Photography in WWI

World War One was the first war that could be photographed while it occurred. The American Civil War could not be photographed in this way. Cameras simply were not advanced enough to handle that kind of photography. Previous war documentation via photograph was done in the form of pictures of posed soldiers or the aftermath of a battle and its dead, but WWI was different.

Cameras had improved to the point where you could take action photographs and carry a camera with you without too much trouble. Photographers were not always able to get right up close to take pictures, sometimes it was just too dangerous. Even so this allowed them to get photos that they otherwise would not be able to get.

Soldiers took pictures too. They used the the Vest Pocket Kodak camera which they could take snapshots with. The 'VPK' as it was called was introduced in 1912. 

Just like artists, there were both freelance photographers and special military and government photographers. An important job photographers played in the War was Arial photography. Photographers flew with a pilot over an enemy position and took pictures of the entrenchments and other fortifications. This practice greatly aided in map making.  

    

Art During WW1

Art came in several forms during WWI. There was painted art and there was 3D art. Propaganda posters were all painted or drawn and so were pictures of the war that were in newspapers.

Painting and drawings of the war were done by artists who just wanted to use the war as the subject of their paintings and by artists who were hired by different governments to illustrate the war for the public. Trench warfare was a popular theme for painters due to its violent nature. Many of these paintings showed the dead soldiers or the infantry as they charged from their trench. Gas attacks and their victims were also painted as in “Gassed” by John Singer Sargent.

"Gassed"

Other forms of art during WWI included shell casing ashtrays, helmet lamps, and shell casing vases. Soldiers also etched designs into mess kits and helmets. Handkerchiefs were embroidered with all sorts of depictions of flags and battles. They were popular for soldiers to send home to family and loved ones.

shell casing vases

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

shell casing ash tray with match box holder

The Defence of Sanctuary Wood by Kenneth Forbes

 

sketch attributed to Otto Dix

    

Cher Ami the Carrier Pigeon

Cher Ami while alive

Carrier pigeons served as a speedy way of delivering urgent messages in WWI. They were hard to shoot down due to their speed, and there was an abundant supply of them. The carrier pigeon was so vital that over 100,000 of them were used in the war with a success rate of 95%.

One of the most famous animals in WWI was a carrier pigeon named Cher Ami. Cher Ami was given to the american signal corp in France by the pigeon fanciers of Britain.

On October 3, 1918 the American 77th infantry division was trapped on all sides by the Germans. They sent out two pigeons with messages requesting help, but both pigeons were shot down. The only pigeon that was left was Cher Ami. She was sent out with the division’s last request for help. On her way out of the 77th’s position she was shot by German riflemen. Even with this injury Cher Ami was able to carry on. She covered 25 miles in 25 minutes and was able to deliver the message to the American command.

Cher Ami Taxidermied 

The Americans were then able to send reinforcements in time to save the 77th. The army doctors worked long and hard to save Cher Ami. She survived, but she lost one of her legs. To replace it the soldiers carved her a little wooden one.

Cher Ami was awarded the Croix de Guerre Medal with a Palm Oak Leaf Cluster for her heroic actions. She died at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, on June 13, 1919 from the wounds she received in battle and was later inducted into the Racing Pigeon Hall of Fame in 1931. She also received a gold medal from the Organized Bodies of American Racing Pigeon Fanciers in recognition of her extraordinary service during World War I. Her taxidermied body is now on display at the National Museum of American History’s "Price of Freedom" exhibit.

Poetry in World War One

Jack Sullivan, Butetown History & Arts Centre

After the war poets needed something to write about. Many of them chose WWI as a topic because of its impact on the world.

The poems had a wide variety of topics from battles, to the horrors of war, to its weapons and participants. In “The Bombardment” the poet Amy Lowell describes an artillery bombardment. during which many valuable things are broken or destroyed.

Another poem depicts a soldier as he thinks about how fortunate he was to be alive and well. These thoughts of his were stirred when he heard an owl, whose cry reminded him of how fortunate he was not to be dead while so many others were not. The title of the poem is “The Owl.”

The charges made by the men in the trenches against other trenches were almost pointless. The introduction of machine guns and the wreckage of no-mans land made such attacks costly and largely ineffective. In “Attack” an attack is described, and the author wishes it to stop due to its brutality and waste.

Because of the new type warfare introduced in WWI poets found a great wealth of topics and ideas to write about. Many poems were written by soldiers themselves, while others were written by poets who imagined what life was like as a soldier. The poems of and about WWI give an idea of how warfare was changing in that time to modern day.       

Popular Music during the War

Music During WWI

During the early days of the war music was used for recruiting young men. These tunes were uplifting and encouraged men to enlist. These songs included titles like "We Don't Want to Lose You, but We Think You Ought to Go," "Now You've Got the Khaki On" and "Kitcheners' Boys" which referred to a British senior officer, Herbert Kitchener. As the war pressed on, these types of songs disappeared and were replaced with music that talked about the war ending and men coming back home. Some popular titles were  "When the Boys Come Home" and "Keep the Home Fires Burning.” There were also anti-war songs. These songs were sometimes sarcastic, an example being "Oh, It's a Lovely War,” while others were more blunt in their criticism proclaiming the war was a waste of life. These songs did attract listeners, but they did not have a major affect on public opinion.

One of the big reasons music about the war was so plentiful was that there was no television or radios for people to listen to. Restrictions were imposed on citizens during a war that they could not use their radios, and most radio stations were shut down or taken for government use. Newspapers were reporting on the war, and the music helped them with their imagination.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCUzD5eBTNU

  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mngRoSlJJUI

World War One: In the Air

I read an article in the Autumn 2013 issue of the Quarterly Journal of Military History (MHQ) on WWI airplanes and air combat during that time. The opinions of civilians and military men on this new weapon and the new type of warfare it brought with it were discussed. At first the airplane was not seriously considered a threat. A British nun in Belgium said that they looked like “beautiful little birds.” This type of thinking vanished when planes started shooting and bombing.

At first the airplane’s only use was as an observer with no fighting capabilities. After a while though, pilots started carrying rifles and handguns with them. Machine guns were then mounted on the planes, but many of these early attempts to mount guns on the plane failed. One of the big problems was that the bullets from the machine guns would destroy the propeller of the plane. The Germans were the first to fix the problem. They did this by synchronizing the propeller with the fire of the gun so the bullets would go between the propellers instead of through them. The mechanism was called the Interrupter Gear. The Allied forces adopted the technique soon after the Germans did. With the ability to shoot, the planes began to shoot at each other with greater accuracy. The plane was no longer merely an observer but a fighter.

The incorporation of planes into warfare did not make everyone happy. Some people ( mainly military men) thought the new invention would ruin warfare. The majority though, saw the airplane as a game changer for the side that had the most and best of these planes. Countries scrambled to produce planes and train pilots. Most pilots were inexperienced when sent into the air and many died as a result. The few that survived though went on to teach new airmen. Slowly each country was able to accumulate a force of seasoned pilots.

The First World War sowed the seeds for future air warfare. World War I showed the leaders of the world how useful planes were, and the technological progress on airplanes during the war made a great base for future experimentation and improvement. 

Poster Propaganda

Propaganda was used by all nations in the First World War. This post will address visual propaganda, usually seen on posters. Countries used these for several reasons: to procure troops which were constantly needed, to get money, and secure civilian involvement. These posters ranged from insulting enemies to encouraging people to buy their country’s war bonds.

This Austrian image is encouraging people to buy war bonds.

This poster is encouraging young British men to join the army.

This picture tells England’s civilians to not use bread and to instead make soup so the men at the front could eat.

This German postcard shows that England is trying to take over Europe, but Germany is ready to stop them.

War stamps are shown helping to supply the US army with ammunition.

The Fullerphone

The MKV Fuller Phone

When I was on vacation earlier this summer I saw one of these in the Yellow Barn Museum in the Shenandoah Valley and decided to do a post on it.

Algernon Clement Fuller was part of the British Royal Corps of Engineers during WWI. While serving in the Corps, he invented the Fullerphone. You were not able to speak into the Fullerphone for it transmitted Morse code only. What made the phone special though, was that the Germans could not intercept messages sent from it. This was achieved by the two phone operators synchronizing their buzzers. This worked as a simple scrambling mechanism which the Germans could not make sense of. You were also able to operate the phone while wearing a gas mask which made it possible to be used in the trenches. Another nice feature of the Fullerphone was its ability to still transmit messages when the wire connecting the two phones was damaged or severed (if the line was severed and the two ends were touching the ground near each other the messages could still transmit).

Boy Scouts During the War

The Boy Scouts of America played numerous roles to aid our country during the First World War. Radio transmitters were regulated during the war, so during visits to homes in the area, Boy Scouts kept their eye out for unauthorized ones. Scouts also delivered messages, watched coasts for enemies, and reported men who were dodging the draft. $352 million in war bonds was raised by the Boy Scouts and almost that amount in war stamps. Fruit pits were collected by Scouts to be made into charcoal for gas masks. Sadly if a Scout master ( troop leader) was called away to service, the troop usually died due to the fact that their was no adult to run it. Some new rules were adopted later on to prevent this from occurring which included requiring a certain number of adults per number of boys. This way a troop did not depend on just one adult.

Lawrence of Arabia

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in England in 1888. As he got older he became interested in military history. He joined the British army and became an officer. He was able to speak Arabic so he was dispatched to the Middle East where there had been some fighting between the British-backed Arabs and the Turks who were backed by the central powers (Austro-Hungary and Germany). He was sent with another officer to investigate. It was 1916.

After arriving, Lawrence was sent to talk to Amir Feisal, the leader of the Arabs. The two men got along well and soon Lawrence had helped Feisal to reorganize his efforts against the Turks. Lawrence helped the Arabs take an important railway from the Turks, and then he went on to help capture the city of Akaba in 1917. Through his travels with the Arab tribes he earned their respect and trust. Lawrence eventually went back to England where, in 1935, he died in a motorcycle accident. His contribution to the war in the Middle East during WWI is still debated, but to the men he fought with ... it is unquestionable.

   

The Shared National Anthem of WWI

Every country has a national anthem. The words to these anthems vary depending on the country’s views and beliefs. The song’s melody could be the same though, and so was the case of two countries during WWI, Germany and England. Before the war Germany had adopted the tune from England’s “God Save the King.” The English still use the melody today, but the Germans abandoned it after the monarchy in Germany fell postwar.  We Americans also use this melody for one of our most familiar patriotic songs. Sadly, the name of the composer of this melody is unknown. The melody possibly dates back to the seventeenth century. 

Germany's flag in 1914:

England's flag in 1914

Germany's Stormtroopers

German Stormtroopers were elite infantry units used by the Germans from 1917-1918. Their symbol was two crossed German grenades above which was a skull. The German high command believed that the use of Stormtroopers would change the tide of the war. The Stormtroopers’ job was to attack the enemy position following an artillery bombardment. They would weaken the enemy for the general infantry that would follow after them. Stormtroopers underwent rigorous training that included the use of live rounds and hours of hand to hand combat. Stormtroopers were carefully selected individuals who were young and possessed the desire for violence and hand to hand combat. The Stormtroopers did their job well, but their success was almost never rewarded with victory. The infantry was unable to keep up with the elite troops. In the time that was wasted while the infantry arrived, the enemy was able to regroup. Stormtroopers were used until war’s end but less frequently towards the very end.

   Stormtroopers advancing

Kaiser Wilhelm, Post War

Kaiser Wilhelm lead Germany in the First World War. In 1918 after their surrender the German people were not doing well. Increasing political unrest convinced Germany’s other leaders that the Kaiser had to leave. The Kaiser was at first reluctant to abdicate his throne, but unrest combined with the German army’s announcement that they no longer sided with him finally convinced the Kaiser to abdicate. After abdicating he took a train to the nearby Netherlands where he bought a house and remained for the rest of his life.

The new leader of Germany, Adolf Hitler, hated the former Kaiser. Hitler believed that the Germans’ defeat in WWI was the Kaiser’s fault alone.

While in exile, the former Kaiser’s first wife died, and his youngest son committed suicide. Even so Wilhelm remarried several years later. He lived to the age of 82 and in that time saw the rise of a new Germany. He hated the new Germany run by a man whose tactics and leadership skills he found wicked. The former Kaiser was shocked at the thuggish ways Hitler treated his people and neighbors. Kaiser Wilhelm never left the Netherlands after arriving in 1918.

         

World War I in 6 Minutes

Joseph Stalin

The book I have recently read,Stalin - Russia's Man of Steel, by Albert Marrin, was a biography on the historical character Joseph Stalin. I have taken the information I received from reading the book to create this post.    

Although Joseph Stalin did not rise to power until after the First World War, I believe he still is mentionable. Stalin was planning his rise to power before and through the First World War. He helped overthrow Tzar Nicholas II, and aided Lenin through his time as ruler. Even so Stalin always had his eye on power. Towards the end of his life and time as ruler Lenin began to distrust his second in command, Stalin, but by then it was too late. When Lenin died Stalin took his place and immediately went to work on erasing Russia’s two previous rulers from the minds of the people. He did this by sealing off the country so nobody inside could know what was going on outside. The people of Russia knew only what Stalin wanted them to know. When Stalin became dictator almost all of the Russian people were illiterate. Probably the only good thing he ever did for his people was to make them literate. He launched a massive campaign not only in schools, but for adults too. In factories and workplaces time was set aside each day for reading. The people were happy to learn how to read, so there was no problem getting crowds at classes that were held for those who did not go to a job. By the end of it around two thirds of the Russian population could read. The reason for his interest in his peoples’ reading ability was because of propaganda. If he could get the people to read that would get him one more way of controlling their thoughts.

Stalin was a suspicious man. He always thought someone was out to get him. Therefore he insisted on massive personal security measures. He was in fact the most protected man in the world at that time and possibly even today. He had dozens of bodyguards follow him wherever he went. His food was chemically tested before he ate it, and even then he always had someone taste it first. He had twelve identical bedrooms to confuse assassins. His houses were fortresses with dog patrols, high walls and dozens of other security measures. He was constantly afraid that the air around him was poisoned and had it chemically tested all the time as well, and if a person or group of people made him suspicious in the least he would have them killed. He would also get rid of people if he saw them as a threat to his regime. Religion was abolished in Russia and the slightest mention of God or religion was punished by death or years of hard labor in prison camps. He hated Jews, and tried to wipe them out along with Adolf Hitler.

Hitler and Stalin were great admirers of each other, and for a while they were allies. The alliance broke during the Second World War when Hitler, greedy for power, broke his non-aggression pact with Russia and sent his armies to wipe out the Russians. Hitler had made an error. Even though the Russian army was badly trained and poorly outfitted it had a standing ground army of six million men. Millions of more men could be summoned if needed. Russia had the largest tank force in the world numbering 15,000. Russia also had an air force of around 10,000 plaines. The German armies made some progress at first, but soon faced the same problems every other army who had tried to take Russia had faced. The problems were: the sheer size of the country, its massive human resources, and the Russian winter. Even though the Russians won the war and pushed the Germans back they suffered a massive loss of around twenty million lives, 1,700 towns and cities, 70,000 villages, and 32,000 factories. On    March 5, 1953,Joseph Stalin died due to a burst blood vessel  in the back of his head, and Nikita Khrushchev took his place as ruler of Russia.

   

      

MK 6 Mines in WWI

In an attempt to stop German U-boats, the Allied powers began to use underwater mines. They dropped thousands of MK 6 mines all over the North Sea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. The North Sea stretches between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. This vast mine field did much to dishearten the U-boat crews,  and led to mutinies and finally the abandonment of the U-boat campaign in that area.

The MK 6 mines detonated when the metal hull of a ship or submarine brushed against a copper wire that extended above the mine. A battery inside the mine was given enough charge when the ship touched the antenna, for the antenna alone did not have the power to activate the battery. When the ship touched the antenna though the whole ship became the antenna.  When the hull touched the wire it completed an electrical circuit that detonated the mine. The mines were packed with TNT.

After the war, a large scale mine sweeping operation began. The object of which was to rid the ocean of the thousands of still- unexploded mines. Many mines were destroyed through these operations but not all of them. Occasionally, even today, one of these old mines will blow up. They have even damaged or sunk a few ships.

Romania During the First World War

Romania joined the war in 1916 on the side of the allied powers. Romania planned to take over Transylvania, which was originally Romanian land but later had been taken by the Austro-Hungarians. The Romanians did not like the Austro-Hungarians because that alliance refused to give Transylvania back to Romania. The Romanians wanted back Transylvania because it was a large piece of land, and because if they got it back they could make their country ethnically whole again. Therefore Romanian power would be concentrated against them. Fighting with the Romanians were the Russians, who with the Romanians, invaded Austro-Hungary. The campaign was going well until the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917. When the Russian Empire collapsed the Russian troops helping the Romanians abandoned their positions. This left the Romanians at a disadvantage. Unable to defend its gains, the Romanian army was pushed back by the Austro-Hungarians. The Romanians continued to be pushed back into their own country. After the fall of the their capital (Bucharest) the Romanians surrendered to the central powers. Even so, during the signing of the treaty in Versailles, the Romanians were given back their land and the much wanted Transylvania.

     

In Memory of December 13, 1916

My late grandfather, Jim Serpe, was born on December 13, 1916. I decided to see if anything was happening in the war at this time. After doing some research I found that several hundred Austro-Hungarian troops were killed by an avalanche at that time. About 500 Austro-Hungarian troops were stationed on Mount Marmolada, Italy, when a large avalanche came down right on top of their barracks. Somewhere around 300 of them were pulled to safety, but the rest perished in the disaster. This event, known White Friday, was one of the most catastrophic avalanche accidents in history. Around 10,000 Austro-Hungarian and Italian troops died by the end of December from avalanches alone. It is also suspected but not proven, that avalanches were set off on purpose by the enemy.     

Alpine Warfare in WWI

The most intense alpine fighting in the First World War took place in the Italian Alps. It was hard going for both the Italians and the Austro-Hungarians. Frostbite affected everybody for it was below freezing for four straight months out of the year, and the snow could be eight to ten meters deep. Artillery was extremely hard to get in place, and most of the time it had to be brought up by pulleys. The impact of artillery shells frequently caused rock and snow slides. The Italians used mules and cable cars to transport the wounded back down to the base of the mountain for treatment. Digging trenches was not always possible, so both sides built forts and shelters on the sides of the mountains. Sometimes the incline of the slope would be more than 80 degrees. Temporary trenches were built in the snow when they could not be dug in the ground. The Italian Alps campaign was won by the Italians. In 1918 they were able to break through the Austro-Hungarian line near Sacile, a town in northeast Italy. The Austro-Hungarians surrendered soon after.

 

Dazzle Camouflage in WWI

In the early 20^th century, you sank a ship by targeting its expected path with your guns or torpedoes. You did not target your weapons at the ship itself. Back then the projectiles traveled much more slowly than they do today. Therefore it was extremely important to know which direction your target was heading. Norman Wilkinson, a Royal Navy volunteer reserve member, came up with a plan in 1917. He thought of a new type of ship camouflage. His idea was not to camouflage the ship from view but to confuse its attacker of which direction the ship was going. His design was tested on models before it was painted on real ships, and it proved extremely effective. You could not tell which direction the ship was going. He called it dazzle camouflage. Though used during the rest of the war, it was fazed out and not used much in WWII, and then it pretty much disappeared as our locating systems became more sophisticated.