Rather staged-looking, but poignant nonetheless, this photograph from the Imperial War Museum’s archive shows a soldier of the Sherwood Foresters (Notts and Derby Regiment) bidding farewell to his mother prior to returning to the Western Front.
The photo was one of a series that supposedly depicted one private’s 14-day leave.
he original caption read: ’God speed. A mother’s blessing.’
British Quakers are planning an online storytelling project entitled The White Feather Diaries to mark the Centenary of World War I.
The real-time story will be told online through the story of five Quakers. It will follow them as the war progresses and explore their daily thoughts and issues via a daily blog and Twitter feed.
The project will run over three years (2014-2016) up to the anniversary of the 1916 Military Service Act, which introduced conscription and recognised conscientious objection.
The stories will follow the individuals’ lives as they take the brave decision to oppose the war and refuse to join the armed services. The project’s creators hope it resonate with people today and make valid points about the futility of war and the difficulties of opposing it.
Jane Dawson, of Quakers in Britain, said: ‘We want people to understand choosing to be a pacifist is never easy in a culture of war. It is always a brave and difficult decision. Some people suffered, some were imprisoned and died there.’
The tribunals which heard the cases of conscientious objectors were not necessarily as fair as they could be, but Britain should be proud it gave people the chance to opt out, she added.
To find out more about the project, click here.
The Memorial Museum Passendaele 1917 opened in July 2013.
It focuses in particular of the 1917 Battle of Passendaele and is situated in the village of Zonnebeke.
On display are a wide variety of uniforms, weaponry, memorabilia, artworks and battlefield relics. Other focuses include the contributions of the many Commonwealth nations whose troops served here.
In addition, three walking trails are due to be constructed for the Centenary, including one leading to Tyne Cot cemetery and another towards Polygon Wood. The plan is to develop multimedia applications for smart phones that can be used to make these walks more informative.
The museum garden is also due to be developed further for the Centenary, together with reconstructions of several types of German and British trenches. The existing underground dug-out will also be extended to include five more rooms.
A further plan involves the building of a post war house to demonstrate the return to some sort of normality in 1919 and 1920.
Next to the museum, the Passendaele Memorial Park will shortly be constructed, devoted to the remembrance of the Great War. Individual gardens will represent the various nations who fought during the battle.
French commemorations of the Centenary of World War I will include the recreation of an airfield at Amiens Glissy, in the Somme region.
The aerodrome will be the site of a major airshow from 12-14 September 1914. The plan is that a number of World War I-era aircraft will take flight during the event. Among them will be a Fokker DR1 Triplane, a British SE5 and a Fokker Eindecker – the first plane with a machine gun synchronised to fire through its propeller.
The Somme area of France saw considerable aviation activity during World War I. The beaches near Le Crotoy were used for training, while the Escadrille No3 Guynemer was based at Cachy and Manfred von Richtofen (the Red Baron) took off for his last flight from the airfield at Cappy.
For more information, click here.
A collection of World War I-era prints will be exhibited at the National Museum Cardiff as part of commemorations of the Centenary.
The artworks were commissioned by the Ministry of Information (MOI) in 1917 to help prevent support for the conflict flagging.
The exhibition, entitled The Great War: Britain’s Efforts and Ideals, will open on 2 August, 2014.
Professor Sir Deian Hopkin, president of the National Library of Wales and adviser to the first minister on World War I, told BBC Radio Wales: ‘The Centenary of World War I is one of the most important commemorations of our time because so many changes were wrought in Britain and in Europe in those four years of conflict and the consequences need to be properly understood.
‘The eye-witness memory is fading rapidly, but The Imperial War Museum‘s First World War Centenary Partnership can, through identifying a rich variety of historical sources; ensure that the experience of war, military, civilian, political, economic and social, can be related to a new audience through digitisation and other means.
‘The National Library of Wales’ own extensive work in this field will be greatly enriched by the collaboration with other members of the partnership.
‘This is only part of a much wider range of activities, involving restoration of war memorials, schools being given money – in Wales in particular to research what happened in their own community.’
He added that the National Library of Wales was running a digital programme to make the material available online for free.
The UK’s First World War Centenary Partnership, led by Imperial War Museums (IWM), will mark the Centenary of World War I by leading four-year cultural programme that includes over 500 new exhibitions and 1,500 events.
James Berresford, VisitEngland’s chief executive said: ‘A time for reflection and commemoration, the anniversary of World War I is something that will resonate across the country in 2014, shown by the outstanding level of activity across England.
‘These experiences, from new exhibitions in our leading museums and galleries to specially commissioned pieces of theatre and performance, will allow visitors and communities to mark the centenary in a way that is meaningful to them.
‘The programme being put together by Imperial War Museums and the First World War Centenary Partnership is a fitting tribute to such an important moment in history.’
A Day of Remembrance
The day Britain entered the conflict will be marked on 4 August 2014 with a candle-lit vigil at Westminster Abbey (www.westminster-abbey.org). During the evening of silence, prayers, readings and music, the congregation will see the light of candles disappear one by one until a final remaining candle is extinguished at 11pm.
For more information, visit www.1914.org.
Imperial War Museum, London
In July 2014, IWM London (www.iwm.org.uk) will open its new World War I galleries. These will comprise a newly configured atrium showcasing the collections’ larger objects.
Weapons and uniforms, diaries, letters and souvenirs will be exhibited alongside photographs, art and film – much of which has never been seen before.
The museum will also present Truth and Memory, the largest and first major retrospective of British World War I art for almost 100 years. This major exhibition, featuring over 110 paintings, sculptures and drawings from IWM’s collections, will assess the impact and legacy of Britain’s World War I art.
IWM North: From Street to Trench: A War That Shaped a Region
This exhibition in Manchester, from 5 April 2014 until 2015, will explore the North West of England during the World War I (www.iwm.org.uk).
The exhibition illustrates how the region was shaped by the conflict and how its people were caught up in hostilities.
IWM Duxford
The Cambridgeshire site will focus on the hangars and buildings that date back to the latter stages of the World War I. Visitors will be able to discover aspects of land warfare and mechanisation in the museum’s Land Warfare exhibition as well as World War I aircraft in its AirSpace exhibition.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission staff are working to prepare the Menin Gate in Ypres for the Centenary of World War I in 2014.
Since early spring, horticultural staff have carried out turf renovation in and around the site.
In addition, CWGC’s works department have refurbished 46 of the memorial’s panels, with another batch of 50 to be refurbished in the coming year.
The in-painting of names in the right-hand-side gallery began in May, followed by the opposite gallery in September.
The past few months have also seen the site cleaned and its railings re-bronzed. The paving in and around the steps – as well as that on the high-level joints and brick inserts – is the focus of current renovations.
Work is expected to be completed by the end of April of 2014.
On Monday 11 November, 62 British and Belgian schoolchildren will participate in a special ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres as part of the Flanders Fields Memorial Garden project.
The Flanders Fields Memorial Garden is being built alongside the Guards Chapel and the Guards Museum at the Wellington Barracks, near Buckingham Palace.
Soil for the London garden has been gathered by children from 62 schools in Flanders, who took earth from World War I battlefields and from 70 Commonwealth War Graves Commission (GWGC) cemeteries where guardsmen are buried.
Sandbags containing this soil are on display in the Ypres Cloth Hall until 10 November.
On 9 November, 62 British school children and their teachers or parents will take the Eurostar from London St Pancras to Brussels.
Two days later, a special Last Post Ceremony will be organised under the Menin Gate, in collaboration with Ypres City Council, the Last Post Association, and the Belgian and British armies.
HRH the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Laurent of Belgium will both be present as will the band of the Coldstream Guards and a gun crew from the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery.
At the end of November, the Belgian Navy will take the 70 sandbags to London on frigate F931 Louise-Marie. On 29 November, Tower Bridge will be opened with full honours and the Louise-Marie will dock alongside HMS Belfast.
On 30 November, the soil of Flanders Fields will be solemnly handed over to The Royal Navy and subsequently to the British Army who will transport it to Wellington Barracks.
Remains of World War I training trenches could be restored as part of the Yorkshire city of Sheffield’s commemorations of the Centenary of World War I.
The Sheffield Telegraph reports that the trenches were dug at Redmires, to the west of the city, and were used for the training of the ‘Sheffield Pals’ ¬– 12th battalion, York and Lancaster regiment.
The Pals lost more than 500 men at Serre on the first day of the battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916.
Colonel Geoffrey Norton, chairman of the trustees of the York and Lancaster Regimental Association, said: ‘An application was previously made for £80,000 for the project which was refused but a revised application is now being made.’
Activities in Sheffield during next year’s Centenary will include services at its cathedral to mark the anniversary of the start of the war and the battles of the Somme and Jutland.
Colonel Norton is also organising a trip for 100 people to the Somme Battlefield in 1916 to visit locations such as the Sheffield Memorial Park at Serre.
It is also hoped to involve schools in Serre and Bapaume, another town on the Somme, which were rebuilt with financial contributions from the people of Sheffield.
London’s National Portrait Gallery will mark the Centenary of World War I with a display of paintings, films and sculptures inspired by the conflict.
The exhibition, entitled The Great War in Portraits, will run from 27 February until 15 June 2014. It will feature portraits of famous figures such a Sir Winston Churchill and war poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon as well as numerous photographs of ordinary soldiers.
Major loans on display will include artworks by Expressionists Lovis Corinth and Max Beckmann and Ludwig Kirchner’s Selbstbildnis als Soldat – Self-portrait as a Soldier. Beckmann was greatly influenced by his war service as a medic, while Kirchner had a brief career as an artillery driver before being declared mentally ill and unfit for military service in 1915.
Other works will include Jacob Epstein’s The Rock Drill as well as portraits of the men who led the armies and a photograph of Gavrilo Princip, whose murder of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand triggered the conflict.
Exhibition curator Paul Moorhouse said: ‘The Great War in Portraits explores a complex range of human experience.
‘Evolving different roles, responsibilities and destinies, it illuminates the way war was represented through portraits of individuals – each caught up in events beyond reason or control.’
For more about the National Portrait Gallery, click here.
First World War Centenary, 1914-1918 