GWF contribution to Centenary

[tipperary]

My suggestion would be to publish 'today 100 years ago', beginning on 1 July 1914 and ending with the signing of the various peace treaties. It should cover world wide events and not just the Western Front. A team could be appointed to write the entries, with each member being allocated, say, one month of the war. All entries should be written in good time and be checked by a panel of 'experts' on the various theatres of war. We would then have something which would be a great value to those using the Forum for many years to come.

Charles M

Just reading through this thread and i do like Charles M's idea above i would be happy to help out in an idea of this nature.john

[keithmroberts]

Its a thought. The job is pretty much done already in the book "Chronology of the great War" which was published by greenhill books in 1988.I don't know if it has any blank days, but for each day it has the following headings: Western Front, Eastern front, Southern Front, Asiatic and Egyptian theatres, naval and overseas operations, Political &c.(originally published in three volumes by Constable in 1920.

Keith

[Alan Tucker]

There could be multiple threads of a day by day coverage of the Great War e.g. one devoted to People with members' contributions (not experts validating) and one to Operations Western Front, another to Gallipoli, another to naval etc. It could make quite an archive.

[Don]

It would be nice to have a badge, pin, made for members,costing a few Euros/ Pounds.

Proceeds to charity naturally enough

I’m sure there are plenty of people on the forum who could come up with designs.

[CGM]

Would it be possible to have a 'Reported Today' section where people can place snippets from local papers on how the Great War was being reported? Particularly the more everyday news items as well as how local papers were viewing international events? GWF members in all countries can take part if they live near a library which has local newspapers for that time.

I would like to bump this idea up - it appealed to me.

[MichaelBully]

Yes I have gained so much from reading local newspapers - and found subjects that I had not found covered in the main history books and introduced them to the GWF.

Thank you for bumping this up.

Regards, Michael Bully

I would like to bump this idea up - it appealed to me.

[Bernard_Lewis]

I actually started looking at the local (Swansea) press coverage for July 1914 onwards. I was thinking of 'offering' the local paper (in 2014) a weekly write up of local flavour stuff from the press of the time. Maybe 500 words a week?

It was harder than I expected and I've put it on hold for now.

My experience was that recording that Joe Bloggs had signed up in Swansea or been killed/wounded got a bit repetitive while the coverage of the bigger picture by the newspaper seemed hopelessly optimistic. I wouldn't claim to have a good knowledge of actions on all fronts but reports of massive German defeats in the east and the evacuation of a major Belgian city being portrayed as part of a careful plan were way wide of the reality of the situation. Using standard history books removes the local flavour.

I may return to it but might need a rethink. I didn't want to just summarise my book (copyright of which returns to me in late 2014).

Bernard

[MichaelBully]

I think that we should try to highlight reports in local newspapers that feature subjects that have been neglected.

For example about the Brighton Round Ups.

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=162212&hl

Regards,

Michael Bully

[Alan Tucker]

I have completed research on Birmingham from Sarejevo to September 30 1914 using every local newspaper. The major themes include...

Sarejevo and reaction to developing crisis

TF camp and return and mobilisation

Call up of regular reserves

Recruiting

Formation of Birmingham Pals

Stories of escape from the continent

Food supply worries/impact on business

Anti-war activity

Alien registration/the 'Brummie Germans'

First death

First wounded arrive

Mobilisation of TF Hospital (Bham Uni)

Belgian refugees arrive

etc etc

[MichaelBully]

That's excellent Alan, I rest my cases that local newspapers are a stimulating source of information. Would be particularly interested to know about the anti-war activity and the Food Supply worries/impact on business reported in Birmingham.

Local newspapers can also reflect how the geographical location can have significance. For example in Hove, recruiters made much of the fact that Hove was so physically near to the Western Front. Also being on the coast, lighting restrictions were enforced stringently.

Another region could have some different perspectives on the Great War.

Regards,

Michael Bully

[Alan Tucker]

Anti-war

Protest meetings in the Bull Ring August 2

Reporting on national views of socialists - MacDonald/Blatchford

Local socialists reaction

Sermons in churches

Bham Trades Council - split views

Food/business

30 July - financial panic. Bham stock exchange closed.

Fears about disruption of trade

Early panic buying of food leads to price increases/hoarding

Reassurances by those in authority

Reaction of grocers and butchers

Impact on the jewellery trade (job losses)

Bham busy producing munitions

Opportunity to capture German markets

[Mark Hone]

Alan-would your first Brummie death by any chance be my cousin Able Seaman Victor McKey of HMS 'Amphion' from Coventry Road, Yardley? Here he is. He is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial. His brother, Corporal Matthew McKey of the Birmingham Pals, was killed at Polderhoek Chateau in 1917.

[Alan Tucker]

Wow - yes joint honour - two Brummies on the Amphion.This is my entry in my Birmingham Great War Trail (184 sites to date). Fantastic photo. Have you got any more about him?

1252, Coventry Road, South Yardley. This was the family home of Able Seaman Victor James Mckey who was one of the first two Birmingham servicemen killed in the war in the same event. Their ship, HMS Amphion,a Royal Navy scout cruiser, struck a mine off the Thames estuary whilst heading for Harwich. Around 150 sailors were killed as the boat sank. Victor was 21 and is commemorated on the Plymouth Naval Memorial. The other man was Able Seaman William Nicholas, aged 29, who had lived at 6/53 Peel Street, Winson Green. His parents had moved to Bristol. He is commemorated on the same memorial.

[Mark Hone]

Unfortunately no. I do know that my two cousins used to visit Plymouth with their elderly mother (Victor and Matthew's sister) without realising that he was commemorated on the memorial! They only found out when I showed them the entry on the CWGC database. Matthew McKey is buried at Godewaerswelde Cemetery. I first visited the grave with my cousin Stan, his nephew, in 1989 and have done so on several subsequent occasions.

I must admit that I find Victor's photo particularly haunting. It's an amazing picture, almost three-dimensional. I have the original if you would like a higher definition copy.

[MichaelBully]

Hello Alan, thanks for all the information, particularly interested in the Protest meetings in the Bull Ring on August 2nd ? Which group(s) organised them ? Regards, Michael Bully

[Alan Tucker]

Mark - your messages are full as I tried to send a request for your kind offer of higher definition.

Michael - this was convened by 'Birmingham Industrial Unionists'. Chief speaker - George Cook - workers and country had nothing to gain from a war between Austria and Serbia. Wokers could still prevent our participation. The economic and industrial battle for better conditions was much more important 'than entering a war with their brothers on the Continent. If this country should go to war it was the workers who would suffer most'.

Councillor J.W Kneeshaw (later leading anti-conscriptionist on the Trades Council) - 'it was terrible to think that the present differences were to be settled by the murderous tactics of war'. The working classes were not in favour of war. 'The working classes would not gain anything as a result of war and they were more powerful than the Government, the press, the army and the navy'.

Mr Kesterton, Secretary of the Bham Trades and Labour Council, said Russia was the most tyrannous country in the world and it would be disastrous to increase her power.

A resolution was passed viewing with alarm the prospect of a European war and pledging the meeting to stand by the efforts of the international working class movement to prevent their respective Governments from engaging in war.The resolution also protested against any step by this country to support Russia.

(Bham Mail 3.8.14 and Birmingham Daily Post 3.8.14)

[bushfighter]

If we are going to do something - and I will do my bit - please can we escape from the parochialism that sometimes strangles discussions on GWF.

Can we be educational - explaining all the fronts where fighting took place, and all the different nationalities that took part?

Can we explain to the people in our nation (and in other European nations) whose origins are from countries that once were in colonial empires, that their forefathers played an often massive role in proudly fighting, mainly as volunteers, for the European powers?

Uncle Tom Cobley and all will be talking about names on war memorials, and rightly so, therefore can we aim higher than that and release the vast amount of specialised relevant information that Members possess?

Harry

[Norrette]

I like the idea of a day by day project. We trialled an hour by hour project on twitter for #Arras95 - although the jury's still out on this I think that it's quite difficult to amass that information in an organised way. Perhaps if people maintained their own blogs (which in their nature are day by day publications) and then links to the blogs can then be organised somewhere - by division, by expeditionary force etc as well as by day.

It will enable everyone to contribute, won't put the onus on a hard working few and will no doubt add some variety to the enterprise, - some personal, some war diaries, some visual, some maps etc. I think it's the variety that will draw in the public.

(The Candian projection was Vimy but put on during rembrance 2007 if I remember correctly)

[MichaelBully]

Very much appreciated Alan. Fascinating. I had heard elsewhere that campaigners opposed to Britiain taking part in the Great War desperately tried playing the Anti- Russian card as it were. Tsarist Russian being unpopular with both the political Left and Right. And the hope that working class people would be prepared to refuse to fight each other.

Thanks very much for the information.

Regards Michael Bully

Mark - your messages are full as I tried to send a request for your kind offer of higher definition.

Michael - this was convened by 'Birmingham Industrial Unionists'. Chief speaker - George Cook - workers and country had nothing to gain from a war between Austria and Serbia. Wokers could still prevent our participation. The economic and industrial battle for better conditions was much more important 'than entering a war with their brothers on the Continent. If this country should go to war it was the workers who would suffer most'.

Councillor J.W Kneeshaw (later leading anti-conscriptionist on the Trades Council) - 'it was terrible to think that the present differences were to be settled by the murderous tactics of war'. The working classes were not in favour of war. 'The working classes would not gain anything as a result of war and they were more powerful than the Government, the press, the army and the navy'.

Mr Kesterton, Secretary of the Bham Trades and Labour Council, said Russia was the most tyrannous country in the world and it would be disastrous to increase her power.

A resolution was passed viewing with alarm the prospect of a European war and pledging the meeting to stand by the efforts of the international working class movement to prevent their respective Governments from engaging in war.The resolution also protested against any step by this country to support Russia.

