First World War in the News -- WW1 History from causes to trenches

Main page -- Latest WW1 news and articles

Items discovered from Fromelles in photographs bbc.co.uk :: 2010-02-02
Items discovered from Fromelles in photographs. [Photographs, Pictures & Images]

Unknown WW1 soldier buried as Fromelles mass graves give up secrets cnn.com :: 2010-02-02
An unknown First World War soldier was laid to rest in Fromelles, France - the first of 250 bodies dug up from a string of mass graves dating back to a bloody and pointless battle that claimed thousands of lives in a single night. A century later, the battle of Fromelles remains the deadliest 24-hour period in Australian military history. So many perished that night that the British and Australians were unable to recover all their dead. German soldiers buried hundreds in mass graves. The graves were discovered in 2008, and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission took the lead on a project to recover and id (with DNA samples) as many remains as possible. [RIP - Remains of Soldiers]

First World War and early tank warfare - Response to strong German trench defenses suite101.com :: 2010-02-02
In 1914 Lieutenant Colonel Ernest D. Swinton of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) visualised using "Armoured Machine Gun Destroyers" to break the stalemate of trench warfare. He got backing from some officials, but he faced many challenges and setbacks in the early development of the tank. But in 1915, little resistance remained to the tank idea, and after the bloody Battle of the Somme, Commander in Chief of the BEF, Sir Douglas Haig wanted tanks used immediately, before all of them were ready for combat. Swinton saw the order as "the throwing away of a chance of effecting something really big." [WWI battle tanks]

Gallipoli: The End of the Myth by Robin Prior (book review) washingtontimes.com :: 2010-02-02
"Gallipoli: The End of the Myth" exposes the badly-thought-out plans, poor intelligence, careless leadership, and the sacrifice of the common foot soldier and junior officer on both sides. The Gallipoli Campaign was thought up in the halls of the British government: Why not strike directly at the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople? If Constantinople fell all of Turkey should fall. Much of the Middle East would be Britain's, Syria would be French, the pressure on the Russian allies through the Caucasus would be lifted, and success might open up an avenue for an allied thrust from the south against Germany's ally Austria-Hungary. [Buy from Amazon: US, UK, CA, DE, FR] [Gallipoli]

White Feather Campaign: How women branded civilian men as cowards who were not real men studentpulse.com :: 2010-02-02
The First World War trench warfare of the battlefield tore young Englishmen apart. But it wasn't only on the Front that the men of England faced a fight that threatened them. Those men left at home faced a merciless assault on the most important part of their essence: their masculinity. The White Feather Campaign began with the creation of the white feather as a symbol of cowardice and unfulfilled civic duty. With the war effort and the recruitment campaign in full swing, the women of the White Feather would present any healthy young Englishman in civilian dress with this token: Upon receipt of a white feather, these men were being told that they weren't "real men". [United Kingdom]

Mrs Florence Green emerges as Britain's oldest First World War veteran telegraph.co.uk :: 2010-01-22
Florence Green served with the Women's RAF (WRAF) in 1918 and although she did not see front-line action, the charity Veteran's Aid said she qualifies as a veteran of the war. Green was a waitress in the officers' mess during the war at RAF Marham and Narborough Airfield. Her story was discovered after Andrew Holmes, a British correspondent for the US-based Gerontology Research Group, traced her name using the National Archive. He was stunned to locate a service record for Florence Beatrice Patterson, Green's maiden name. He examined the records further and found that Florence had joined the WRAF in Sept. 1918. Green had been unaware of her status until recently. [Last Living Veterans]

German machine gun captured by Alvin York at Museum of Appalachia knoxnews.com :: 2010-01-22
Of the 2 million American soldiers who served in France during the First World War, one name became synonymous with the doughboy war, an authentic all-American hero: Alvin Cullum York. York may be the greatest American combat hero of all time. Now, a part of the battlefield feat that made York a legend has come to the land of his beginning. A German machine gun that York seized in the closing days of the war is on permanent loan to the Museum of Appalachia in Norris. It took 2 years of working through red tape to get the German Maxim M1908/15 light machine gun to Norris from the Nahant, Mass., Public Library, which has the weapon for the past 92 years. [Alvin York - The most famous WWI soldier in America]

The Devil's Own War: The First World War Diary of Brigadier-General Herbert Hart (book review) stuff.co.nz :: 2010-01-22
When Herbert Hart left New Zealand in 1914 to serve as a major with the NZ Expeditionary Force, he never dreamed he would return home as a much-decorated brigadier-general. Talented and decisive, his quick rise through the ranks saw him command the Wellington Battalion during the the Gallipoli campaign then serve as a battalion and brigade commander on the Western Front. Like many, Hart kept a diary of his experiences, now considered as one of the key personal sources about the NZEF. A born diarist, his factual style makes his account of the war very powerful, including horrific details of day-to-day fighting, the injuries his men suffered and the deaths of comrades. [Buy from Amazon: US, UK, CA, DE, FR] [New Zealand]

The First World War (August 1914 to November 1918) is also known as the Great War, The War to End All Wars, World War I and WW1.

Many of the bloodiest battles in military history occurred during the First World War. In trench warfare hundreds of soldiers died for each yard of land captured. Artillery with fragmentation shells caused the most casualties and made massed infantry attacks futile.

First World War in the News is an edited review of hand-picked World War I 1914-1918 articles.