One hundred years ago,
the world was about to be devastated by a lengthy and bloody war. David Crookes
looks at the best online content commemorating The Great War his year marks the
100th anniversary of the start of World War One, a turbulent and bloody period
of history during which more than nine million people were killed. For four
years, from 28 July 1914 until 11 November 1918, battles raged, predominantly
in Europe, sparked by the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Franz
Ferdinand and fueled by a drive for territorial and
ideological expansion.
World War One is a huge
subject, but there’s a wealth of online content that can educate and enlighten
us about its causes and consequences. Whether you want to browse archive
documents, watch footage from the trenches or listen to podcast of historians
discussing the war, the web offers an extensive set of resources. In this
article, we highlight the sites most worth visiting.
View animated maps of
key moments in the war
If you find the
complexities of World War One difficult to get to grips with, the BBC’s
animated maps breaks down key events into more manageable chunks. The maps
offer readable explanations in clear English, accompanied by playable visuals
that help to explain, for example, the war on the Western Front and the Battle
of the Somme. With helpful arrows that show the movement of troops, the maps
bring the war to life while never forgetting the sacrifices made by those
involved.
Watch archive war films
at British Pathé
British Pathé was producing bi-weekly newsreels by
1910, so it was ideally placed to capture the horrors of the Great War four
years later. Hundreds of fascinating short films, from 1914 to 1918, are
available to watch on the British Pathé website, grouped into categories such
as Trench Warfare, ‘Scenes of Devastation’ and Gas Attacks. Most of the videos
are silent, but each one is accompanied by a thorough description and a series
of still photos. Some of the footage, such as a film featuring soldiers being
treated for shellshock, is fascinating and harrowing in equal measure.
Discover the stories of
combatants
Eight million people
from across Britain and the Commonwealth were involved in the war effort and
all had stories to tell. Lives of the First World War is a project from
the Imperial War Museum which aims to document those stories to create a permanent
digital memorial. The site has entries for every person recorded in official
documents, but it needs help in building up each profile. By registering with
the site, you'll be able to search for a relative or someone you know well, and
mark their life by looking through the official records and adding images,
external references and personal knowledge.
Explore archive records
from the war
The National Archives holds many thousands of records from 1914 to 1918. These include the service
records of Household Cavalry soldiers: letters and maps; and unit war diaries -
records of operations that were kept to prepare the official history of the war
and help the army improve in the future. More than 1.5 million pages have been
digitized and are being released in stages. Its a bulging online collection
that would take months to browse in its entirety, making it a must for
professional and amateur historians.
View photographs from
World War One
First World War.com hosts a wide range
of photo galleries, grouped into categories including Battlegrounds. Camp Life
& Training. Home Front, Machine Guns and refugees, which play as once
you open an image. The site also includespropaganda posters from around the
world. Incidentally, if you run a blog and would like royalty-free images of
World War One, you can select from hundreds at Getty Images for no cost.
Listen to podcasts about
the Great War
The BBCs brilliant WorldWar One podcasts tell the stories that changed the course of the war, while exploring the
influence of the conflict on music, art, literature and other cultural media.
The downloads last from three to 22 minutes and are between 6MB and 10MB in size.
Read World War One news
and analysis
Most news outlets are
marking the centenary by offering coverage of the historic conflict in their
own style. ITV’s First World War blog-like site presents short, frivolous stories
backed up with tweets and images. For more weighty coverage, The Guardian applies a 21st-century viewpoint to many of its
reports. while The Independent has summarized World War One in 100 vivid and
fascinating moments.
Read articles by leading
experts
More than 50 articles
about World War One have been collated on the British Library’s website. Among them is a debate on the
origins of the war by Dr Annika Mombauer, and a look at how soldiers coped psychologically with combat, by Dr Matthew Shaw. Articles are
grouped under themes ranging from Civilians and Propaganda to ‘The war
machine’, and ‘Race, empire and colonial troops’, and each has copyright
information that tells you whether you can reproduce the words and images on
your website. There are also 490 Collection items, including photos, posters
and drawings.
Explore the battlefields
of WWI
If you want to visit the
battlefields of World War One, view historically significant locations or
explore the scarred landscape of Flanders and north-eastern France, Great War provides maps, photos and lots of information. It’s a bit
disorganised, with links scattered all over the place, but you can view events,
church records, trench maps and the best guidebooks to buy.
To book guided tours of
battlefields, go to Visit Battlefields and Shearings. You can find out about events around the UK
commemorating the centenary at 1914.org.
Find out how WWI affected your area
The BBC’s superb World
War One At Home site lets you enter a town, county
or postcode to discover the war stories that affected your neighborhood. Areas
of interest are clearly marked and explained, with each linking to BBC articles
and a short explanatory video or audio documentary. The stories are a mix of
poignant and light-hearted tales - one happily describes that the only fatality
in one bombed village was a song thrush!
Watch TV war
documentaries
The History Channel’s website provides
a reliable historical resource, explain ing events in a clear and concise
manner. Its video documentaries explore subjects such as WWI Firsts, ‘Did WWI
lead to WWII?’ and ‘The US in World War One’. For longer TV and radio programs,
the BBC’s guide is a good place to start, and
you can catch many recent documentaries on iPlayer.
Educate yourself about
WWI for free
It may seem obvious but
you can do far worse than visit Wikipedia which is, on the whole, accurate and rich in
material about World War One, with many useful jumping points and references for further
reading.
Open Learn from the Open
University also offers an academic
in-depth look at the origins of the war.
