tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/battle-of-the-somme-28875/articlesBattle of the Somme – The Conversation2024-01-08T16:43:06Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2207062024-01-08T16:43:06Z2024-01-08T16:43:06ZBattle of the Somme: new research shows detonating a massive mine under German lines too early led to a British slaughter<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568214/original/file-20240108-21-gyo5wk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C503%2C361&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'The earth rose in the air to the height of hundreds of feet.': but a delay in the infantry attack meant that hundreds of British troops were killed.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://youtu.be/xQ_OZfaiUlc?si=xtMTD-H-MGOkRRmu">Battle of the Somme</a> began on July 1 1916 with a spectacular explosion under Hawthorn Ridge – a fortified German frontline position west of the village of Beaumont Hamel in northern France. The footage of the explosion remains one of the best-known <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/how-the-battle-of-the-somme-was-filmed">pieces of film</a> from the whole conflict.</p>
<p>Almost 60ft below the surface, British miners of the 252 Tunnelling Company had hand dug a gallery for more than 900 metres through chalk and packed it with 40,000lbs of ammonal explosives. It was one of 19 mines placed beneath German front positions that were detonated on July 1 1916, to mark the start of the offensive.</p>
<p>But the mine detonation at Hawthorn Ridge, famously captured by military film director <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/geoffrey-malins-and-the-battle-of-the-somme-film">Geoffrey Malins</a>, took place ten minutes before the whistles blew at 7.30am. This controversial decision was made in order to protect the attacking British troops from falling debris. </p>
<p>But disastrously, it allowed the Germans to take the crater and repel their advance, leading to massive losses among the attacking British troops from the 29th infantry division.</p>
<p>Malins recorded his feelings <a href="https://www.westernfrontassociation.com/world-war-i-articles/hawthorn-ridge-a-forensic-investigation-into-the-archaeology-and-history-of-hawthorn-crater/">after the event</a> in the film The Battle of the Somme, released later that summer: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The ground where I stood gave a mighty convulsion, it rocked and swayed … the earth rose in the air to the height of hundreds of feet. Higher and higher it rose, and with a horrible, grinding roar the earth fell back upon itself, leaving in its place a mountain of smoke.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Bringing science to bear on history</h2>
<p>Now, the first scientific study to be carried out at the 107-year-old crater has <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/15740773.2023.2297202">just been published</a> and has unearthed new details on its history. Our team of researchers, which comprised the authors listed here – scientists from Keele and Staffordshire universities supported by a historian from Goldsmiths, University of London – used a range of cutting–edge technology to examine the site as it has never been seen before.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5SZn0N9Ja-U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Drone footage taken over Hawthorn Crater, Beaumont Hamel, Northern France.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Surveys of the surface examined the crater in detail never before seen at this site. It revealed shell holes clustered to the east of the crater that had been created by British artillery in their attempts to dislodge the Germans from their crater stronghold.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JceuXH0Tpsw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Digital fly-through of ground-based lidar dataset taken at Hawthorn Crater, Beaumont Hamel, Northern France.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other technical surveys greatly enhanced our knowledge of this internationally significant site. Over two field seasons in 2018 and 2019 we carried out magnetic and electrical resistivity <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-do-archaeologists-discover-forgotten-ancient-monuments-47317">geophysical surveys</a>, to identify promising areas for subsequent archaeological excavations. </p>
<p>While, due to the variable topographic conditions and the inevitably metallic debris of the battlefield, these surveys were difficult to carry out, they were incredibly valuable, as they pointed the way for fruitful excavations.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-do-archaeologists-discover-forgotten-ancient-monuments-47317">Explainer: how do archaeologists discover forgotten ancient monuments?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Carried out in the third field season in 2020, these archaeological excavations uncovered hard evidence of the stubborn German defence on that fateful first day on the Somme. Though the early detonation led to the loss of many Württemberg infantrymen of the German 119th Reserve Infantry Regiment, our work uncovered hard evidence of how the newly formed crater was turned to their advantage. </p>
<p>It revealed the still-intact German defensive fire-pits, barbed wire and other materials showing how the Germans quickly built the crater as a new defensive position into their frontline, meaning the chance for the British breakthrough in the early days of the Somme was lost.</p>
<p>An unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) survey – a now common way to <a href="https://theconversation.com/scientists-are-using-drones-to-help-predict-coastal-erosion-60135">map scientific areas of interest</a> – also uncovered evidence of a previously unknown “sap” or shallow tunnel, most probably dug by the Germans after they had captured the crater, probing towards the British lines, again showing their mastery of no man’s land after the initial detonation.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TGgmR9oOF7U?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Footage explaining the conflict archaeology phase of the investigation at Hawthorn Crater, Beaumont Hamel, Northern France.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>If at first you don’t succeed…</h2>
<p>As the battle dragged on towards winter, a second attempt to capture this new position was tried, and this time, was more successful. A second mine was laid using 30,000lbs of ammonal explosive, and was blown from the same tunnel on November 13 1916. </p>
<p>With no delay this time, and with better planning, the mine was much more effective, aiding the 51st Highland Division to capture Hawthorn ridge and the nearby village. </p>
<p>Our surface surveys mapped out this second crater, merging as it does with the original in today’s landscape. This time, archaeological surveys discovered an empty ammunition box for a Vickers machine gun within the crater, reflecting the period of British occupation of the site.</p>
<p>Our study has provided rarely undertaken scientific investigations of a mine crater, and of the strongpoint the Germans built in no man’s land that doomed the initial British attack to failure. </p>
<p>Our results reinforce the notion that blowing the mine ten minutes early was a very bad idea. While it was intended to protect the attackers from falling debris, it gave the Germans time to capture a valuable strongpoint, ripe for fortification. </p>
<p>It was only with concerted effort four months later, and the second mine and subsequent detonation on November 13, that the Hawthorn redoubt was finally captured by the 51st Highlanders, marking the end of the battle some five days later. This time the mine was exploded immediately before the ground assault began – the early detonation of the July 1 was not repeated. </p>
<p>It was a lesson learned the hard way. More than 3 million men fought in the Battle of the Somme, a million of whom were killed or injured, making it one of the deadliest battles in human history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220706/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Pringle receives funding from the HLF, the Nuffield Foundation, Royal Society, NERC, EPSRC and EU Horizon2020. He is affiliated with the Geological Society of London. Jamie works for Keele University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristopher Wisniewski is affiliated with the Geological Society of London.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Doyle is Secretary of the All Party Parliamentary War Heritage Group, and is Emeritus Professor at London South Bank University</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Paul Cassella does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Thanks to modern geological exploration technology we can piece together the events of July 1 1916 when a tactical error came with massive cost to the British army.Jamie Pringle, Reader in Forensic Geoscience, Keele UniversityJohn Paul Cassella, Lecturer in Forensic Investigation & Analysis, Professor of Forensic Science Education, Atlantic Technological UniversityKristopher Wisniewski, Lecturer in Forensic Science, Keele UniversityPeter Doyle, Professor and Lecturer in Military History, Goldsmiths, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1488902020-11-08T13:55:52Z2020-11-08T13:55:52ZRemembrance Day: How a Canadian painter broke boundaries on the First World War battlefields<p>“I cannot talk, I can only paint.” </p>
<p>This is how Canadian battlefield painter Mary Riter Hamilton (1867-1954) summarized her urgent response to witnessing the large-scale destruction of the First World War. </p>
<p>The 51-year-old artist began painting the devastated regions of Northern France and Flanders in late April 1919 and continued until November 1921. During this period, she often rushed from one battlefield to the next to paint the scenes in oil before the war detritus was cleared or the dead were buried.</p>
<p>Hamilton first sought work with <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/war-artists">the Canadian War Memorials Fund</a> in 1917, and again in 1918 as an official artist, but was rejected because she was a woman. After this, she embraced alternate means to gain permission and financial support for her expedition. </p>
<p>Fuelling her unprecedented expedition through the trenches of the Vimy Ridge, the Somme and the ruins of Ypres was her patriotic desire to create a memorial in paintings for her country. </p>
<p>My forthcoming book, <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/i-can-only-paint-products-9780228003915.php"><em>I Can Only Paint: The Story of Battlefield Painter Mary Riter Hamilton</em></a>, features her letters and the first exhaustive account of her vast, under-explored oeuvre and her powerful visual rhetoric as a battlefield artist. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Battlefields in gray and brown with smoke rising." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366786/original/file-20201030-17-ei1ctl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366786/original/file-20201030-17-ei1ctl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366786/original/file-20201030-17-ei1ctl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366786/original/file-20201030-17-ei1ctl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=449&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366786/original/file-20201030-17-ei1ctl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366786/original/file-20201030-17-ei1ctl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366786/original/file-20201030-17-ei1ctl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=564&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Clearing the Battlefields in Flanders,’ by Mary Riter Hamilton, 1921, oil on cardboard, 26.3 × 35.0 cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1988-180-142, Copy negative c-104244)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Painter and witness</h2>
<p>As a witness of mass graves and human remains, Hamilton responded with a painting style that made viewers see and feel her deeply felt and ultimately traumatic encounters, rendered in vivid colours, spontaneous brushstrokes and tumultuous landscapes. </p>
<p>Hamilton transgressed the rules of both gender and art in her day. Hamilton first embraced her artistic vocation after her husband’s sudden death when she was 26. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368015/original/file-20201106-15-16e270e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Portrait of a woman in fur stole" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368015/original/file-20201106-15-16e270e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368015/original/file-20201106-15-16e270e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368015/original/file-20201106-15-16e270e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368015/original/file-20201106-15-16e270e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=751&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368015/original/file-20201106-15-16e270e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368015/original/file-20201106-15-16e270e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368015/original/file-20201106-15-16e270e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=944&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Riter Hamilton in fur stole, in a rare photograph, c. early 1920s. Location unknown.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Ronald T. Riter Collection)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In early 1919, she was commissioned by the war amputees club of British Columbia, who paid for Hamilton’s trip overseas, and likely for two shipments of her paintings back to Vancouver. The club reproduced her paintings in colour in their magazine but discontinued their support after one year. Hamilton continued while using up her personal resources and relying on sporadic support from a female patron in Victoria, B.C.</p>
<p>When Hamilton left Canada, she was at the height of a brilliant career, at that time much more recognized than <a href="https://www.gallery.ca/collection/artist/emily-carr">painter Emily Carr</a>.</p>
<h2>Non-official scenes</h2>
<p>Artists with the Canadian War Memorial Fund made brief sketching trips to battlefields and then prepared polished and monumental paintings in their London and Paris studios. As art historian Laura Brandon has shown, artists such as Arthur Lismer and Frederick Varley used <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43202465">photographs, which they combined with their own experience to compose war paintings as amalgamated scenes</a>. The most famous of these Canadian War Memorial-commissioned paintings, <a href="https://www.warmuseum.ca/collections/artifact/1017198/">Richard Jack’s <em>The Second Battle of Ypres</em></a>, reconstructed dramatic combat by using unrealistic 19th-century war art conventions, although the artist had visited the battlefield after the fight.</p>
<p>Hamilton, by contrast, transgressed official war painting norms to pioneer her own visceral style that blurred boundaries between documentary realism and esthetic urgency. Many of her works exhibit a haunting blankness, recalling the missing soldiers. She also painted individual soldiers’ marked graves, as well as mass graves where entire regiments had perished. In so doing, she insisted on remembering and mourning each individual loss. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two crosses in front of dugouts and scorched trees." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366779/original/file-20201030-19-1jxoex7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366779/original/file-20201030-19-1jxoex7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366779/original/file-20201030-19-1jxoex7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366779/original/file-20201030-19-1jxoex7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=461&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366779/original/file-20201030-19-1jxoex7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366779/original/file-20201030-19-1jxoex7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366779/original/file-20201030-19-1jxoex7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=579&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Gun Emplacements, Farbus Wood, Vimy Ridge,’ by Mary Riter Hamilton, 1919, oil on woven paper.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1988-180-147, Copy negative C-101321)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>She painted on small canvases or pieces of plywood or paper while trekking through collapsing trenches and swamps en route to remote areas. Her work can be seen as a part of what political theorist Michal Givoni has identified as a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276413488633">20th-century shift towards mobilizing acts of witnessing as a vocation by showing difficult truths in public</a>. </p>
<p>Among the handful <a href="http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781780233741">of women who painted the First World War</a>, Hamilton stands out for the magnitude of her work, the length of her stay in the battlefields and her empathic esthetic achievements. </p>
<p>Today, we have witnessed disturbing images of mass graves during the COVID-19 pandemic in the same time that our society is reckoning with what it means to make ethical choices as we confront connections between systemic inequities, violence and historical trauma. How we think about and understand Hamilton’s courageous, determined and perilous engagement of mass death is more important than ever. </p>
<h2>Startling perspective</h2>
<p>In <em>Memorial for the Second Canadian Division in a Mine Crater Near Neuville St. Vaast</em> (circa 1920) Hamilton visualizes the shocking decimation of an entire regiment with an alarmingly deep hole, whose cutaway view gives viewers a startling, open perspective. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366782/original/file-20201030-23-popdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Steps going into a deep crater gray and on tall crosses perched above." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366782/original/file-20201030-23-popdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366782/original/file-20201030-23-popdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366782/original/file-20201030-23-popdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366782/original/file-20201030-23-popdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=497&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366782/original/file-20201030-23-popdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366782/original/file-20201030-23-popdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366782/original/file-20201030-23-popdq0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Memorial for the Second Canadian Division in a Mine Crater near Neuville St. Vaast,’ by Mary Riter Hamilton, circa 1920, oil on canvas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1988-180-69, Copy negative C-105221)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Also concerned with survivors, she recorded scenes of reconstruction, as in <em>Cloth Hall, Ypres – Market Day</em> (1920). This showed grieving family members at a distance and depicted signs of hope and new life. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366783/original/file-20201030-23-9wrhtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A market crowd in front of a church." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366783/original/file-20201030-23-9wrhtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366783/original/file-20201030-23-9wrhtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366783/original/file-20201030-23-9wrhtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366783/original/file-20201030-23-9wrhtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366783/original/file-20201030-23-9wrhtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366783/original/file-20201030-23-9wrhtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366783/original/file-20201030-23-9wrhtw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Cloth Hall, Ypres – Market Day,’ by Mary Riter Hamilton, 1920, oil on wove paper.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1988-180-162, Copy negative C-104371)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On her expedition, Hamilton overnighted in <a href="https://www.1418now.org.uk/commissions/shelter-2/ww1-heritage-shelter/">war-torn Nissen huts</a> erected for military shelter and storage or other makeshift shelters. By 1920, her war studios included a bombed-out attic in Arras, France. She often ground her colours on the battlefield. She lived in extreme poverty, often starving and putting her life in danger. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Scores of crosses seen across scorched land." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366795/original/file-20201030-23-td68ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366795/original/file-20201030-23-td68ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366795/original/file-20201030-23-td68ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366795/original/file-20201030-23-td68ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366795/original/file-20201030-23-td68ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366795/original/file-20201030-23-td68ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366795/original/file-20201030-23-td68ys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Battlefields from Vimy Ridge, Lens-Arras Road,’ by Mary Riter Hamilton, 1919, oil on plywood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1988-180-75, Copy negative C-104794)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Recognizing her work</h2>
<p>Art historians <a href="https://www.timescolonist.com/robert-amos-sleuthing-paints-picture-of-artists-1.1703876">Robert Amos</a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.ca/Independent-Spirit-Early-Canadian-Artists/dp/1554074177">Ash Prakash</a> have begun to document Hamilton’s important pre-war contributions to Canadian impressionism. </p>
<p>Beginning in 1989, historian Angela Davis, with art historian Sarah McKinnon, <a href="http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol2/no4/hamilton.html">curated exhibitions</a> of Hamilton’s battlefield work, and scholars have begun <a href="https://uofmpress.ca/books/detail/no-mans-land">to honour her legacy</a>. In recent years, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCM8y1mYyt8">The War Amps produced a video</a> about Hamilton. </p>
<p>For Remembrance Day this year, <a href="https://www.canadapost.ca/blogs/personal/perspectives/stamp-honours-mary-riter-hamilton/">Canada Post has dedicated a stamp to Hamilton’s memory</a>, featuring her 1919 painting <em>Trenches on the Somme</em> in which scarlet poppies grow along white chalk walls of the trench. The painting exhibits her trademark style, which often puts the viewer inside a trench. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Poppies growing on the walls of a trench." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366784/original/file-20201030-17-1c9v6fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/366784/original/file-20201030-17-1c9v6fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366784/original/file-20201030-17-1c9v6fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366784/original/file-20201030-17-1c9v6fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=495&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366784/original/file-20201030-17-1c9v6fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366784/original/file-20201030-17-1c9v6fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/366784/original/file-20201030-17-1c9v6fw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=622&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Trenches on the Somme,’ by Mary Riter Hamilton, 1919, oil on commercial board.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1988-180-38, Copy negative C-104747)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Hamilton brought home more than 320 battlefield works painted in oil, or drawn in pencil, charcoal or pastel, along with etchings. She donated 227 to the Dominion Archives (today <a href="https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/CollectionSearch/Pages/record.aspx?app=fonandcol&IdNumber=181825">Library and Archives Canada</a>). </p>
<p>In 1922, Hamilton was <a href="https://prd11.wsl.canadapost.ca/web/en/blogs/collecting/details.page?article=2020/10/22/mary_riter_hamilton&cattype=collecting&cat=stamps">awarded one of France’s highest honours, the Ordre des Palmes académiques</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a car." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368030/original/file-20201106-21-1pdpis5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/368030/original/file-20201106-21-1pdpis5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368030/original/file-20201106-21-1pdpis5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368030/original/file-20201106-21-1pdpis5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368030/original/file-20201106-21-1pdpis5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368030/original/file-20201106-21-1pdpis5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/368030/original/file-20201106-21-1pdpis5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1028&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mary Riter Hamilton with driver near the ruin of Ablain St. Nazaire at the foot of the Vimy Ridge in 1919.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Ronald T. Riter Collection)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Life and legacy</h2>
<p>Hamilton’s life and legacy leaves us much to reflect on today. As an artist who embraced witnessing as a vocation, she broke barriers and insisted upon artistically rendering what she saw with candour. Her perception and embodied art practice also left a unique record of the physical and moral devastation of war, both in her art and in her own life.</p>
<p>As a woman artist travelling through battlefields, she experienced mobility, articulated a vision of empathy and contributed to a public record of the war. Yet how she engaged with her craft and what she saw took a toll on her health and ultimately curtailed her career as a painter. She suffered from post-traumatic stress and a major mental breakdown and other health problems following her expedition. War painting would mark her for life.</p>
<p>Hamilton summed up her achievement with understatement: “Yes, it was like living in a graveyard … but I felt this was a duty that someone must do, and I thought I would try to do it.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148890/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Irene Gammel receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).</span></em></p>After Canadian painter Mary Riter Hamilton was rejected for service as a war artist because she was a woman, she trekked battlefields to create more than 320 works that recall the missing soldiers.Irene Gammel, Professor & Director, MLC Research Centre and Gallery, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1066412018-11-08T16:41:41Z2018-11-08T16:41:41ZWorld War I: what we’ve learned from the ‘war to end all wars’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244581/original/file-20181108-74766-d06xdt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Commonwealth war cemetery at Ypres, Belgium.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">chrisdorney via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It would become known as the Great War, or the “war to end all wars”. Four years of bitter conflict from August 1914 to November 1918 which spread to involve more than 80% of the world, causing 37m casualties, military and civilian, and 16m deaths.</p>
<p>For the past four years, we’ve been examining the major issues and events of World War I: from its outbreak in the summer of 1914, through its major battles, such as the Somme in 1916, to its conclusion on November 11, 1918. We’ve asked a large array of academic experts to comment on everything from the geopolitics, tactics and technology to the war’s legacy. Here are some of the things we have learned:</p>
<h2>What happens in the Balkans…</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244568/original/file-20181108-74760-osj5y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244568/original/file-20181108-74760-osj5y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244568/original/file-20181108-74760-osj5y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244568/original/file-20181108-74760-osj5y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244568/original/file-20181108-74760-osj5y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244568/original/file-20181108-74760-osj5y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244568/original/file-20181108-74760-osj5y9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie just before the assassination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All the schoolbooks tell us that it was a young Bosnian serb, Gavril Princip, who <a href="https://theconversation.com/franz-ferdinand-assasination-how-a-hit-on-one-man-plunged-the-world-into-war-28530">assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand</a> to start the clock ticking towards conflict. But most of the great powers, particularly Germany and Austria-Hungary, had been <a href="https://theconversation.com/was-europe-really-ready-for-world-war-i-30284">planning for a war</a> in Europe for some time and Princip’s bullet gave them the chance they were looking for. </p>
<p>But if the politicians were gung-ho (aren’t they always?) ordinary folk weren’t so bullish. It took a <a href="https://theconversation.com/press-baron-and-propagandist-who-led-charge-into-world-war-i-29855">concerted campaign of jingoism</a> to get the drums beating on the Home Front. </p>
<h2>Mud and blood: the trenches</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244570/original/file-20181108-74763-5gfl3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244570/original/file-20181108-74763-5gfl3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244570/original/file-20181108-74763-5gfl3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244570/original/file-20181108-74763-5gfl3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244570/original/file-20181108-74763-5gfl3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244570/original/file-20181108-74763-5gfl3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244570/original/file-20181108-74763-5gfl3r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Luxury accommodation, Western Front-style.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">nationallibrarynz_commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The enduring picture of World War I is of muddy trenches, barbed wire and bomb craters. Lice, trench foot and myriad other diseases (flu, malaria, typhoid) took a heavy toll on troops on both sides. And the poor diet was also <a href="https://theconversation.com/biscuit-for-breakfast-trench-warfare-was-hard-on-soldiers-teeth-64457">hard on their teeth</a>. Nor was this confined to the ranks: the British military commander, General Douglas Haig, developed such excruciating toothache at the Battle of Aisne in the summer of 1914 that a dentist had to be sent for from Paris. </p>
<p>Boredom was also a problem for many soldiers awaiting the next big push. Troops had various ways of relieving this, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/gallows-humour-from-the-trenches-of-world-war-i-17900">their own satirical newspaper</a>, The Wipers Times.</p>
<p>Battles could often last for months and achieve little. Perhaps the most famous, certainly for the British, was <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-battle-of-the-somme-marks-a-turning-point-of-world-war-i-60741">the Somme</a> – which lasted 141 days and cost 300,000 lives on both sides. The battle changed the way the British approached the war – from then on, production of tanks and aircraft in particular soared as Allied tacticians sought to break the trench-based deadlock.</p>
<h2>War at sea and in the air</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244590/original/file-20181108-74772-1vwgcnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244590/original/file-20181108-74772-1vwgcnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244590/original/file-20181108-74772-1vwgcnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244590/original/file-20181108-74772-1vwgcnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=255&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244590/original/file-20181108-74772-1vwgcnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244590/original/file-20181108-74772-1vwgcnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244590/original/file-20181108-74772-1vwgcnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=321&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Sopwith Pup fighter, 1916.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">thirtyfootscrew</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was “total war” which, for the first time, was waged on land, sea and in the air. It has been estimated that 14,000 Allied pilots lost their lives – more than half of them in training – but then the first manned powered flight had taken place just 11 years before the war broke out. Surprisingly, however, aerial combat has <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-war-i-shaped-a-century-of-air-combat-and-it-still-influences-modern-missions-30168">remained fairly constant since</a>. </p>
<p>But what of the war at sea? <a href="https://theconversation.com/jutland-why-world-war-is-only-sea-battle-was-so-crucial-to-britains-victory-59415">After the Battle of Jutland</a>, which pitched the British Grand Fleet against Imperial Germany’s High Seas Fleet, Britannia largely ruled the waves. Winston Churchill subsequently said that the British sea commander, Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, was the only man on either side “who could have lost the war in an afternoon”. Happily for the British, he didn’t.</p>
<h2>Women at war</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244587/original/file-20181108-74757-fego0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244587/original/file-20181108-74757-fego0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244587/original/file-20181108-74757-fego0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244587/original/file-20181108-74757-fego0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=433&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244587/original/file-20181108-74757-fego0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244587/original/file-20181108-74757-fego0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244587/original/file-20181108-74757-fego0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Driving ambulances in Belgium.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.gwpda.org/photos</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women also played an enormous and vital role: whether on the home front growing and cooking the food or working in the factories that powered Britain’s industrial effort, or as nurses, serving in dangerous conditions. <a href="https://theconversation.com/women-volunteers-first-to-the-war-zone-in-1914-30442">Women volunteers</a> were at the front within weeks of the conflict beginning and served with bravery and distinction. It’s generally thought that the social changes wrought by the Great War saw <a href="https://theconversation.com/british-women-would-have-waited-far-longer-for-the-vote-without-world-war-i-29860">women get the vote</a> in Britain far earlier than they otherwise might have.</p>
<h2>1918: peace at last</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244589/original/file-20181108-74775-5jyy5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/244589/original/file-20181108-74775-5jyy5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244589/original/file-20181108-74775-5jyy5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244589/original/file-20181108-74775-5jyy5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244589/original/file-20181108-74775-5jyy5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244589/original/file-20181108-74775-5jyy5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/244589/original/file-20181108-74775-5jyy5h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The delegations signing the Treaty of Versailles in the Hall of Mirrors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">US National Archives</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sunday November 11, 2018 will be a chance for the world to reflect. To start with, to call it the “war to end all wars” proved tragically optimistic: within a single generation the world was plunged back into an even more destructive conflict, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-war-i-is-it-right-to-blame-the-treaty-of-versailles-for-the-rise-of-hitler-106373">seeds of which were sown</a> in the harsh peace treaty imposed on Germany and her allies at Versailles.</p>
<h2>The legacy</h2>
<p>Asked in the mid-1930s to reflect on the medical advances made during World War I, an unnamed Austrian medic <a href="https://theconversation.com/world-war-i-the-birth-of-plastic-surgery-and-modern-anaesthesia-106191">said</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Nobody won the last war but the medical services. The increase in knowledge was the sole determinable gain for mankind in a devastating catastrophe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But it’s never too late to learn. Anyone who still believes that war is the solution to anything should read the words of the most famous war poet of them all, <a href="https://theconversation.com/wilfred-owen-100-years-on-poet-gave-voice-to-a-generation-of-doomed-youth-106014">Wilfred Owen</a> – whose life was cut short and whose talent was extinguished at the desperately young age of 25, just seven days before the guns fell silent:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My subject is War, and the pity of War.
The Poetry is in the pity.
Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense consolatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>While you are here…</h2>
<p>Please <a href="https://theconversation.com/anthill-31-world-war-i-remembered-podcast-106498">listen to our podcast</a>, in which we talk to academic experts about how the Armistice came about, three of the great World War I poets, and what life was like for the brave conscientious objectors who refused to take up arms.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106641/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
100 years after the end of World War I, some of its brutal lessons.Jonathan Este, Senior International Affairs Editor, Associate EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/898792018-02-19T10:10:10Z2018-02-19T10:10:10ZThe forgotten story of how horrors of the Great War haunted Britain’s home front<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202100/original/file-20180116-53299-1r7xtzh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">British soldiers on the frontline.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/british-world-war-1-soldiers-front-248204680?src=TLqJLXlWtPBnEdMeRl14zg-1-21">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>World War I – or the “Great War” as it was known at the time – is at the forefront of many people’s minds as we inch closer to the centenary of the 1918 Armistice. The images that have filtered down through the generations are largely those of the frontline trenches: blood, mud, smoke, rats, lice, death. The carnage of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/36641199">Somme</a> and the butchery on the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/apr/24/gallipoli-what-happened-military-disaster-legacy">Gallipoli</a> beaches. Ironclad beasts traversing the wastes of No-Man’s-Land. Giant steel ships blowing each other <a href="https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-was-the-battle-of-jutland">out of the water at Jutland</a>. Occasionally, zeppelins hanging over an anaemic London skyline. What is discussed far less is the story of how Britain managed to carry on at home.</p>
<p>Television dramas and radio plays offer little more than entertaining soap operas. The truth of the home front was far less melodramatic, though nonetheless fascinating. People in the UK were having to carry on as they did before. They still had jobs to go to, families to care for, and homes to keep. But now they had to deal with it all in the absence of their serving men and women, as well as the threat of conquest from over the seas.</p>
<p>The nation’s civilian hospitals were not spared the restrictions and requirements of this total war. Demands were made by the War Office from the very beginning, even before the full extent of the carnage was realised. Having learned lessons from the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/boer_wars_01.shtml">Boer Wars</a> in South Africa and the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Russo-Japanese-War">Russo-Japanese War</a>, the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Army Medical Service developed a system that would transport wounded soldiers from the battlefield all the way back home to “<a href="http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2014/08/brits-call-u-k-blighty">Blighty</a>”. </p>
<h2>Waves of wounded</h2>
<p>My research focuses on the impact of this in the English counties of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, using original printed documents stored in county and national archives, private collections and libraries.</p>
<p>Major-General William MacPherson’s documentation of the war, for example, details how many different types of hospitals were <a href="https://archive.org/details/medicalservicesg01macpuoft">cleared at the outbreak of war</a>, including mental hospitals and sanatoria, to accommodate the treatment and convalescence of wounded soldiers. Furthermore, civilian general hospitals were requested to make efforts to clear beds and even entire wards to allow for the treatment of wounded soldiers. This clearly was going to have a major impact on Britain’s civilians.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202101/original/file-20180116-53295-1fr7ohd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202101/original/file-20180116-53295-1fr7ohd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202101/original/file-20180116-53295-1fr7ohd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202101/original/file-20180116-53295-1fr7ohd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202101/original/file-20180116-53295-1fr7ohd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202101/original/file-20180116-53295-1fr7ohd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202101/original/file-20180116-53295-1fr7ohd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Injured troops from across the Empire were soon flooding into civilian hospitals in mainland Britain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bandaged-british-world-war-1-soldiers-248207848">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the annual reports of Chesterfield Hospital, Derbyshire Infirmary, and Nottingham General in 1914, the hospitals enthusiastically offered their services free of charge to the war effort, declining any grants by the War Office. Indeed, on August 22 of that year, the Nottingham Evening Post published a letter from the War Office stating that further offers of “houses, &c., for the use of sick and wounded … for the present no more are required”. </p>
