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 to honour the men and women from the area who served in the first world war. It gives great views over the town in every direction. When I visited in 1985 I was moved by a display of large photos of the aftermath of World War 1 in Belgium and northern France.

The utter destruction depicted was breathtaking, and it had a profound effect on me. If ever there was evidence of 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 think these 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’t been the case, and it seems mankind still hasn’t learned.

The war began at the end of July 1914, and continued relentlessly until November 11, 1918.

The conflict involved all of the world's great powers in two opposing alliances: the Allies (France and the British and Russian Empires) and the Central Powers (the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria).

About 70 million military personnel were involved and around nine million of those were killed. It is estimated that eight million civilians were killed.

INTRODUCTION

By the end of the war, Germany had been defeated. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires had been defeated and carved up into smaller states.

Russia had been defeated by German and Austrian forces, and the 1917 revolution and later civil war led to the emergence of the Soviet Union - the world’s first communist state.

The League of Nations was formed in the hope of preventing another such conflict. However, European nationalism ignited by the war and the break-up of empires, together with the repercussions of Germany's defeat led to the beginning of World War II in 1939.

For troops of both sides, conditions on and off the battlefield seem to have been horrendous, especially during the winters. The relentless slog with little progress was surely frustrating and demoralising. For those who returned, the death and devastation they witnessed must have had a lasting effect.

For the local people, the constant bombardment must have been nerve-wracking, and the destruction of their villages, homes and fields heart-breaking.

For everyone, the sudden silence as hostilities ended would have sounded eerie. Perhaps it even seemed too good to be true.

When the troops went home, those who were left behind - who were already home - had to face the enormous task of rebuilding their lives and communities.

In France alone...• 300,000 houses, 6,000 factories, 1,500 schools and 1,200 churches were destroyed.• over 20,000 km2 of farmland was laid waste and 1.3 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 the effects of that - veterans’ and survivors’ benefits, lost production, lost breadwinners, and scarred lives, for example - continue today. In some places a whole generation of young men was wiped out.

In a sense the war continues today, too. More than 90 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 put to rest their missing loved ones. Freshly ploughed fields continue to turn up ammunition and other artefacts. Trenches and craters can still be seen.

For much of the war on the Western Front, troops were bogged down in trenches. The enemy was sometimes only a few metres away. In October 1914 the Front stretched for 750 km.

Artillery bombardment reduced villages to rubble and left craters in roads and fields. Woods were pounded to splinters, leaving only bare, broken trunks standing. In wet weather fields and trenches became seas of mud, and roads turned to slush from the heavy traffic of men, horses and equipment.

THE PHOTOS

The majority of these photos are British and Australian simply because they were easier to find. Ultimately it doesn’t matter who caused the destruction… the end result was the same.

The captions are pretty much as I found them. Some are repetitious, and it’s easy to imagine the photographer sighing, “Another day, another ruin.”

It seems the photographers’ instinct for a good shot survived, 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 eyeWho cheer when soldier lads march by,Sneak home and pray you’ll never knowThe 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 a fascinating first-hand account of what it was like to be there. He describes life in the

trenches 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:

An Exhibition of war photographs taken by Capt. F. Hurley, August 1917-August 1918

[click on link to open site in your browser]

SPECIAL NOTE

Rocky Hill War Memorial and Museum

First World War

Triple Entente

Central Powers

Map of European Alliances 1914

Soviet Union

First World War French property losses

First World War casualties

The Great War in Numbers

Germany Closes Book on World War I With Final Reparations Payment

Photos of The Great War: Death and Destruction

World War One Photo Archive

The Heritage of the Great War (includes a gallery of German photos)

Suicide in the Trenches

[click on link to open site in your browser]

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS