Category Archives: First world war

‘Treasure trove’ of unseen letters sent by Charles de Gaulle up for auction

Posted on by

Lot includes ‘very unusual’ correspondence between celebrated general and American singer Josephine Baker

A stash of never-before-seen correspondence and artefacts belonging to the former French president Charles de Gaulle, including coded letters he wrote to his mother while he was a German prisoner in the first world war and messages from the American singer Josephine Baker, is to go on sale after its unexpected discovery earlier this year.

The correspondence is part of a “treasure trove” of documents and personal belongings belonging to de Gaulle, found in a safe in a bank vault, that will be auctioned in Paris next month.

Continue reading...

Lancashire memorial to first world war hero given Grade II-listed status

Posted on by

Stone memorial at church in Withnell tells story of Pte James Miller who was killed at Battle of Somme in 1916

A granite stone cross in the boundary wall of an otherwise ordinary English churchyard has been given listed status because of the “extraordinary” story it reveals of first world war heroism.

Most war memorials are dedicated to numbers of people, but the memorial at St Paul’s church in Withnell, Lancashire, is dedicated to just one.

Continue reading...

Book returned to Cumbria school library 113 years overdue

Posted on by

Poetry of Byron borrowed by schoolboy Leonard Ewbank, who studied at Oxford and was killed at Ypres in 1916

A book borrowed from a school library before the first world war has finally been returned – more than a century overdue.

A copy of Poetry of Byron was found by a man in Carmarthenshire, south Wales, who felt it should be returned to St Bees School, near Whitehaven, Cumbria, where it had been lent out to a schoolboy.

Continue reading...

US army overturns 1917 convictions of 110 Black soldiers charged with mutiny

Posted on by

Officials announced ceremony honoring the Buffalo Soldiers, 19 of whom were executed, to atone for Jim Crow-era racism

The US army is overturning the convictions of 110 Black soldiers – 19 of whom were executed – for a mutiny at a Houston military camp a century ago, an effort to atone for imposing harsh punishments linked to Jim Crow-era racism.

US army officials announced the historic reversal Monday during a ceremony posthumously honoring the regiment known as the Buffalo Soldiers, who had been sent to Houston in 1917, during the first world war, to guard a military training facility. Clashes arose between the regiment and white police officers and civilians and 19 people were killed.

Continue reading...

Wednesday briefing: Should a pro-Palestine march on Armistice Day be banned?

Posted on by

In today’s newsletter: The Metropolitan police has resisted calls to ban a march in support of a ceasefire in Gaza – but that may not be the end of the story

• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition

Good morning. Claims that a pro-Palestine march planned in London for Armistice Day this weekend poses a threat to the Cenotaph just won’t go away. Yesterday, the justice secretary, Alex Chalk, said that even those with no malicious intent risked supporting extremists at “an extremely important time in our calendar”, and called for the march to be postponed. “The police must stop any odious behaviour at the Cenotaph,” the Conservative MP James Sunderland said. “But far better for the government to ensure that no protest goes near it in the first place.”

Sunderland’s demand may be perplexing to the protesters: the march on Saturday is intended to run from Hyde Park to the US embassy, nowhere near the war memorial in Whitehall.

Israel-Hamas war | Israeli forces are “in the heart of Gaza City”, Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant said, as Palestinian families waving white flags streamed away from the capital on Tuesday. Meanwhile, after Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would take indefinite “security responsibility” for the territory, the White House said that it would oppose any reoccupation of Gaza. For the latest, head to the live blog.

Fossil fuels | The world’s fossil fuel producers are planning expansions that would blow the planet’s carbon budget twice over, a UN report has found. Petrostates’ plans would lead to 460% more coal production, 83% more gas, and 29% more oil in 2030 than would be possible under the internationally agreed 1.5C target, the report said.

Vaping | UK ministers are considering a new tax on vapes in a significant expansion of moves to create a “smoke-free generation” that also includes the gradual introduction of a total ban on smoking for children. The move to tax vapes was one of the few surprise measures in a king’s speech that appeared largely designed to create dividing lines with Labour. Read a summary of measures in the bill.

Covid inquiry | The government body set up to coordinate Covid policy had no warning about Rishi Sunak’s “eat out to help out” scheme and felt “blindsided” by the Treasury over it, the inquiry into the pandemic has been told.

Childcare | Poorer families are being “locked out” of expanded free nursery hours, experts have warned, as Guardian analysis reveals that the number of not-for-profit nurseries in England’s most-deprived areas has fallen sharply. Close to a third of not-for-profit nurseries closed their doors or were taken over by private companies, including private equity firms, in the poorest parts of the country from 2018-2022.

Continue reading...

Royal British Legion gives poppy plastic-free makeover

Posted on by

Remembrance poppy created from renewable sources introduced as 2023 appeal launched

More than a century after its introduction, the Royal British Legion poppy has had a plastic-free makeover in its first major redesign in a generation.

With the launch of the 2023 poppy appeal on Thursday details of the symbol of remembrance are unveiled, revealing a paper poppy created from renewable sources including half from offcuts from the production of takeaway coffee cups.

Continue reading...

‘We’d like the two periscopes’: the mission to save a piece of Australia’s first submarine

Posted on by

The AE1 was found 103 years after it sank in the first world war. Now a team hopes to salvage part of the disintegrating wreck to be preserved in a museum

The wreck of Australia’s first submarine is disintegrating, sparking a new mission to salvage a relic from it for the Australian War Memorial.

HMAS AE1 disappeared with 35 crew on board while on a mission near the Duke of York Islands in Papua New Guinea in September 1914, less than two months after the outbreak of the first world war.

Continue reading...

Lupin star shines light on riflemen from France’s former colonies in new film

Posted on by

Tirailleurs, featuring Lupin star Omar Sy, tells story of father and son during first world war

A new film featuring the Lupin star Omar Sy has highlighted the forgotten heroism of African riflemen from France’s former colonies who fought in the frontline trenches of the first world war.

Tirailleurs was released on Wednesday shortly after a row sparked by an interview the actor had given to Le Parisien in which he contrasted attitudes to conflicts in Europe and Africa.

Continue reading...

UK marks Armistice Day as Cleverly condemns Russia over Ukraine war

Posted on by

Remembrance services to be held across country as foreign secretary hits out at ‘Russian aggressor’

People across the UK will fall silent on Friday to mark Armistice Day – as the foreign secretary condemned Russia for bringing back war to Europe.

Poignant services will be held nationwide for the anniversary of the end of the first world war, and a two-minute silence will be observed at 11am to remember those who have died in military conflicts.

Continue reading...

Play about ‘great escape’ from German prison camp to be staged at Alexandra Palace

Posted on by

The story of the real-life escape from Stalag Luft III in 1944 is to be told at the London venue used as an internment camp for ‘enemy aliens’ during the first world war

The story behind the audacious 1944 escape from the Luftwaffe’s Stalag Luft III prison camp is to be retold in a new play at London’s Alexandra Palace, which was itself used as an internment camp for German, Austrian and Hungarian “enemy aliens” during the first world war.

Tom, Dick and Harry will recount the breakout of 76 allied airmen from the camp at Sagan in Germany (now Żagań in Poland) which inspired the 1963 film The Great Escape, featuring an all-star cast and a thrilling though fictitious motorbike exploit for Steve McQueen. The play is written by Theresa Heskins, Andrew Pollard and Michael Hugo with Heskins also directing.

Continue reading...

Plastic surgery: why chasing physical perfection always ends in tears

Posted on by

As former supermodel Linda Evangelista reveals her years of anguish after operations, history shows that nature usually wins

I’m actually rather sorry for Linda Evangelista. Everybody wants to feel acceptable, after all, and she exists in a world where, despite all the modern declarations of diversity and body positivity, when the woman hits the catwalk she still has to be slim.

In her 50s, and gobsmackingly pretty, Evangelista chose to get a treatment called cryolipolysis, where body fat is frozen till it dies, and you poop it out. It went wrong, and though she doesn’t look particularly unusual to me, she – much because of the world she’s always lived in – feels brutally disfigured.

Continue reading...

Can history teach us anything about the future of war – and peace?

Posted on by

A decade on from psychologist Steven Pinker’s declaration that violence is declining, historians show no sign of agreeing a truce

Ten years ago, the psychologist Steven Pinker published The Better Angels of Our Nature, in which he argued that violence in almost all its forms – including war – was declining. The book was ecstatically received in many quarters, but then came the backlash, which shows no signs of abating. In September, 17 historians published a riposte to Pinker, suitably entitled The Darker Angels of Our Nature, in which they attacked his “fake history” to “debunk the myth of non-violent modernity”. Some may see this as a storm in an intellectual teacup, but the central question – can we learn anything about the future of warfare from the ancient past? – remains an important one.

Pinker thought we could and he supported his claim of a long decline with data stretching thousands of years back into prehistory. But among his critics are those who say that warfare between modern nation states, which are only a few hundred years old, has nothing in common with conflict before that time, and therefore it’s too soon to say if the supposed “long peace” we’ve been enjoying since the end of the second world war is a blip or a sustained trend.

Continue reading...

Melting ice reveals first world war relics in Italian Alps

Posted on by

Accelerating retreat of glaciers in Lombardy and Trentino Alto-Aldige reveals preserved history of ‘White War’

The soldiers dug the wooden barracks into a cave on the top of Mount Scorluzzo, a 3,095-metre (10,154ft) peak overlooking the Stelvio pass. For the next three-and-a-half years, the cramped, humid space was home to about 20 men from the Austro-Hungarian army as they fought against Italian troops in what became known as the White War, a battle waged across treacherous and bitterly cold Alpine terrain during the first world war.

Fought mainly in the Alps of the Lombardy region of Italy and the Dolomites in Trentino Alto-Adige, the White War was a period of history frozen in time until the 1990s, when global warming started to reveal an assortment of perfectly preserved relics – weapons, sledges, letters, diaries and, as the retreat of glaciers hastened, the bodies of soldiers.

Continue reading...

Equal honours for officers and men | Letter

Posted on by

Trevor Lindley on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s commitment to equal treatment of all ranks in memorials

John Batey is wrong to say “The British army buries its dead in separate sections of ‘officers and men’” (Letters, 23 April). Early in the formation of the then Imperial War Graves Commission, Fabian Ware, founder of the commission, stated that “no distinction should be made between officers and men lying in the same cemeteries in the form or nature of the memorials”.

In January 1918, the commission said the “governing consideration” in its decision on the uniformity of military graves was that “those who have given their lives are members of one family … and that, in death, all, from General to Private, of whatever race or creed, should receive equal honour under a memorial which should be the common symbol of their comradeship and of the cause for which they died”.
Trevor Lindley
Weymouth, Dorset

Continue reading...

Racist treatment of black and Asian war dead is acknowledged at last | Letters

Posted on by

Readers respond to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s report into the unequal commemoration of soldiers in the first world war

It is gratifying that the Commonwealth War Graves Commission will finally apologise, after 100 years, for denying black African soldiers and labourers war graves for their service to the British empire in the first world war (UK inquiry blames ‘pervasive racism’ for unequal commemoration of troops, 21 April). Many people in Britain and Europe will have seen headstones in cemeteries to colonial servicemen from the British West Indies Regiment, the South African Native Labour Corps, the Chinese Labour Corps, and Indians, alongside others, and will wonder what the fuss is. These troops were considered Christian and given the privilege of a headstone by the commission.

But on the African continent, where there was fighting in east and west Africa, you will not see any native African soldiers from the King’s African Rifles, the West Africa Frontier Force and the Carrier Corps given a headstone, as they were considered “heathen” and “uncivilised”. There should be at least 200,000 war graves to these men. It is important that the commission creates new headstones so that the racist construct that the war was a “white man’s war”, where only white soldiers paid the ultimate price, can finally be laid to rest.
John Siblon
London

Continue reading...

Unremembered: the African first world war soldiers without a grave

Posted on by

How a 2019 documentary helped spark an inquiry into missing war graves of soldiers from the British empire

A crackly audio recording made in the 1980s is one of the few direct links left to the African soldiers and auxiliaries who served Britain in the first world war. It provides a chilling insight into their experience, which saw an estimated 50,000 Africans in labour units die from disease and other causes.

The recording contains the voice of a former porter who was working alongside the King’s African Rifles in east Africa. He described how his job was to carry boxes of bullets and as they walked, there were dead bodies lying on the road. Exhausted, he decided to rest but he was found by a superior, punished and beaten. He later escaped and lived to tell recount his experience.

Continue reading...

UK inquiry blames ‘pervasive racism’ for unequal commemoration of troops

Posted on by

Exclusive: Commonwealth War Graves Commission expected to apologise for commemorating British empire’s black and Asian first world war dead ‘unequally’

Hundreds of thousands of predominantly black and Asian service personnel who died fighting for the British Empire have not been formally commemorated in the same way as their white comrades because of decisions underpinned by “pervasive racism”, an investigation has concluded.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission is expected to issue a formal apology on Thursday after it discovered that at least 116,000 – but potentially up to 350,000 – predominantly African and Middle Eastern first world war casualties may not be commemorated by name, or at all.

Continue reading...

A Christmas pandemic like no other? They thought that in 1918

Posted on by

The post-first world war flu outbreak also came in waves and led to school closures and face-mask rows

This is not the first time that a pandemic has gripped the holiday season. In December 1918, preparations for the first Christmas without war in four years took place in the midst of the worst pandemic since the Black Death.

The 1918-19 influenza, like Covid-19, came in waves. The deadliest began in autumn, peaked in late November and continued through the first weeks of December. It struck hundreds of millions and killed tens of millions worldwide.

Continue reading...

WW1 trench fever identified in former homeless man in Canada

Posted on by

Discovery of wartime disease transmitted by lice prompts calls for more to be done for vulnerable

A disease transmitted by body lice that plagued soldiers during the first world war has been identified in a former homeless man in Canada, prompting calls for more to be done to improve conditions for vulnerable people.

Trench fever is caused by the bacterium Bartonella quintana and is spread by the faeces of body lice. The condition became rife among armies and is thought to have affected more than a million troops during the 1914-18 conflict.

Continue reading...

‘Colour allows us to understand in a deeper sense’: Hitler, Churchill and others in a new light

Posted on by

The story of global conflict is all the more powerful when it isn’t seen in black and white. Artist Marina Amaral explains her latest work

On a stretcher lies a patient; his ashen face protrudes from under a green blanket, eyes closed. Two uniformed women carry the stretcher, wearing face masks. It looks as if it’s a lovely day: the sun is shining, the shadows dark, the sky blue. But this is not a happy picture. Is the casualty even alive, or has he already been taken by the killer virus that has wrapped itself around our planet like a python, squeezing the life from it?

The photograph was taken at an ambulance station in Washington DC. Within the past couple of months? It could have been, if it weren’t for the uniforms (I don’t think today’s nurses wear lace-up leather boots) and the stretcher. In fact, it was taken more than a century ago, in 1918, during the Spanish flu epidemic, which killed so many millions. The photographer is unknown, forgotten. But the black and white picture was recently “colourised” by Marina Amaral.

Continue reading...