<p>But by the end of 1914, after facing the devastating consequences of the <a href="http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/mons.htm">Mons Offensive</a> and the mass exodus of soldiers and civilians from Belgium, the reality began to sink in. </p>
<p>Whatever early illusions the hospitals had about their potentially minor role in the war effort were smashed. This was partly due to the fact that nursing, medical and domestic staff had been lost from the labour market. Either by volunteering or eventually being called up for military service, hospital medical staff had dwindled to very dangerous levels by 1915. And meanwhile, the injured flooded in.</p>
<p>By 1916, Nottingham Children’s Hospital nearly had to close its doors because it had so few doctors. Derbyshire Infirmary had to call on local GPs to staff its wards, and the Nottingham General even had to call doctors out of retirement. Even plumbers had to be fought over, with appeals made directly to the War Office by Nottingham General so that they could keep their boiler going. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202104/original/file-20180116-53324-1kfdxpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202104/original/file-20180116-53324-1kfdxpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202104/original/file-20180116-53324-1kfdxpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202104/original/file-20180116-53324-1kfdxpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202104/original/file-20180116-53324-1kfdxpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202104/original/file-20180116-53324-1kfdxpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/202104/original/file-20180116-53324-1kfdxpj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Injured British troops are evacuated in a hospital train.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/download/media/248197867">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the number of medical and nursing staff grew smaller and smaller, civilian waiting lists grew longer and longer. In early 1915, Chesterfield made the difficult decision of refusing further wounded soldiers until they could diminish the backlog of civilian patients. Eventually, they managed to open up new beds to accommodate more patients.</p>
<p>On top of all other considerations, the economic situation of the war meant costs were rising for the hospitals, too – Nottingham General saw a 73% increase in total expenditure between 1913 and 1916. The grants from the War Office were proving to be inadequate for the treatment of the wounded soldiers, and hospitals across the country were being pushed into deficits.</p>
<h2>War at home</h2>
<p>While many think of the Great War as being relatively removed from the British people, and without the mass bombing raids and threat of invasion that coloured World War II, British citizens did, in fact, witness the terrible fallout of the conflict on their very doorsteps. </p>
<p>Upon the arrival of the first hospital train in Nottingham on October 6, 1914, newspapers turned out to photograph the scene. That first train contained only a few soldiers, but soon more and more wounded troops were received into the towns and cities of the UK. </p>
<p>The majority of these soldiers were returning as “accident and emergency” cases, requiring urgent, expensive and skilled attention as soon as they arrived. By October 22, 1914, 55 wounded soldiers had already been treated in Nottingham alone, and were starting to be sent back to the front. It was just the tip of the iceberg and things would get much, much worse.</p>
<p>The realities of war were literally brought home to the British people in the form of crippled and maimed soldiers – and not just Tommies, but troops from all over the empire. As they filled up the country’s overcrowded hospitals, the truly global scale of the Great War became all too apparent.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89879/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Edward Cheetham received funding from the Midlands Three Cities Consortium (AHRC).
Edward Cheetham is also a member of the Labour Party</span></em></p>As tens of thousands of injured soldiers filled the UK’s overwhelmed hospitals, the scale of World War I became all too apparent.Edward Cheetham, PhD Candidate, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/790562017-06-14T10:08:32Z2017-06-14T10:08:32ZThe pigeons of Passchendaele – and why animals still suffer and die in modern conflicts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173602/original/file-20170613-24680-ke7z9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A pigeon ready for release, showing the cylinder containing a message strapped to her leg.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Imperial War Museum</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Next month marks the 100th anniversary of one of the bloodiest battles of World War I. Much has been written about the massive human cost of that war but what is perhaps less well-known is how many animals were killed and the impact these creatures – particularly the pigeons – had on the outcome of that terrible conflict. Even now, animals from dogs to dolphins, honey bees to rats are being exploited and killed in modern warfare.</p>
<p>July 31 is the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the Third Battle of Ypres, more commonly remembered as Passchendaele or “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwone/battle_passchendaele.shtml">the Battle of the Mud</a>”. This battle has become a powerful symbol of human suffering and the relentless destructive capacity of the weapons of the “machine age”. Thousands of carrier pigeons were employed from the front line to maintain communications over a battlefield that had become a “sullen swamp”. These birds played an enormously significant part in the course and conduct of the battle.</p>
<p>This centenary is cause to reflect once more on the folly of battles where hundreds of thousands of lives were destroyed for pitiful territorial gains. Yet, whatever the faults of the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zq2y87h">generals</a>, it should be understood why they could not control battles – however meticulously planned – once they were underway. Wireless sets (radios) were too bulky, unreliable and insecure for frontline service; telephone lines were cut by shells; soldiers serving as “runners” were felled by gunfire and gas. Yet the humble pigeon proved remarkably fast and reliable. The <a href="https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/slang-terms-at-the-front">“poor bloody infantry”</a> came to depend upon their instincts and their wings. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173245/original/file-20170610-4774-6sh2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173245/original/file-20170610-4774-6sh2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173245/original/file-20170610-4774-6sh2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173245/original/file-20170610-4774-6sh2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173245/original/file-20170610-4774-6sh2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173245/original/file-20170610-4774-6sh2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173245/original/file-20170610-4774-6sh2n4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A British motorised pigeon loft on the Western Front.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Imperial War Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When Major Alec Waley, the commander of the British carrier pigeon service, visited the British Expeditionary Force’s II Corps on July 31, 1917, he was informed that “75% of the news which had come in from the firing line had been received by pigeon”. These birds were saving the lives of British soldiers. Testimony by infantry company commander A.L. Binfield paid tribute to “the wonderful service rendered by pigeons”. After his men had captured the village of St Julian August 3, he wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was observed that the enemy were assembling for a counter-attack, and, as a last resource [sic] our last pigeon was sent up asking for an artillery barrage to be put down … the barrage came down in 14 minutes after the release of the pigeon as a direct result of the message we sent. The German counter-attack was launched but failed to reach the shell-holes we were holding – a very fortunate matter for us, as S.A.A. [small arms ammunition] and Lewis-gun ammunition was practically exhausted.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173611/original/file-20170613-25827-1pjnby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/173611/original/file-20170613-25827-1pjnby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173611/original/file-20170613-25827-1pjnby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173611/original/file-20170613-25827-1pjnby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173611/original/file-20170613-25827-1pjnby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173611/original/file-20170613-25827-1pjnby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/173611/original/file-20170613-25827-1pjnby.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A signaller attaches a message to the leg of a pigeon secured in a gas-proof carrier before release.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Imperial War Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Animals in modern warfare</h2>
<p>Technology moved on. Relatively reliable <a href="http://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/wireless_telegraphy">“continuous wave” wireless sets</a> began to displace the pigeon in the more mobile warfare of 1918. Yet, overall, the ruthless exploitation of animals in wartime for a variety of purposes has escalated. The pigeons of Passchendaele are just part of a hidden history of animals in war. Indeed, although often overlooked by military historians, the exploitation of animals actually became a defining characteristic of modern conflicts.</p>
<p>When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, his armies were accompanied by five times as many <a href="http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/germanhorse/index.html">horses and mules</a> as Napoleon’s were in 1812. The British, having abolished their military dog and carrier pigeon services after World War I, re-established both during the second global conflict. They were still using camels for logistical purposes in the Middle East in the 1960s. </p>
<p>In their conflicts against both the French and the US, the north Vietnamese found elephants invaluable as draught animals in jungle warfare – as have, more recently, the Karen National Liberation Army in Myanmar. Technological innovation, far from replacing animals in military service, has created new demands for them. The proliferation of landmines, for example, has called thousands of dogs into service for their remarkable capacity to <a href="http://www.gichd.org/fileadmin/GICHD-resources/rec-documents/MDD.pdf">detect buried or hidden explosives</a> by scent. </p>
<p>The bodies of animals have also been ruthlessly weaponised. Faithful and amenable <a href="https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/anti-tank-dogs-scared-weapon.html/2">dogs were laden with explosives</a> and deployed against tanks and bunkers by the Soviets and the Japanese during Word War II. <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/bf-skinners-pigeon-guided-rocket-53443995/">Pigeons were used as living guidance systems</a> for early, experimental “smart bombs” during the same conflict. And <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/donkey-bomber-kills-three-us-soldiers-and-an-interpreter">insurgents strapped improvised explosive devices to donkeys</a> in Afghanistan and Iraq or hid them in the carcasses of dead animals left by the roadside. </p>
<p>On March 21, 1903, a British journalist writing for The Sphere commented that “we have reached an age of extraordinary mechanism, but animals still come largely into the service of man in the art of war”. Over a century later, this remains true. </p>
<p>American special forces are often “<a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/02/0215_020215_peltoninterview.html">horse mobile</a>” in Afghanistan. Both the German and Austrian armies maintain pack animal units for use in mountains simply because horses and mules can reach locations inaccessible to wheeled or tracked vehicles and where helicopters cannot land. <a href="https://www.apopo.org/en/mine-action/projects">Rats</a> and <a href="http://www.wired.co.uk/article/landmine-bees">honey bees</a> have now joined dogs in the task of detecting minefields. </p>
<p>In the waters of the Persian Gulf, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/jul/06/ukraine-combat-dolphins-russia-give-back">dolphins of the US</a>, and possibly Iranian, navies are engaged in clandestine submarine operations. Ugly rumours persist that these sensitive and intelligent creatures, when deployed to guard harbours or ships from saboteurs, have been trained for “swimmer nullification” missions. </p>
