
Find out about events, programme listings and new online material from the World War One season at the BBC wby signing up to their email newsletter http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/0/ww1/24437150.
BBC Debate: WAS BRITAIN RIGHT TO GO TO WAR IN 1914?
You will find links relevant to the debate which took place on the eve of Friday Feb 28th- following Niall Ferguson presenting his argument with a panel debate from BBC2's "The Pity of War" - all were welcome to join in - find super useful materials in this section & overview of the BBC output across TV, Radio, Digital
BBC Debate: WAS BRITAIN RIGHT TO GO TO WAR IN 1914?
Helen Weinstein Chaired this Online debate on BBC on Friday 28th February - which started at 8pm, continued during the BBC2 programme that was transmited from 9pm until 10.30pm and for the debate with Niall Ferguson following on BBC Radio5 Live between 10.30pm and 11.30pm, as the debate followed the issues afterwards - with Niall Ferguson available via a bbc interactive blog - Twitter users could send in questions and comments via @BBCww1 and tweet using the hashtag #WW1 - we welcomed all serious input into the debate about #WW1 and more generally about how we navigate the past, especially traumatic pasts, with contested ethical dimensions...
Here are links to resources we have put together to help those who wanted to participate in the debate, with a focus on the work of Ferguson and Hastings, and their clashing views:
A debate scheduled for 8pm on Friday 28th February. Send us your comments or follow @BBCWW1 and tweet using the hashtag #WW1.
Storify of the Twitter Debate
Many of the comments, links, and discussions that arose from the debate on Twitter from 8pm to 11:30pm can be found here: http://storify.com/historyworkstv/bbc-landmark-history-debate-was-britain-right-to-g
BBC Blog of the Event
The BBC's live blog from the event, including comments from historians Tom Holland, Katherine Burk, and Jonathan Boff, can be accessed here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01nl00x/live
The Necessary War, BBC Two, review
The Telegraph, Tuesday 25 February 2014.
Max Hastings' BBC TWO documentary comes out victorious against Niall Ferguson's very different approach to the First World War.
Was Britain right to enter the Great War?
The Radio Times, Tuesday 25 February 2014.
An article comparing the views of Max Hastings and Niall Ferguson in relation to the question ‘Was Britain right to enter the Great War?’
Max Hastings tells @jamieowenbbc why #ww1 was not a futile war
BBC Radio Wales audioboo, Tuesday 25 February 2014.
Journalist and historian Max Hastings argues that the First World War was completely unavoidable - because of Germany's ambition to dominate Europe.
https://audioboo.fm/boos/1947881-audio-max-hastings-tells-jamieowenbbc-why-ww1-was-not-a-futile-war
Britain entering first world war was 'biggest error in modern history'
The Guardian, Thursday 30 January 2014.
Historian Niall Ferguson says Britain could have lived with German victory and should have stayed out of war
Niall Ferguson: “Britain should have stayed out of First World War”
History Extra Magazine, Thursday 30 January 2014
In an interview with BBC History Magazine, Ferguson says that Britain could not only have lived with a German victory in the First World War, but it would in fact have been in its “interests to stay out in 1914”.
Gary Sheffield on First World War debate: 'A German victory would have been a disaster for Britain'
History Extra Magazine, Thursday 30 January 2014
Gary Sheffield, professor of war studies at Wolverhampton University, has contested Niall Ferguson's suggestion that Britain made a terrible mistake in taking up arms in 1914.
Lions and donkeys: 10 big myths about World War One debunked
Dan Snow for BBC News, Monday 20 January 2014.
Dan Snow highlights ten common misconceptions about the First World War.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25776836
Was Britain right to fight WW1? History Extra readers divided
History Extra, Monday 17 February 2014
A poll asking whether Britain was right to have gone to war in 1914 has revealed a split in opinion among History Extra readers.
http://www.historyextra.com/news/was-britain-right-fight-ww1-history-extra-readers-divided
