A great deal of poetry was written about the Great War, much of it by soldiers in the trenches. Two period books of World War I poetry and poets are
The Muse in Arms and
For remembrance, available in a variety of formats at archive.org. There is also
The First World War Digital Poetry Archive which mostly has things from the most well-known authors, but many of these are available as scans of the original documents. (The interface is a little iffy on the DPA; click on a person, then use the search for "any poem" to get a full listing of what's available)
posted by curious nu
on Mar 22, 2012 -
9 comments
Voices and Music of World War I and
Voices of World War II: Experiences From the Front and at Home both feature spoken word, sheet music and songs galore (all audio RealPlayer). The Great War site has plenty of stuff, but the core is the collection of songs,
anti-war,
patriotic,
France-themed,
Kaiser-knocking and so forth. The WWII site also has a whole bunch of music, demonstrating the changing mood of the US, from
conflicted feelings about the start of the war to
conflicted feelings about the atomic bomb. Among the artists are Nat King Cole, Leadbelly, Benny Goodman and Fats Waller. But in addition the wonderful songs there are newscasts, speeches, propaganda and other radio broadcasting of all kinds.
posted by Kattullus
on Oct 17, 2008 -
10 comments
Gallipoli is one of the most famous battles of World War I. Fought in on a Turkish peninsula in 1915 it was, like most Great War battles, a huge waste of life and largely fruitless. Jul Snelder's site has a wealth of information,
the causes, history and aftermath of Gallipoli,
the slang of the ANZAC forces,
placenames in both English and Turkish,
interesting little factoids,
how Allied troops used subterfuge to hide their evacuation,
the Turkish perspective,
pictures of the battlesite today juxtaposed with old photographs,
a mini-travel guide to Gallipoli and much more. One of the most famous units at Gallipoli was the Australian
12th Light Horse Regiment. To learn more about this type of unit, responsible for the "
last successful great cavalry charge" two years after Gallipoli, I direct you to the excellent website of the
Australian Light Horse Association, where you can learn anything you might reasonably want to know about the subject.
posted by Kattullus
on Sep 15, 2008 -
82 comments
My Boy Jack. A heart wrenching story: "For Rudyard Kipling, the most famous author of the age, the carnage at Loos on the Western Front in September 1915 plunged him into inner darkness. His only son, John, for whom he had written his best-loved poem,
If, had been killed in the action just six weeks after his 18th birthday." [more inside]
posted by marxchivist
on Aug 30, 2006 -
18 comments
The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 may have brought an end to the Great War, but the ending was merely the beginning of the aftermath.
The aftermath years were a time of paradox, where the men who returned from the horrors of the trenches wanted to forget, and where those who had stayed behind, and had lost husbands and brothers, and sons and fathers were equally determined never to forget. It was a time where remembrance of the dead became a way of life, and where it was somehow assumed that all the best, and the finest young men of a generation had died. The other side of that assumption was that those who had survived were somehow less than those who had died. . . The exploration of that time, that world, is the theme of these pages.
posted by ewagoner
on Nov 11, 2003 -
11 comments
