Great War

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The photos were collected from various sources found On the Web---TRENCHES ON THE WEB UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS HELLFIRE CORNER JACK TURNER’S WAR LA GRANDE GUERRE SPARTACUS EDUCATION WWI AVIATION PICTORIAL GREAT WAR SOCIETY

THE GREAT WAR

1914-1918

                                            

        

EUROPE, 1914

BALKANS, 1914

ROYAL RULERS OF EUROPE

Emperor Franz Joseph

George V

William II

Nicholas II and George V

THE SPARK

Franz Ferdinand, Sophia and children

Serbian Premier Pasic

Princip

Capture of Princip

COMMANDERS

George V and His Generals

General French

General Haig

General Allenby

General Foch

Marshall Petain

General Joffre

                                            

        

British recruiting

If I should die, think only this of me.That there’s some corner of a foreign fieldThat is forever England. There shall beIn that rich earth a richer dust concealed:A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware; Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,A body of England’s breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.And think, this heart,all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no lessGives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke, 1887-1915

THE WESTERN FRONT

NOMAN’SLAND

Beginning of the trenches

TrenchesFrom air

Dead on the wire

No Man’s land

No Man’s land

No Man’s land

View of the front

End of Line, North Sea

Gun crew

Ypres

In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below.We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved and were loved, and now we lieIn Flanders fields.Take up our quarrel with the foe;To you from failing hand we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high.If ye break faith with us who dieWe shall not sleep, though poppies growIn Flanders fields.

John McCrae (1872-1918)

French dead

Verdun, at beginning of Battle

French troops awaiting order to advance

Verdun, 1916

Verdun

Verdun

Verdun

Verdun

Verdun

French trench

German and French dead

German dead , Verdun

German dead

Before and after-Verdon

Before and After

Amiens

Crater at beginning of Somme caused by 27 tons of explosive

Six days before the attack 1.6 million shells fired at GermansJuly 1, the British set off 2 mines containing 200,000lbs. OfExplosives under the German lines, the explosions were heard In London.Here have the ‘Pals” or “Chums” Regiments. Sir Henry Rawlinson wasso sure the Germans could not respondThat he sent troops over in parade formationGermans had survived the artillery and their barbed wire entangledThe British so that German machine guns massacred the British.First Day the British lost 19,240 dead; 35,494 wounded2,152 missing==57,470 casualties

“Good-morning; good-morning!” the General saidWhen we met him last week on our way to the line.Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ‘em dead,And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.“He’s a cheery old card,” grunted Harry to JackAs they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

Siegfried Sassoon

German troops near Bapaume , Battle of Somme

Watching theBattle of the Somme

Dead on the Somme

BritishDead

.First Day the British lost 19,240 dead; 35,494 wounded2,152 missing==57,470 casualtiesHaig halted the battle in Nov. The Allies gained 125 sq. milesAt cost of 400,000 British and 200,000French casualties.Germans lost 450,000 casualties.

LIFE IN THE TRENCHES

Our trenches are... ankle deep mud. In some places trenches are waist deep in water. Time is spent digging, filling sandbags, building up parapets, fetching stores, etc. One does not have time to be weary.

We went up into the front-line near Arras, through sodden and devastated countryside. As we were moving up to the our sector along the communication trenches, a shell burst ahead of me and one of my platoon dropped. He was the first man I ever saw killed. Both his legs were blown off and the whole of his face and body was peppered with shrapnel. The sight turned my stomach. I was sick and terrified, but even more frightened of showing it.

That night I had been asleep in a dugout about three hours when I woke up feeling something biting my hip. I put my hand down and my fingers closed on a big rat. It had nibbled through my haversack, my tunic and pleated kilt to get at my flesh. With a cry of horror I threw it from me.

The trench, when we reached it, was half full of mud and water. We set to work to try and drain it. Our efforts were hampered by the fact that the French, who had first occupied it, had buried their dead in the bottom and sides. Every stroke of the pick encountered a body. The smell was awful.

delousing

. The men who were not getting in a bit of extra sleep sat about talking and smoking, writing letters home, cleaning their rifles, running their thumb-nails up the seams of their shirts to kill the lice, gambling. Lice were a standing joke. Young Bumford handed me one like this. 'We was just having an argument as to whether it was best to kill the old ones or the young ones, sir. Morgan here says that if you kill the old ones, the young ones will die of grief, but Parry here, sir, he says that the young ones are easier to kill and you can catch the old ones when they come to the funeral.‘

Robert Graves Goodbye to all That

NEW WEAPONS OF WAR

Gas shells

French Troops, Gas attack

Bent double like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backsAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep. Many had lost their bootsBut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame: all blind:Drunk with fatigue: deaf even to the hootsOf tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.Gas!Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time:But some still was yelling out and stumblingAnd floud’ring like a man in fire or lime…Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.If in some smothering dreams you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--My friend, you would not tell with such high zestTo children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

Battle of Ypres 1915 first use of poison gas by Germans

April 22 1915 Germans used chlorine gas, a 5mile wide cloud 520 cylinders(168 tons of the chemical)

Sept. 25, 1915 British released chlorine gas against the Germans.

Lachrymator (tearing agent)—tear gas, mace, temporary blindness gas mask was good protection

Asphyxiant(poisonous gas) chlorine, phosgene, diphosgene

Blistering Agent mustard gas attacked any exposed moist skin—eyesLungs, armpits, groin; gas mask not effective, oily agent would hang Low areas for hours.

1918 1 of 4 artillery shells fired contained gas of some type

Mustard gasvictim

Sopwith pup

Fokker testing gear

Love Field, Dallas

bomber

American aces

Billy Mitchell

Red Baron, von Richtofen

Goering

Flame thrower

THE WAR AT SEA

The British established a blockade against German ports.

The Germans declared the waters around the British IslesTo be a war zone.

German submarines

German submarine

British ships

German High Seas fleet

Admiral Beatty

Admiral Jellicoe

Admiral Tripitz

Admiral von Hipper, commander of scouting forces

AdmiralVon Scheer,Commander ofHigh Seas Fleet

JUTLAND

HMS Indefatigable sunk at Jutland

German ship sunk at Jutland

Rescuing seamen

Ambassador Zimmerman

Nicholas II and son

The Great War in Numbers

1 Still unexploded mine shaft at Messines7 German armies invaded France 191412 Air aces all nations with more than 50 planes downed35 Range in yard of German flame thrower55 French mutineers executed1000 daily ave. caloric intake of Germ. Civilians Jan.19182,600 allied ships sunk by German U-Boats529,808 British/commonwealth killed,not known nor found584,996 British/commonwealth killed, known ,buried1,200,000 Austrian military killed1,385,000 French military killed1,700,000 Russian military killed1,808,000 German military killed7,000,000 combatant maimed for life8,300,000 combatants killed all nations19,536,000 estimated wounded soldiers all nations

Numbers Mobilized Percentage of Casualties

Great Britain 8,904,467 35.8France 8,410,000 73.3Russia 12,000,000 76.3Italy 5.615,000 39.1United States 4,355,000 8.4

Austria 7,800,000 90.0Germany 11,000,000 64.9Turkey 2,850,000 34.2

TOTAL 65,038,810 57.7

V. Orlando

David Lloyd George

Clemenceau

Woodrow Wilson