The Hellfighters, the infantry regiment of the New York Army National Guard, was the most celebrated African American regiment in World War I. The regiment was nicknamed the Black Rattlers. The nickname Men of Bronze (French: Hommes de Bronze) was given to…
Throughout world history, camouflage has been used to prevent an enemy from noticing a hidden object. A tank can camouflage itself among trees and the surrounding terrain, a submarine can lurk beneath the waves and it’s by default hidden, but what about ca…
Frank Hurley was an Australian photographer who became the Australian Imperial Forces’ second official war photographer. When he arrived at the Western Front his rank was honorary captain, but the troops, seeing how he took risks to get his pictures, dubbe…
These color photos document life in the French army during World War One, and the destruction of towns and villages caused by German shelling. The pictures were taken by Paul Castelnau and Fernand Cuville using the photochrom technique and brought home the…
According to news reports of the time, Simon Perris (also known as Ali Mahmud) was born in either Congo or Senegal and came to Hungary when he was a little boy. Originally he was a servant for a Turkish man who lived in Budapest. After his master's deat…
The so-called “Liberty Day” was a holiday invented by the federal government to finance the massive effort of entering World War I. One-third of the war’s funding would come from the imposition of progressive new taxes, while two-thirds would come from sel…
By the first week of September 1914, the Germans had come within thirty kilometers of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris. The French and British armies were engaged in fierce fighting with the Germans in the First Battle of the Marne which repelled the G…
Observation was an incredibly important role for aerial warfare in World War I. All major combatants used observation balloons to observe their enemies’ trench lines and troop movements. These hovering mammoths were used for directing artillery, which r…
These incredible color photographs of the German battlefront during the First World War, 1914-1918, were taken by Hans Hildenbrand. Although color photography has existed since at least 1879, it didn't become popular until many decades later. The overwhelm…
The first flamethrower, in the modern sense, is usually credited to Richard Fiedler. He submitted evaluation models of his Flammenwerfer to the German Army in 1901. The most significant model submitted was a portable device, consisting of a vertical sin…
The outbreak of war in 1914 left many Belgians homeless and penniless. Germany invaded Belgium on its way to France, sending hundreds of thousands of Belgian refugees fleeing for their lives. The number of people who fled the country from 1914-18 was ap…
Once the United States abandoned neutrality and declared war on Germany in April 1917, thousands of German commercial sailors were unlucky enough to be docked at American ports, including the crew of the world’s largest passenger ship, the SS Vaterland, wh…
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany in the First World War, then known as “the Great War.” Though the Treaty of Versailles, sig…
During World War One, large numbers of women were recruited into jobs vacated by men who had gone to fight in the war. New jobs were also created as part of the war effort, for example in munitions factories. The high demand for weapons resulted in the mun…
Late during the summer of 1914, train stations all over Europe echoed with the sound of leather boots and the clattering of weapons as millions of enthusiastic young soldiers mobilized for the most glorious conflict since the Napoleonic Wars. In the eye…
Isolation was a long American tradition. Since the days of George Washington, Americans struggled to remain protected by the mighty oceans on its border. When European conflicts erupted, as they frequently did, many in the United States claimed exceptionalism.…
In the years leading up to the First World War Britain and Germany engaged in a naval arms race. Britain had peaceably enjoyed its status as the world’s dominant naval force since the Napoleonic Wars but Germany now sought to contest that dominance. A n…
While the First World War witnessed the development of modern, technological warfare, it also made unprecedented demands on what we might see as archaic methods of campaigning. Despite the tanks, planes, and machine guns, fighting still depended on the …
Aerial warfare was by no means a First World War invention. Balloons had already been used for observation and propaganda distribution during the Napoleonic wars and the Franco-Prussian conflict of 1870-1871. Planes had been used for bombardment mission…
The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme Offensive, was one of the largest battles of the First World War. It was fought by the armies of the British and French empires against the German Empire and it took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916…