The Great War
1914 - 1918
Compiled by John Silby
November 2010
Rocky Hill War Memorial stands high above the city of Goulburn, New South Wales. It was built in 1925 tohonour the men and women from the area who served in the first world war. It gives great views over the townin every direction. When I visited in 1985 I was moved by a display of large photos of the aftermath of WorldWar 1 in Belgium and northern France.
The utter destruction depicted was breathtaking, and it had a profound effect on me. If ever there was evidenceof the futility of war, I thought, this was it. I’ve remembered those photos from time to time over the years,always with the same response. A few days ago I decided to search online to see if I could find similar images.What I found inspired this presentation. It’s not my intention to impose my convictions on anyone; I thinkthese photos tell a story that’s worth sharing.
The Great War was so named because it was thought it would be the war to end all wars. Sadly, that hasn’tbeen the case, and it seems mankind still hasn’t learned.
The war began at the end of July 1914, and continuedrelentlessly until November 11, 1918.
The conflict involved all of the world's great powersin two opposing alliances: the Allies (France and theBritish and Russian Empires) and the CentralPowers (the German, Austro-Hungarian andOttoman Empires, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria).
About 70 million military personnel were involvedand around nine million of those were killed. It isestimated that eight million civilians were killed.
INTRODUCTION
By the end of the war, Germany had been defeated.The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires hadbeen defeated and carved up into smaller states.
Russia had been defeated by German and Austrianforces, and the 1917 revolution and later civil war ledto the emergence of the Soviet Union - the world’sfirst communist state.
The League of Nations was formed in the hope ofpreventing another such conflict. However,European nationalism ignited by the war and thebreak-up of empires, together with the repercussionsof Germany's defeat led to the beginning of WorldWar II in 1939.
For troops of both sides, conditions on and off thebattlefield seem to have been horrendous, especiallyduring the winters. The relentless slog with littleprogress was surely frustrating and demoralising.For those who returned, the death and devastationthey witnessed must have had a lasting effect.
For the local people, the constant bombardmentmust have been nerve-wracking, and the destructionof their villages, homes and fields heart-breaking.
For everyone, the sudden silence as hostilities endedwould have sounded eerie. Perhaps it even seemedtoo good to be true.
When the troops went home, those who were leftbehind - who were already home - had to face theenormous task of rebuilding their lives andcommunities.
In France alone...
• 300,000 houses, 6,000 factories, 1,500 schools and1,200 churches were destroyed.
• over 20,000 km2 of farmland was laid waste and1.3 million livestock were lost.
• nearly 5,000 km2 of forest was laid waste.
The Allies demanded huge sums in reparations(Germany paid its last instalment in October 2010),
yet those payments covered only the obvious costs.There was also an inestimable hidden toll, and theeffects of that - veterans’ and survivors’ benefits, losthuman capital and productivity, lost breadwinners,and scarred lives, for example - continue today.
In a sense the war continues today, too. More than90 years on, burial sites are still coming to light.Authorities go to great lengths to identify the bodies,and where they are successful families can finally putto rest their missing loved ones. Freshly ploughedfields continue to turn up ammunition and otherartefacts. Trenches and craters can still be seen insome places.
For much of the war on the Western Front, troopswere bogged down in trenches. The enemy wassometimes only a few metres away. In October 1914the Front stretched for 750 km.
Artillery bombardment reduced villages to rubbleand left craters in roads and fields. Woods werepounded to splinters, leaving only bare, brokentrunks standing. In wet weather fields and trenchesbecame seas of mud, and roads turned to slush fromthe heavy traffic of men, horses and equipment.
THE PHOTOS
The majority of these photos are British andAustralian simply because they were easier to find.Ultimately it doesn’t matter who caused thedestruction… the end result was the same.
The captions are pretty much as I found them. Someare repetitious, and it’s easy to imagine thephotographer sighing, “Another day, another ruin.”
It seems the photographers’ instinct for a good shotsurvived, however, even in the midst of the mayhem.Some of the photos, in contrast to the “workaday”nature of most of the others, depict an awesome,harsh, raw kind of beauty.
In the trenches
The front line
British infantry wait in a support trench during preliminary bombardment
A British trench on the Western Front, 1916
Knife-rest barbed wire defences, Somme district, France
Deserted trenches outside the ruins of Montfaucon, France
A German pillbox, in surroundings typical of the Ypres salient, Belgium
Looking out from the entrance of a captured pillbox on to the shell-ravaged battlefield
A road on the battlefield, Westhoek region
Infantry marching ahead in a single line to the front, Westhoek region
British guns advancing through a wood
Battleground conditions on the Western Front
Behind the front line
Sniping enemy planes with a Lewis gun
Hoisting the large shell into the breech
After the battle: the German trench road near Loos, France
Destroyed German trenches at Passchendaele, Belgium
Destroyed German trenches at Poelcappelle, Belgium
German trenches churned by British shells
Destroyed German observation post, Mametz Wood, France
Carrying in the wounded during the height of the battle
A Western Front battlefield road from a British dressing station
British and French soldiers killed by German gas attack on Hill 60, near Zwarteleen, Belgium
Corpse-strewn battlefield near Cambrai, France
German dead on sunken road near Moislains, France
German dead covering a battlefield, Champagne region, France
Dead British stretcher bearers, Péronne, France
Dead Russian medic
British Soldiers clearing ruins and making a road, Contalmaison, France
Australian working party, Voormezeele, Belgium, August 1917
Entire cities and villages along the Western Front lie in heaps of ruins
British patrol moving through a ruined village
Bailleul, France, 1918
Damage at Verdun, France
Destroyed railway, Albert, France
The ruined railway station, Guillemont, France
The ruins of the High Street, Guillemont, France
Mine crater in the main street of La Basse, France
Ruins of the village of Farbus, France, captured by the Canadians
Ruins of Vaux, France
Ruins of Vraignes, France
Ruins of Ypres, Belgium
Ruins of the Cloth Hall, the cathedral and bishop's palace, Ypres, Belgium
Destruction at Dixmude, Belgium
Destruction in Fismes, France
French prime minister Georges Clemenceau (right) walking through the ruined streets of Noyon, France
Ruins of Louvain, Belgium
Ruins of Clermont, France
Ruins of Mametz, France
Ruins of Misery, France
Ruins of the Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall), Arras, France
Ruins at Longwy, France
View of the ruins of Thiepval, France
A view of Fricourt, France, showing the smashed up remains after the British bombardment
Battle-scarred sentinels
A road lined with shattered trees, France
Australian soldiers passing through Chateau Wood, near Hooge in the Ypres salient, Belgium, 1917
Limbers carrying up ammunition at sunset
Infantry moving forward to take over the front at evening
The dawn of Passchendaele
I knew a simple soldier boy...
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
And no one spoke of him again.
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
[Crumps: the noise made by shells falling in soft earth | Kindling: shining or enthusiastic]
Suicide in the Trenches by Siegfried Sassoon
The Great War
1914 - 1918
Some of the photos were taken by Australian photographer Capt Frank Hurley
The National Library of Australia has published his war diary online:
My diary, official War Photographer Commonwealth Military Forces,from 21 August 1917 to 31 August 1918Flanders - France - London - Malta - Palestine - Egypt - London
He writes in considerable detail about conditions on and off the battlefield and gives afascinating first-hand account of what it was like to be there. He describes life in thetrenches and dugouts, and the sights, sounds and feel of the conflict.
He talks about the “awfulness” of the battlefield, and his voice, through his writing,complements and reinforces the story told by the photos.
The State Library of NSW has an album of his wartime photos online:
[click on link to open site in your browser]
SPECIAL NOTE
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS