Look, it’s just a bit of bloody tin! It doesn’t make you special. It doesn’t make any difference to anyone.

George MacKay as Lance Corporal William Schofield in 1917 (2019) dir. Sam Mendes

There is only one way this war ends. Last man standing.

1917 (2019) dir. Sam Mendes

There’s only one way this ends: last man standing.

1917 (2019), dir. Sam Mendes

Last man standing.

— 1917 (2019, dir. Sam Mendes)

The best Great War film I’ve seen go watch it !!!

Poets corner in Westminister.

 commemorate some of the First World War’s greatest poets.

Just months before his death in 1918, English poet Wilfred Owen famously wrote, “This book is not about heroes. English Poetry is not yet fit to speak of them. Nor is it about deeds, or lands, nor anything about glory, honour, might, majesty, dominion, or power, except War. Above all I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War.”

A Farewell To Arms

Lieutenant Percy Richard Oliver Trench. Unit: 1st Battalion, Royal West Surrey Regiment, attached Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Death: 15 January 1917 Mespotamia Missing in action.

Son of the Hon. William C. Trench, and the Hon. Mrs. William Trench, of Clonodfoy, Kilmallock, Co. Limerick. Details confirmed in CWGC

The Unknown Soldier

On November 7th, 1920, in strictest secrecy, four unidentified British bodies were exhumed from temporary battlefield cemeteries at Ypres, Arras, the Asine and the Somme. None of the soldiers who did the digging were told why. The bodies were taken by field ambulance to GHQ at St-Pol-Sur-Ter Noise. Once there, the bodies were draped with the union flag. Sentries were posted and Brigadier-General Wyatt and a Colonel Gell selected one body at random. The other three were reburied. A French Honour Guard was selected and stood by the coffin overnight of the chosen soldier overnight. On the morning of the 8th November, a specially designed coffin made of oak from the grounds of Hampton Court arrived and the Unknown Warrior was placed inside. On top was placed a crusaders sword and a shield on which was inscribed: “A British Warrior who fell in the GREAT WAR 1914-1918 for King and Country”. On the 9th of November, the Unknown Warrior was taken by horse-drawn carriage through Guards of Honour and the sound of tolling bells and bugle calls to the quayside. There, he was saluted by Marechal Foche and loaded onto HMS Vernon bound for Dover. The coffin stood on the deck covered in wreaths, surrounded by the French Honour Guard. Upon arrival at Dover, the Unknown Warrior was met with a nineteen gun salute - something that was normally only reserved for Field Marshals. A special train had been arranged and he was then conveyed to Victoria Station, London. He remained there overnight, and, on the morning of the 11th of November, he was finally taken to Westminster Abbey. The idea of the unknown warrior was thought of by a Padre called David Railton who had served on the front line during the Great War the union flag he had used as an altar cloth whilst at the front, was the one that had been draped over the coffin. It was his intention that all of the relatives of the 517,773 combatants whose bodies had not been identified could believe that the Unknown Warrior could very well be their lost husband, father, brother or son.

The Forgotten American Hero Of The Great War

Meet Alvin C. York, one of the most decorated American soldiers during the First World War. He received the Medal of Honor for one spectacular attack during the Battle of the Argonne. He was put in a group of 17 Americans soldiers who were ordered to infiltrate the German lines and take out one machine gun position. They were able to capture a number of German soldiers, but then small arms fire killed six and wounded three. Suddenly, York was the highest ranking remaining soldier.

He took command, and immediately ordered his men to guard the prisoners while he – by himself– went to attack that one machine gun position they had been ordered to take out. He attacked the German machine gun nest – again, by himself! – with just his rifle and his pistol. That’s right: he took a rifle to a machine gun fight. York ended up taking 35 machine guns, killing at least 25 enemy soldiers, and capturing 132 enemy soldiers.

York was lionized for decades, although he has largely been forgotten by newer generations. A 1941 film about him, Sergeant York, was that year’s highest-grossing film. And the man who played York, Gary Cooper, won the Academy Award for Best Actor that year.

— Patrick Shaw-Stewart, writing home from Gallipoli, 1915

Christopher Nevinson - Ypres after the First Bombardment   (oil on canvas, 1916

British officer making sure the right German POW gets his photo back.

From “They Shall Not Grow Old”.

At The Hydroplanes, HM Submarine, L7 by Francis Dodd, charcoal on paper, circa WWI.

WWI

trench barber