(Bham Mail 3.8.14 and Birmingham Daily Post 3.8.14)

[jansanderson]

I've been reading through all the ideas people have put forward to mark the centenary of the Great War and it seems we have loads of enthusiasm which needs to be given focus. Most posts seem to support the idea of a day to day "report". I think that is a sound workable idea if we could create teams of GWF people who are focused on different aspects from macro to micro, personal, local, national, international. I'm wondering if we couldn't, in fact, reflect the different viewpoints of the whole event which included all of those levels. Everyone had someone contributing to the War effort, every decision could affect any individual. So perhaps a calendar format with teams focusing on the areas that interest them most eg the technology of the project and then the content including eg newspaper reporting locally or nationally, significant diplomatic events, parliamentary debates and decisions, military events in the field, the donkey work of transportation, munitions, supply lines, protests and then also the personal. So maybe we pick a hundred or a thousand individuals whose service papers survive (whether they did or not) and on days which a detail was recorded we enter it on the calendar. I think to make it big enough to honour the vastness of the original and yet still manageable it has to be kept fairly simple but if we can create teams to deal with each particular subject area with members from across the World contributing entries from their locality or knowledge base in a predetermined format the work load will be shared and hopefully the impact will be broader. We can work ahead of time say deadlines of 6 or 4 months ahead of time so editors can spot gaps and fill them or contentious entries can be reconsidered etc. I did like Chris' idea of podcasts etc but maybe that is a format he could create a techy team to work on pulling on data from the core database as well as his own extensive knowledge, contacts and resources.

I understand concerns of cost and placement. I'm a technical cripple so perhaps someone with current information could come up with some costings so us innocents could have a solid base on which to make decisions about how sophisticated a "monster" we are willing or able to create and sustain. As regards placement I would prefer to see the project as a self contained unit. If we can fund and manage such a thing. At the risk of being sworn at extremely badly my other thought would be asking Chris if we could sublet a corner of Long Long Trail. The big issue there would be how the international factors would sit within that setting. It could be presented as a kind of living experience of all that wonderful factual information Chris has gathered. I make the suggestion because the site covers all aspects of the WW1 experience unlike so many others which focus on a single aspect. It could also be made quite clear that it is a separate but complimentary unit. Long, Long Trail is also so well respected. so accessible and afterall it was how I found the GWF. It is a suggestion no more.

Please do pick holes in my suggestions by all means, politely would be good. My main thought was to prompt a move to making a final decision, I am more than happy to support and contribute whatever it is. My fear is the opportunity to do something really good will have passed us by if we let another year drift by with more good ideas but no outcome.

Jan

[Seadog]

Can anyone let me know what exactly is so important about the 100th anniversary of the start of WW1,why not the 90th - 99th seems to me every year is a landmark with this conflict.

Norman

[MichaelBully]

Well we live in an age where there is great media excitement about anniversaries. I suppose that we are so use to considering the passing of time in the units of 100, that 2014 gains in significance.

GWF pals would be interested in the Great War regardless of what year it is. Just as 'pals will visit memorials and war graves throughout the year, not just on Remembrance Day or Remembrance Sunday.

It looks like the Centenary could see a rush of media generated interest. My view has been that we might as well try to have some input as its going to happen in any case.

I now realise that the Centenary has potential to stimulate the wider public and this could be quite constructive.

Regards, Michael Bully

Can anyone let me know what exactly is so important about the 100th anniversary of the start of WW1,why not the 90th - 99th seems to me every year is a landmark with this conflict.

Norman

[ph0ebus]

Well, clearly the idea of a modern day-by-day reporting of events of the Great War as they unfolded seemed appealing to Radio 4...

Radio 4 commissions longest one-off radio drama to commemorate World War I

I like their approach to it. Thoughts?

-Daniel

[MichaelBully]

Thanks for this Daniel. Yes certainly shows that there is an emphasis on the centenary and I will certainly listen to this drama, to give it a chance.

I think that the centenary makes me think what is my role as an individual GWF pal as it were. As well as pursuing my own Great War research interests and enjoy discussions with other pals,I am concerned with remembrance and memorials. For example, looking at memorials in churches and encouraging people who are not necessarily so enthusiastic about the Great War, to appreciate them. So the centenary will hopefully stimulate this work, along with the Radio 4 drama.

Regards, Michael

Well, clearly the idea of a modern day-by-day reporting of events of the Great War as they unfolded seemed appealing to Radio 4...

Radio 4 commissions longest one-off radio drama to commemorate World War I

I like their approach to it. Thoughts?

-Daniel

[RobertBr]

I lost touch with this thread due to a failed PC, buying a new one and recoverying my data onto a new OS Windows 7!

Has the idea of a GWF contribution died or has anything been decided?

Either way here is another idea. Have a look at https://twitter.com/realtimewwii where an Oxford Graduate is tweeting WWII day by day sometimes minute by minute. Not just major events but the also snippets from the home front and more.

Bob