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…
Manfred von Richthofen earned widespread fame as a World War I ace fighter pilot. Originally a cavalryman, Richthofen transferred to the Air Service in 1915, becoming one of the first members of Jasta 2 in 1916. He quickly distinguished himself as a fig…
Mata Hari, the archetype of the seductive female spy, was a professional dancer and mistress who became a spy for France during World War I. Suspected of being a double agent, she was executed in 1917 under charges of espionage for Germany. She first ca…
The picture shows a German cavalryman patrolling behind the front lines while carrying a steel lance. German lances were hollow tubes made of rolled steel, with a length of 3.2 meters they were usually made in three sections fitted together. It weighed …
This 1917 field portrait depicts four soldiers wearing heavy fleece coats, steel helmets, and late model gas masks. The bitter 1917 winter was the coldest in living memory for soldiers on both sides of the front. Soldiers suffered from frostbite and exp…
World War I caused the death of millions of combatants and civilians, while countless soldiers suffered from injury and disfigurement. Perhaps the most disheartening were facial injuries, as soldiers had to not only deal with the physical loss, but also th…
The old and the new in one picture. You can really see the direction warfare was going; only they didn't know it yet. For the first few months in the war, the French Cuirassiers still wore breastplates and plumed helmets. Soldiers being stuck in the old wa…
A British splatter mask worn by a French tank gunner. It was designed to help protect the crewmember's face from shrapnel when looking through the view ports. The eye covers were metal, the mask was leather and there was a chainmail skirt to cover the m…
The Austro-Hungarian aircraft gunner in the picture is seen using a Mauser C96 pistol combination, probably just for demonstration. Each pistol held a clip of ten bullets and the device attached to them fired them in unison, giving the gunner the ability t…
The Russian Expeditionary Force was a World War I military force sent to France by the Russian Empire. In 1915 the French requested that Russian troops be sent to fight alongside their own army on the Western Front. Initially, they asked for 300,000 men, a…
This interesting picture, taken in 1919, shows employees of the New York Central Railroad at a celebration in Victory Way, showing off a pyramid of recovered German helmets in front of Grand Central Terminal. There were over 12,000 German Pickelhaubes on t…
Hidden for 100 years, the astonishing photos by a 16-year-old soldier show how his brothers-in-arms would forever be haunted by the specter of defeat. These photos were taken by Walter Kleinfeldt who joined a German gun crew in 1915 and fought at the Somme…
A lone soldier surrounded by a mountain of empty shell cases, France. This lone British soldier up to his knees in spent shell cases offers a striking impression of the destruction that took place on the Western Front. However, this picture only tells h…
An American corporal aims a Colt M1895 atop a Sri Lankan elephant. The reason why the corporal is atop the elephant is a mystery but elephants were never a weapons platform adopted by the US Army. It’s probably a publicity picture, not something the arm…
A shell shocked soldier in a trench during the Battle of Flers-Courcelette during the Somme Offensive in September 1916. His eyes express the madness of the war. The soldier looks like he has gone insane from what he has seen. At that moment in time eve…
Tens of thousands of soldiers, reservists, and other members of the military were arranged to form massive compositions. Although if viewed from the ground or from directly above, these masses of men would appear meaningless, when seen from the top of a…
In both World Wars, the most distinctive feature of the German army uniform was the item that has come to symbolize German militarism in even the remotest corners of the world – the helmet, the Stahlhelm. Here, on a table set up outside a steel helmet f…