<p>Let us remember the pigeons of Passchendaele to remind us that the victims of “machine age” warfare are not just humans. Perhaps we should finally start to question the use of animals in modern warfare.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79056/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gervase Phillips does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The humble carrier pigeon played a huge role in World War I and saved many lives. But despite huge technological advances, animals are still suffering and dying in modern wars.Gervase Phillips, Principal Lecturer , Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/586182016-09-29T15:12:23Z2016-09-29T15:12:23ZCrime and conmen in the black out: the violent side of the World War I home front<p>As the commemorations for the <a href="http://somme2016.org/en/">centenary of the Battle of the Somme</a> continue, it’s tempting to picture the Britain of 1914-1918 in a particular way: its inhabitants bonded together in a shared mission, brave men enduring hell in the trenches, women making munitions, families enduring the heartbreaking loss of loved ones. There’s much truth in this picture, but if we were to find ourselves back on the Home Front we’d quickly realise that among the endless war work and self-sacrifice, there was a lot going on that was not heroic. </p>
<p>In February 1915, The Times reported claims made at the Old Bailey that crime had fallen to its lowest level for 18 years – but few people believed it. In fact, during the war, London <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6051AgAAQBAJ&source=gbs_book_other_versions">remained the country’s crime capital</a>, particularly for violent crime. </p>
<p>The city acted as a stopping off point on the way to the Western Front with thousands of soldiers passing through every week. At the same time, burglars and conmen hadn’t suddenly become patriotic and suspended their activities, and not every potential criminal was safely in the armed forces. Pilfering was rife and so, too, was illegal drinking and gambling. The arrival of conscription in 1916 led to a brisk trade in fake <a href="https://greatwarlondon.wordpress.com/tag/conscription/">medical exemption certificates</a>. </p>
<p>Other observers worried about the massed ranks of prostitutes – professional and amateur – whom it was claimed were stalking the streets, spreading venereal disease. The following year the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Great_Britain_s_Great_War.html?id=0CH6wTuGjggC">author Arthur Conan Doyle wrote</a> to The Times warning of these women who “at present prey upon and poison our soldiers in London”. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139313/original/image-20160926-31856-wj0tb5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139313/original/image-20160926-31856-wj0tb5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139313/original/image-20160926-31856-wj0tb5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139313/original/image-20160926-31856-wj0tb5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139313/original/image-20160926-31856-wj0tb5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139313/original/image-20160926-31856-wj0tb5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139313/original/image-20160926-31856-wj0tb5.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Serial killer and bigamist George Joseph Smith.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Joseph_Smith#/media/File:GeorgeJosephSmith.JPG">Unknown - Police Gazette, 1915/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Metropolitan Police records held at the National Archives in Kew give an insight into some of the offences which were known about during the war – and there were presumably others that weren’t. Some cases became famous, <a href="http://content.met.police.uk/Article/Brides-in-the-Bath-Murders/1400015481775/1400015481775">notably the “Brides in the Bath” case of June 1915</a>, in which serial bigamist George Joseph Smith was revealed to have married, and then drowned, a succession of lonely women as a means of getting his hands on their money. Smith’s crimes shocked war-time Britain but also entertained it. The horrible details provided a distraction from the events of the war – the story broke in the middle of the Dardanelles campaign. Justice of sorts was served when, after a packed trial at the Old Bailey, Smith was hanged at Maidstone Prison. </p>
<h2>Under cover of darkness</h2>
<p>Other crimes were more obviously the result of war-time conditions. The night-time blackout, in particular, meant that streets were dark and dangerous. Records at the National Archives recount how on one evening in October 1915, 40-year-old Jessie Leary, a prostitute, was found sprawled on a pavement in Greenwich. She had last been seen drinking in a local pub and was thought to be intoxicated – but the policeman who discovered her saw that she was covered in blood. An autopsy found that her death was due to an internal haemorrhage caused after a broken bottle was inserted inside her. Despite being seen with an unknown man shortly before she was found, Jessie Leary’s killer was never caught. </p>
<p>Of more interest to the authorities were what newspapers termed “outrages on soldiers” – where the victims were brave men who were risking their lives for king and country. An attack in November 1916 on a Canadian soldier, Alfred Williams, flagged how helpless some of the men who had served on the Western Front actually were when faced with certain Londoners. </p>
<p>Williams and three other Canadians went into the Sussex pub in Long Acre, having arrived back from France. They fell into conversation with two women and Williams let slip that he was carrying some back pay, around £25. The Canadians bought some drinks and then the group was joined by two civilians, William Robinson, a shoemaker, and John Gray, a newspaper packer. Soon afterwards, two of the Canadians left accompanied by the two women. </p>
<p>Exactly what happened next is unclear. At 9pm Alfred Williams was found lying on St. Martin’s Lane, opposite Aldridge’s (a famous livestock dealer – now the site of Orion House). He was bleeding from a wound behind his ear and died at the scene. It did not take the police long to arrest Robinson and Gray. After a trial at the Old Bailey, Robinson was sentenced to hang and Gray received a three-year prison sentence. </p>
<h2>Keep your wits about you</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139315/original/image-20160926-31858-biptwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/139315/original/image-20160926-31858-biptwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139315/original/image-20160926-31858-biptwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139315/original/image-20160926-31858-biptwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139315/original/image-20160926-31858-biptwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139315/original/image-20160926-31858-biptwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/139315/original/image-20160926-31858-biptwo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Australian soldier carries a wounded comrade in the 1915 Dardanelles campaign.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Everett Historical/www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The protection of overseas soldiers in London became an ongoing challenge for the war-time authorities. Organisations like the YMCA helped by building huts where men could get a bed for the night. There was also a spate of specially written guidebooks. These aimed to put soldiers on the right track via walking tours which took in tourist attractions judged spiritually uplifting such as Nelson’s Column and the lions in Trafalgar Square. </p>
<p>One 1917 publication, The Guide to London for Soldiers and Sailors, contained a message from Field Marshall Sir John French in which he prayed that the book would: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Be the means of saving so many of our soldiers and sailors from the many pitfalls to which they are exposed on their way through London without proper guidance. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>These pitfalls were real. Uncovering them again a century later reveals a darker side of the history of World War I which needs acknowledging if we want anything like a full picture of life on the Home Front.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Maunder receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>From serial killers to attacks on prostitutes and soldiers, not everyone back in Britain during the war was heroic.Andrew Maunder, Reader in Victorian Studies, University of HertfordshireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/621292016-07-13T12:13:03Z2016-07-13T12:13:03ZThe Medieval Somme: forgotten battle that was the bloodiest fought on British soil<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130374/original/image-20160713-12383-fygvoa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Richard Caton Woodville's The Battle of Towton.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>A Battle of the Somme on British soil? It happened on Palm Sunday, 1461: a day of fierce fighting in the mud that felled a generation, leaving a longer litany of the dead than any other engagement in the islands’ history – reputed in some <a href="http://www.r3.org/on-line-library-text-essays/crowland-chronicle/part-ii/">contemporary reports</a> to be between 19,000 – the same number killed or missing in France on July 1 1916 – and a staggering 38,000. </p>
<p>The battle of <a href="http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/resource-centre/warsoftheroses/battleview.asp?BattleFieldId=46">Towton</a>, fought near a tiny village standing on the old road between Leeds and York, on the brink of the North York Moors, is far less known than many other medieval clashes such as <a href="http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/1066-battle-of-hastings-abbey-and-battlefield/">Hastings</a> or <a href="http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/resource-centre/warsoftheroses/battleview.asp?BattleFieldId=8">Bosworth</a>. Many will never have heard of it.</p>
<p>But here, in a blizzard on an icy cold March 29 1461, the forces of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Wars-of-the-Roses">the warring factions of Lancaster and York</a> met in a planned pitched battle that soon descended into a mayhem known as the Bloody Meadow. It ran into dusk, and through the fields and byways far from the battlefield. To the few on either side that carried their weapon to the day’s end, the result was by no means clear. But York in fact prevailed and within a month (almost to the day), the towering figure of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/edward_iv_king.shtml">Duke Edward</a>, who stood nearly six-feet-five-inches tall, had reached London and seized the English crown as Edward IV. The Lancastrian king, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/henry_vi_king.shtml">Henry VI</a>, fled into exile.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130375/original/image-20160713-12397-1gqqln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130375/original/image-20160713-12397-1gqqln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130375/original/image-20160713-12397-1gqqln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130375/original/image-20160713-12397-1gqqln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=772&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130375/original/image-20160713-12397-1gqqln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130375/original/image-20160713-12397-1gqqln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130375/original/image-20160713-12397-1gqqln0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=970&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Victor: the Yorkist Edward IV.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6639948">The National Portrait Gallery</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Towton was not merely a bloody moment in military history. It was also a turning-point in the long struggle for the throne between these two dynasties whose rivalry has provided – since the 16th century – a compelling overture to the grand opera of the Tudor legend, from Shakespeare to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/edward_iv_king.shtml">the White Queen</a>. But this summer, as national attention focuses on the 100th anniversary of The Battle of the Somme, we might also take the opportunity to recall a day in our history when total war tore up a landscape that was much closer to home.</p>
<h2>An English Doomsday</h2>
<p>First, the historian’s caveats. While we know a remarkable amount about this bloody day in Yorkshire more than 550 years ago, we do not have the benefits granted to historians of World War I. Towton left behind no battle plans, memoranda, maps, aerial photographs, nor – above all other in value – first-hand accounts of those who were there. We cannot be certain of the size of the forces on either side, nor of the numbers of their dead. </p>
<p>A death toll of 28,000 was reported as early as April 1461 in one of the <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ShfEdpp2bbAC&pg=PA244&dq=towton+newsletter+28000&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiru6-Dg-_NAhWaOsAKHTYmAWsQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=towton%20newsletter%2028000&f=false">circulating newssheets</a> that were not uncommon in the 15th century – and was taken up by a number of the chroniclers writing in the months and years following. This was soon scaled up to nearly 40,000 – about 1% of England’s entire male population – by others, a figure which also came to be cemented in <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=m8Ojo6VI8KUC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q=towton&f=false">the accounts of some chroniclers</a>.</p>
<p>This shift points to the absence of any authoritative recollection of the battle – but almost certainly the numbers were larger than were usually seen, even in the period’s biggest clashes. Recently, historians have curbed the claims but the <a href="https://nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/towton.pdf">latest estimate</a> suggests that 40,000 men took to the field, and that casualties may have been closer to 10,000.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130372/original/image-20160713-12366-ihrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130372/original/image-20160713-12366-ihrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130372/original/image-20160713-12366-ihrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130372/original/image-20160713-12366-ihrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130372/original/image-20160713-12366-ihrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130372/original/image-20160713-12366-ihrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130372/original/image-20160713-12366-ihrg8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lethal: an armour-piercing bodkin arrow, as used at Towton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1596107">by Boneshaker</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But as with the Somme, it is not just the roll-call, or death-toll, that matters, but also the scar which the battle cut across the collective psychology. Towton became a byword for the horrors of the battlefield. Just as July 1 1916 has become the template for the cultural representation of the 1914-18 war, so Towton pressed itself into the popular image of war in the 15th and 16th centuries. </p>
<p>When <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Malory">Sir Thomas Malory</a> re-imagined <a href="http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/englit/malory/">King Arthur</a> for the rising generation of literate layfolk at the beginning of the Tudor age, it was at Towton – or at least a battlefield very much like it – that he set the final fight-to-the-death between Arthur and Mordred (<a href="http://www.shmoop.com/morte-d-arthur/book-21-summary.html">Morte d'Arthur, Book XXI, Chapter 4</a>). Writing less than ten years after the Yorkist victory, <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1252/1252-h/1252-h.htm#link2HCH0256">Malory’s Arthurian battleground raged</a>, like Towton, from first light until evening, and laid waste a generation: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>… and thus they fought all the long day, and never stinted till the noble knights were laid to the cold earth and ever they fought still till it was near night, and by that time there was there an hundred thousand laid dead upon the ground. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Lions and lambs</h2>
<p>In his history plays, Shakespeare also presents Towton as an expression of all the terrible pain of the years of struggle that lasted over a century, from Richard II to Henry VIII. He describes it in <a href="http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=henry6p3&Act=2&Scene=5&Scope=scene">Henry VI, Part 3, Act 2, Scene 5</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>O piteous spectacle! O bloody times! While lions war and battle for their dens, poor harmless lambs abide their enmity. Weep, wretched man, I’ll aid thee tear for tear.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Both the Somme and Towton saw a generation fall. But while it was a young, volunteer army of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pals_battalion">“Pals”</a> that was annihilated in 1916, osteo-analysis suggests that Towton was fought by grizzled older veterans. But in the small society of the 15th century, this was no less of a demographic shock. Most would have protected and provided for households. Their loss on such a scale would have been devastating for communities. And the slaughter went on and on. The Lancastrians were not only defeated, they were hunted down with a determination to see them, if not wiped out, then diminished to the point of no return.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130366/original/image-20160713-12377-1fab7dq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130366/original/image-20160713-12377-1fab7dq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130366/original/image-20160713-12377-1fab7dq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130366/original/image-20160713-12377-1fab7dq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130366/original/image-20160713-12377-1fab7dq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130366/original/image-20160713-12377-1fab7dq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130366/original/image-20160713-12377-1fab7dq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130366/original/image-20160713-12377-1fab7dq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=590&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Battle of Towton: initial deployment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12564852">by Jappalang</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For its time, this was also warfare on an unprecedented scale. There was no be no surrender, no prisoners. The armies were strafed with vast volleys of arrows, and new and, in a certain sense, industrial technologies were deployed, just as they were at the Somme. Recent archaeology confirmed the presence of <a href="http://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/2015/03/exploded-gun-brings-the-story-of-richard-iii-into-the-modern-age/">handguns on the battlefield</a>, evidently devastating if not quite in the same league as the German’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MG_08">Maschinengewehr 08</a> in 1916. </p>
<p>These firearm fragments are among the earliest known to have been in used in northern European warfare and perhaps the very first witnessed in England. Primitive in their casting, they presented as great a threat to the man that fired them as to their target. Surely these new arrivals would have added considerably to the horror.</p>
<h2>Fragments of the past</h2>
<p>Towton is a rare example in England of a site largely spared from major development, and <a href="http://www.towton.org.uk/archeology/">vital clues to its violent past remain</a>. In the past 20 years, archaeological excavations have not only extended our understanding of the events of that day but of <a href="http://www.academia.edu/10248475/Holst_M._and_Sutherland_T._2014._Towton_Revisited_Analysis_of_the_Human_Remains_from_the_Battle_of_Towton_1461_in_S._Eickhoff_and_F._Schopper_eds._Schlachtfeld_und_Massengrab_Spektren_Interdisziplin%C3%A4rer_Auswertung_von_Orten_der_Gewalt_Zossen_97-129">medieval English society in general</a>. </p>
<p>The same is true of the Somme. That battlefield has a global significance as a place of commemoration and reconciliation, especially as Word War I passes out of even secondhand memory. But it also has significance as a site for <a href="http://www.laboisselleproject.com/">“live” research</a>. Its ploughed fields and pastures are still offering up new discoveries which likewise can carry us back not only to the last moments of those lost regiments but also to the lost world they left behind them, of Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain.</p>
<p>It is essential that these battlefields continue to hold our attention. For not only do they deepen our understanding of the experience and mechanics of war, they can also broaden our understanding of the societies from which such terrible conflict springs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62129/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Clark receives funding from UK Research Councils.</span></em></p>On an icy cold day in 1461, tens of thousands died in a muddy slaughter.James Clark, Professor of Medieval History, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/603842016-07-12T09:31:13Z2016-07-12T09:31:13ZOfficial World War I memorial rituals could create a generation uncritical of the conflict<p>As commemorations to mark the centenary of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/battle-of-the-somme">Battle of Somme</a> begin, its clear that World War I retains a lingering and vivid presence in the countries which fought in it. But the unfolding centenary anniversaries can also be understood as a moment of heightened anxiety about the future of the way the war is remembered. </p>
<p>As we move further away from the original event itself, much state-sponsored centenary activity in the UK, Australia and New Zealand has actively targeted young people – singling them out as the “next generation”, charged with carrying the memory of what happened on the battlefield forward. </p>
<p>In these countries, the memory of World War I has been sanctified to such an extent that other perspectives beyond a sense of respect for those who were directly affected by the conflict is often overlooked.</p>
<p>In the UK, young people are taking centre stage in all the major government-funded commemorative activities, the cornerstone of which is the £5.3m <a href="http://www.centenarybattlefieldtours.org/">Centenary Battlefield Tours Programme</a>, which aims to take 12,000 secondary state school pupils from England to the memorials on the western front between 2014 and 2019 as part of a national education initiative. </p>
<h2>Revered status</h2>
<p>Such investment, in a time of economic austerity, requires scrutiny, particularly regarding what ideas about the conflict are emphasised and at the expense of which alternatives. For example, whether children are being asked to reflect on civilians, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/aug/03/guardiansocietysupplement">pacifists</a> or survivors – rather than solely the military dead – or to explore Britain’s uncomfortable relationship to its imperial past.</p>
<p>One secondary school pupil, who took part in a trip to World War I battlefields in spring 2015, told us how she might respond to a member of her coach party who felt remembering the war glorified conflict. She said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I just really disagree with that viewpoint … it’s like walking into a church and you know saying that you love the devil and you hate God and everything. It’s not appropriate … the tour was to remember and to learn about that you know not many people there are going to put their hands up and agree with you because that’s not the purpose of going.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Much of the UK government’s commemorative activities involving young people are semi-religious, reverential and ritualistic. This risks closing down the opportunity for students to question the purpose of the war, to explore notions of the war’s futility in the light of the outbreak of the World War II, or to consider which narratives of the war are being commemorated at the expense of others. </p>
<h2>Anzac identity</h2>
<p>In Australia and New Zealand, war remembrance is closely aligned with an Anzac identity. Purported to have emerged at Gallipoli in 1915, this ideal is framed around so-called “common values” of <a href="https://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/john-key-speech-albany-convoy-commemorations">“mateship, courage, equality, self-sacrifice, duty and loyalty”</a>. It is central to <a href="https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/learn/for-educators">museum education programmes</a> that continue to attract thousands of school visitors. </p>
<p>At this year’s <a href="https://www.awm.gov.au/media/releases/anzac-day-dawn-service-address-2016-dr-brendan-nelson/">Anzac Day dawn service</a> at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, director Brendan Nelson addressed “young Australians” directly: “Your search for belonging, meaning and values for the world you want – ends here.” </p>
<p>Australia’s and New Zealand’s commemorative activities also share many of the core elements of British commemoration, for example the exhortation of <a href="https://theconversation.com/lest-we-forget-binyons-ode-of-remembrance-13642">Laurence Binyon’s</a> ode “we will remember them” is used at Anzac Day dawn services. At the heart of all three national cultures of remembrance is a sense of unquestioning reverence for those who served.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124988/original/image-20160602-23276-t8pcxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/124988/original/image-20160602-23276-t8pcxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124988/original/image-20160602-23276-t8pcxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124988/original/image-20160602-23276-t8pcxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124988/original/image-20160602-23276-t8pcxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124988/original/image-20160602-23276-t8pcxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/124988/original/image-20160602-23276-t8pcxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anzac Day in Sydney.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.epa.eu/">European Press Association</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In New Zealand, all schools participated in the Ministry of Education’s <a href="http://fieldsofremenbrance.org.nz">Fields of Remembrance</a> project. This saw 80,000 white crosses with the names of local service personal who had died overseas hand delivered to schools and laid in the school grounds, where along with poppies and posters they became the focus of war commemorations. </p>
<p>In Australia, pride has been used to encourage young people to connect with their country’s World War I history. Teenage duo The Berrys won the 2016 ACT Premier’s Anzac Spirit Prize with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX6umXeLkvs">Proud</a>, a song that thanks a dying Australian soldier and his mates for “a legend to be proud of”. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KX6umXeLkvs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Amid these official celebrations, there appears to be little space for different perspectives on war remembrance in the UK, Australia and New Zealand that go beyond pride and reverence of the armed forces, are inclusive of difference and allow young people to think critically about the significance of World War I. But if we are serious about the memories of the conflict surviving in all their diversity, we need to equip and encourage young people to engage critically as well as emotionally with this cataclysmic event, and with what it might say to us in the 21st century. </p>
<p><em>The authors would like to thank to Christina Spittel, lecturer in the school of humanities and social sciences, University of New South Wales, Canberra for help with the Australian examples.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60384/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catriona Pennell has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (2012-2014). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Sheehan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Commemorations for young people sanctify the Great War, but it’s a conflict that needs to be questioned.Catriona Pennell, Senior Lecturer in History, University of ExeterMark Sheehan, Senior Lecturer, School of Education, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/618632016-06-30T11:32:28Z2016-06-30T11:32:28Z‘Our casualties not heavy’: how British press covered the Battle of the Somme<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128834/original/image-20160630-30652-1bxnd44.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Warwick Brooke/Imperial War Museum</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The battle of the Somme, which began on July 1, 1916, was the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/battle-of-the-somme">most brutal encounter of World War I</a>, characterised by loss of life and attritional trench warfare. On the first day of combat, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/battle-of-the-somme-facts-numbers-centenary-100-years-casualties-dead-number-britain-uk-germany-a7109096.html">19,240 British men lost their lives</a>. But this was heralded in the British press as part of a “day going well for Britain and France”. </p>
<p>The job of a journalist covering World War I was incredibly difficult and when looking back at some of the misleading press reports of the time it’s important to remember the constraints under which reporters operated. Apart from the physical difficulties and dangers involved in getting words and images from the front back to newsrooms at home, the law prevented the questioning of official information. </p>
<p>On August 8, 1914, less than a week after Britain declared war on Germany, parliament passed the <a href="http://spartacus-educational.com/FWWdora.htm">Defence of the Realm Act (DORA)</a> without debate. The legislation gave the government executive powers to suppress published criticism, imprison without trial and to commandeer economic resources for the war effort.</p>
<p>During the war, publishing information that was calculated to be indirectly or directly of use to the enemy became an offence and was punishable in a court of law. This included any description of war and any news that was likely to cause any conflict between the public and military authorities.</p>
<p>Reporters – and there were <a href="http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/ww1/blog/war-correspondents-during-ww1.aspx">only five accredited war correspondents</a> – operated under the intense scrutiny of the high command. Although they were treated well – given uniforms, rank and housed in the same French chateaux as their military superiors – they were forbidden from (without express permission) writing about where they were, from referring to regiments, and from writing about soldiers other than commanders-in-chief. Indeed, in an effort to ensure that nothing at all be published that may endanger the war effort, their every move was accounted for. They were accompanied at all times by army censors who had the authority to use chemicals to search for the use of invisible ink in dispatches. </p>
<p>Even if reporters had wished to “tell the truth” and their copy had made it past the censors, then the editors and proprietors back home would have ensured that their writing did not see the light of day. Lord Northcliffe, owner of the Times and Daily Mail <a href="https://theconversation.com/press-baron-and-propagandist-who-led-charge-into-world-war-i-29855">ended the war as director of propaganda</a> in enemy countries, while Lord Beaverbrook, later the owner of Express newspapers, was <a href="http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/beaverbrook.htm">minister of information</a>. Robert Donald, editor of the Daily Chronicle, was <a href="http://spartacus-educational.com/Jdonald.htm">director of propaganda</a> in neutral countries. This was hardly an environment where truth and objectivity were likely to flourish.</p>
<p>So it is against this background that we must view what the correspondents wrote of those terrible first hours of the battle of the Somme. The below is from the Press Association and appeared in this instance in the Derby Daily Telegraph of July 1. This was a “Great British Offensive” and “Our Casualties Not Heavy”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128817/original/image-20160630-30661-1g7zkax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128817/original/image-20160630-30661-1g7zkax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128817/original/image-20160630-30661-1g7zkax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128817/original/image-20160630-30661-1g7zkax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128817/original/image-20160630-30661-1g7zkax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128817/original/image-20160630-30661-1g7zkax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128817/original/image-20160630-30661-1g7zkax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128817/original/image-20160630-30661-1g7zkax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How the first day of the Somme was reported.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the Manchester Guardian of July 3, the upbeat tone of the Press Association was replicated as it reported:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The first day of the offensive is therefore very satisfactory. The success is not a thunderbolt, as has happened earlier in similar operations, but it is important above all because it is rich in promises. It is no longer a question here of attempts to pierce as with a knife. It is rather a slow, continuous, and methodical push, sparing in lives, until the day when the enemy’s resistance, incessantly hammered at, will crumple up at some point. From today the first results of the new tactics permit one to await developments with confidence.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And perhaps the most famous dispatch of the whole war was sent by Herbert Russell of the Reuters Agency. His telegram on July 1 read as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Good progress into enemy territory. British troops were said to have fought most gallantly and we have taken many prisoners. So far the day is going well for Great Britain and France.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>No need for censorship</h2>
<p>There is no doubt that the British government, military and press barons saw the journalists simply as providers of propaganda. They were there to write stories of heroism and to aid recruitment – not to furnish the public with realistic accounts of the horrors of war. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128844/original/image-20160630-30625-76mlgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128844/original/image-20160630-30625-76mlgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128844/original/image-20160630-30625-76mlgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128844/original/image-20160630-30625-76mlgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128844/original/image-20160630-30625-76mlgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128844/original/image-20160630-30625-76mlgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128844/original/image-20160630-30625-76mlgq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1038&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">War reporter, William Beach Thomas, 1917.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Portrait Gallery</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And, once the war was over, some of the reporters expressed grave regrets about their own willingness to be manipulated. </p>
<p>The shame of <a href="http://spartacus-educational.com/Jbeach.htm">William Beach Thomas</a>, who wrote for the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror, is palpable in these words from his 1925 memoir, <a href="http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/27th-june-1925/28/a-traveller-in-news-by-sir-william-beach-thomas-ch">A Traveller in News</a>. He wrote of the war in general:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>A great part of the information supplied to us by British Army Intelligence was utterly wrong and misleading. The dispatches were largely untrue so far as they deal with concrete results. For myself, on the next day and yet more on the day after that, I was thoroughly and deeply ashamed of what I had written, for the very good reason that it was untrue. Almost all the official information was wrong. The vulgarity of enormous headlines and the enormity of one’s own name did not lessen the shame.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Phillip Gibbs, who wrote for the Daily Chronicle and Daily Telegraph and in 1915 was captured and imprisoned for attempting to unilaterally report the war, was more circumspect in his assessment. For him, his actions were for the greater good. In his own 1923 memoir, <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3317">Now It Can Be Told</a>, there is the implicit assertion that in times of national security there is something more important than telling the truth. Gibbs wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We identified ourselves absolutely with the armies in the field. We wiped out of our minds all thought of personal scoops and all temptation to write one word which would make the task of officers and men more difficult or dangerous. There was no need of censorship of our dispatches. We were our own censors.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As I wrote earlier, it is essential not to judge the reporters of World War I with 21st-century sensibilities. These were the days, don’t forget, when execution for treason was frequently the first port of call for a high command determined to rigidly maintain discipline. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128837/original/image-20160630-30642-xbkzt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128837/original/image-20160630-30642-xbkzt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128837/original/image-20160630-30642-xbkzt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128837/original/image-20160630-30642-xbkzt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128837/original/image-20160630-30642-xbkzt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128837/original/image-20160630-30642-xbkzt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/128837/original/image-20160630-30642-xbkzt5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An artist’s impression of the battle at Delville Wood, July 1916.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ed. H.W. Wilson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>History has been hard on the likes of Gibbs and Russell. These were men who suppressed news and belonged to the same narrow social class as the officers they were protecting. Phillip Knightley, author of the outstanding book on war reporting, <a href="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/vol20no1/pdf/v20i1a05p.pdf">The First Casualty</a>, writes that the reporters knew more than most of the true nature of warfare on the western front but they chose to write breezily of life in the trenches. They kept an inspired silence and became absorbed by an overwhelming propaganda machine.</p>
<p>It is of course impossible to know how things may have turned out if the reporters had broken ranks and attempted to convey the utter dreadfulness of war. In all likelihood their dispatches would have never left the frontlines. They simply faced too many obstacles in the form of a government determined to keep the truth from the public. </p>
<p>Or as the British prime minister <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jul/27/first-world-war-state-press-reporting">David Lloyd George famously said to the then editor of the Manchester Guardian, CP Scott</a>, in December 1917: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If the people really knew [the truth] the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don’t know and can’t know.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61863/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Jewell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There was no need to censor Allied war reporters – they were required by law to follow the official line.John Jewell, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/592782016-06-30T10:31:51Z2016-06-30T10:31:51ZA century after the Battle of the Somme, can we finally explain shell shock?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127824/original/image-20160622-7188-1tdiza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amid the chaos of a dressing station, a dazed soldier sits with a thousand-yard stare.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">UK government</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/battle-of-the-somme">Battle of the Somme</a> was one of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-battle-of-the-somme-marks-a-turning-point-of-world-war-i-60741">most bitterly contested and bloodiest battles</a> of World War I. The five-month attritional offensive saw more than a million casualties: on the first day of fighting alone the British Army suffered their largest loss to life of the war. </p>
<p>The battle was also the first to be fought largely by civilian volunteers rather than professional soldiers. These patriotic men became known as the <a href="http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-pals-battalions-of-the-first-world-war">“Pals” battalions</a>, a term coined by Lord Derby, many of whom saw their first major action on the first day of the Somme offensive. Consequently the units sustained major losses – some 19,000 men died <a href="http://www.cwgc.org/somme-history.aspx">on the first day alone</a>. </p>
<p>The events of the Somme had such an impact on those who survived that Britain saw a rising tide of psychiatric casualties and doctors began to consider psychological disorders as a branch of mainstream medicine for the first time.</p>
<p>During World War I, the overall level of psychiatric causalities mirrored that of physical casualties. The designated “signature injury” of the Great War was deemed to be “shell shock” by <a href="http://jmvh.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/A-Contribution-to-the-Study-of-Shellshock.pdf">Captain Charles Myers in 1915</a>. This blanket term was used to describe various manifestations that were affecting men at war, for example, fits, tremors and nightmares. Shell shock has a variety of causes and affected a range of those who witnessed the horrors of war: from determined regular soldiers who served on the frontline for extended periods of time, to individuals who just weren’t properly prepared for battle, having received minimal training before being thrown into the middle of it. Although not a medical term, shell shock should only be used when referring to World War I and the common man’s experience of it.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/S7Jll9_EiyA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Today many of the symptoms associated with shell shock would be considered <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5xt5AgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">medically unexplained</a>, however during 1915-1916 many soldiers were discharged from service because doctors just weren’t sure how to treat them. Such high discharge rates resulted in – particularly after the Somme – a crisis of manpower: the British Army was in desperate need to find a way to conserve their fighting strength. </p>
<p>The solution came in the form of <a href="http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/publications/assetfiles/historical/Jones2003-forwardpsychiatry.pdf">“forward psychiatry”</a> – later given the acronym “PIE”. First <a href="http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/publications/assetfiles/historical/jones2007-shellshockwwipie.pdf">employed by the French</a>, it was a method of treating reactions to combat stress with the aim of preventing long-term psychiatric illness. Casualty clearing stations were set up within close “proximity” (10-20 miles) of the front line allowing “immediacy” of treatment with the “expectancy” of a recovery. At the time it was claimed the PIE method saw 70% of soldiers return to the <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673600536769">front within two weeks</a>. However, research has since demonstrated that such outcome statistics were both <a href="http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/publications/assetfiles/historical/jones2007-shellshockwwipie.pdf">inaccurate and misleading</a>. Though the principles of forward psychiatry are still in place in current conflicts its heyday has now passed. </p>
<h2>A modern day shell shock?</h2>
<p>Though the casualty rates of more recent conflicts are relatively low compared to World War I, there seems to be an overlap between the symptoms associated with shell shock and <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/neu/6/4/371.pdf">mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI)</a>, the claimed <a href="http://www.simonwessely.com/Downloads/Publications/History/21.pdf">signature injury</a> of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. The similarities centre around exposure to blast force on the battlefield: 100 years ago soldiers were exposed to exploding artillery shells but more recent campaigns have seen soldiers exposed to improvised explosive devices (IEDs). </p>
<p>Asked to describe what it is like to endure such an explosion, Gary Joynson, who served in the British Army on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan said: “The shock waves pass through you so fast, and your whole body is left feeling like you have just belly flopped into a one inch paddling pool.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IWHbF5jGJY0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Brain effects</h2>
<p>Blast waves from IEDs expose the body to huge amounts of kinetic energy, propagating as a shock wave passing through the skull and essentially bruising the brain. <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474442216300576">Recent research</a> suggested that there may be a unique pattern of physical damage to the human brain after blast exposure. This distinctive scarring occurs in areas of the brain where tissues of different densities intersect. Researchers identified brain regions (for example, the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex) whose function had been altered due to blast exposure. </p>
<p>The brain regions identified to be affected by blast scarring are the same regions whose function, if disrupted, will result in the unexplained symptoms soldiers experienced during World War I as well as some of those currently ascribed <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/ptsd">to PTSD</a>. Considering this, we may now need to contemplate the possibility that not all PTSD symptoms are purely psychological – some may be the result of physical damage to the brain. These initial findings require further investigation, however, and should be interpreted with caution – though they do provide some insight into the possible underlying cause of the inexplicable manifestations presented by soldiers 100 years ago. </p>
<p>It is also still unclear at what level of blast pressure damage to the brain occurs. Though new technology developed to <a href="https://blastgauge.com">record the pressure and acceleration</a> experienced by soldiers could have the answer. A “black box” will undoubtedly inform current and further research in this field, and could guide efforts to reduce blast pressure exposure, as well as inform treatment interventions for those who continue to suffer from the invisible wounds sustained during conflict. </p>
<p>War is as it has always been, a dirty business. Living in austere conditions for extended periods of time is not uncommon and certainly not for the risk adverse. There is a stark difference between the pre-deployment training the “Pals” Battalions received, compared with our highly trained military force today, but preparing individuals for the emotionally challenging brutality of war is still difficult to achieve. However, 100 years after the Battle of the Somme, we may of finally solved the mystery behind some of the life altering psychological conditions experienced by those who fought for their country.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59278/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leanne K Simpson receives funding from the British Ministry of Defence via their Defence Science and Technology Laboratory via there Ph.D studentship scheme researching mental robustness in military personnel. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils or other publicly-funded bodies.</span></em></p>100 years after the Battle of the Somme, we are only now starting to unravel the mystery causes of shell shock.Dr Leanne K Simpson, PhD Candidate, School of Psychology | Institute for the Psychology of Elite Performance, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/607412016-06-29T11:16:39Z2016-06-29T11:16:39ZWhy the Battle of the Somme marks a turning point of World War I<p>The British offensive on the Somme began on July 1, 1916. After 20 weeks, they had advanced <a href="http://yalebooks.co.uk/display.asp?k=9780300220285">six miles</a>. The German line retreated, but was not broken. The horrifying casualties were shared equally between the two sides: 300,000 men died. Bloodier battles would come in 1918, but on the first day of the Somme the British Army suffered its greatest daily loss: 19,000 killed. </p>
<p>Coming at the mid-point of World War I, the Battle of the Somme is often taken to exemplify the stupidity of the war on the western front. But this terrible experience took place at a unique moment, defined by two facts. </p>
<p>On the one hand, Britain’s deployment of military manpower was nearly complete. On the other, the deployment of British firepower had barely begun. Firepower was produced by the economy, and it was this mobilisation of economies that would eventually decide the war.</p>
<p>To illustrate, Figure 1 below compares July 1916 (as the British offensive unfolded on the Somme) to February 1918 (before the German spring offensive of that year).</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/YEyGw/2/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="562"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://archive.org/details/statisticsofmili00grea">Over this period</a>, the number of British and Empire soldiers on the western front rose by 30% (from 1.4m to nearly 1.9m). Over the same period, the shell stock of the British army in France grew by an enormous 150% (from 6.5m to 16.5m shells), while the home stockpile grew more than ten times (from 1m to 11m). </p>
<p>After the Somme the British army was supplied with vastly more firepower than before. There was a revolution of variety as well as of quantity. And it was firepower, rather than manpower, that would decide the course of this war.</p>
<h2>Firepower</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126387/original/image-20160613-12948-1u4tukg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126387/original/image-20160613-12948-1u4tukg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/126387/original/image-20160613-12948-1u4tukg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126387/original/image-20160613-12948-1u4tukg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126387/original/image-20160613-12948-1u4tukg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=869&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126387/original/image-20160613-12948-1u4tukg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1092&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126387/original/image-20160613-12948-1u4tukg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1092&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/126387/original/image-20160613-12948-1u4tukg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1092&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: Bruce Bairnsfather, Fragments from France (The Knickerbocker Press, 1917). Courtesy of Major and Mrs Holt.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is because the military technologies of 1914 – earthworks, barbed wire, heavy machine guns, and artillery – embedded the defender. </p>
<p>Facing these, the attacking soldier had a rifle. He could fire standing up, making him an easy target, or lying down, meaning he could not move. He could get up and move only if supporting shellfire of heavy guns from behind would stop the enemy shooting back. But, if the shellfire did not destroy the enemy line completely, the attacking infantryman would be cut down in the second after the shelling stopped. This is what happened on the first day of the Somme. </p>
<p>For the infantryman to be able once again to fire and move at the same time required new kinds of armament: light automatic weapons, rifle grenades, trench mortars, and the supporting fire of tanks and aircraft. These were available in significant quantities only after the Somme.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9780511497339">statistics of British war production</a> bear this out (Figure 2 below). The Somme offensive divides the war into two equal halves. After the mid-point, the British economy supplied guns and rifles at twice to three times the rate before; for shells, it was more than five times, and for the volume of explosives more than six times. For newer types of weaponry, the figures are also striking. After the Somme, trench mortars were delivered at four times the rate before; for machine guns the ratio was nine times, for engines and aircraft and engines eight and nine times respectively, and for tanks 34 times.</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/pqpWc/2/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="543"></iframe>
<p>Notably, the British economy and its workforce supplied these tremendous increases at the same time as giving up young men to cover military losses and expand the army in the field.</p>
<h2>A question of money and time</h2>
<p>While the British economy grew, the German economy shrank. German war production increased, but less rapidly than in Britain, and least in the most innovative branches of war production: aviation and armour. Germany could not supply the war without incurring widespread shortage and hunger. And Germany’s economy was industrially the most developed of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Powers">the Central Powers alliance</a>. Germany’s poorer allies were even less able to mobilise their young men, factories, and food resources. </p>
<p>Britain was initially the leading industrial power among the Allies. Then in 1917 they lost Russia, a poor country with a failing state, and won the support of the world’s largest and richest industrial country, the United States. By 1918 the Central Powers faced a coalition that represented <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-regional-history/economics-world-war-i">two-thirds of the world’s prewar production and population</a>. Taking the war as a whole, the Central Powers supplied their armies with more guns and almost as many rifles as the Allies (as Figure 3 shows). But more significantly, in supplies of machine guns and aircraft they fell short of the Allies by a half, and their production of tanks was negligible.</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/rfUqF/1/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="533"></iframe>
<p>It was the mobilisation of the Allied economies that transformed Allied military power and enabled Allied soldiers to break the deadlock on the western front. But most products of the mobilisation reached the battlefield only after the Somme offensive had come to an end. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/24475/the-pity-of-war/">The Pity of War</a>, Niall Ferguson described the gradual mobilisation of the Allied economies as an “advantage squandered”. In <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-regional-history/economics-world-war-i">The Economics of World War I</a>, Stephen Broadberry and I responded: “Total war takes time.” The devastating losses of the Somme are explained by military mistakes and failures to learn, and by the time taken to mobilise production. <a href="http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarEcon/UK-Civil-WarEcon-2.html">This lesson was learned</a>: when the next war came, the British economy would be <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/twentieth-century-european-history/economics-world-war-ii-six-great-powers-international-comparison?format=PB">fully mobilised in two years, not four</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Harrison's research on the two World Wars was funded by CORDIS (the Community Research and Development Information Service) of the European Union and the Volkswagen Foundation.</span></em></p>After the Somme the British army was supplied with vastly more firepower than before. This would decide the course of this war.Mark Harrison, Professor of Economics, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.