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| "England and Germany at War", Birmingham Gazette, 5 August 1914Source: British Newspaper Archive |
As this August 1914 front page (courtesy of the fascinating British Newspaper Archive's post on WWI Headlines) proclaims, Britain entered the First World War on 4 August, 1914. Earlier on the same day, Germany declared war on Belgium after the latter had attempted to remain a neutral territory. In consequence, Britain declared war on Germany late that evening. By this point, the two sides of the terrible conflict had been mustered: the Allies, which comprised Britain, France, and Russia; and the Central Powers, which included Germany and Austria-Hungary.
A massive crowd of Londoners cheered the news of the war that night. The next morning, we might assume, many of these ghosts of 1914 opened a newspaper to take in the momentous occasion. We can read the 5 August 1914 edition of The Daily Telegraph along with some of them, thanks to the The Telegraph's wonderful online WWI newspaper resource.
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| Photograph of the crowd outside Buckingham Palace, London after the declaration of war against Germany, 4 August 1914. © National Archives, UK. |
Civilian Britons reading of their nation's entry into war were met, perhaps strangely, with a distinctly non-wartime assortment of peppy advertisements for hair products, laxatives, and vacations to Spain. Such newsprint chatter vied for space with maps of the conflict and reports of the official declaration, though. Already, some panic over war's consequences for civilian life are apparent, as one article details "Civic Cowardice" in the form of "housewives" whose frenzied stocking up on food items was already creating high prices and low supplies (p. 10). Another article insists, however, that supplies of meat and grains are plentiful (p. 9). Poignantly, an eye-catching notice reminds young unmarried men that "Your King and Country Need You!".
Its insistence that "each day is fraught with the gravest possibilities" and its portrayal of the Empire as being "on the brink of the greatest war in the history of the world" are both chillingly accurate and already out-of-date. Clearly written before the awful certainty of this particular day's news, the Army notice reminds us that the gravest of possibilities for Britain in 1914 had come true.
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| The Daily Telegraph, 5 August 1914, (p. 9). © The Telegraph World War One Archive |
Its insistence that "each day is fraught with the gravest possibilities" and its portrayal of the Empire as being "on the brink of the greatest war in the history of the world" are both chillingly accurate and already out-of-date. Clearly written before the awful certainty of this particular day's news, the Army notice reminds us that the gravest of possibilities for Britain in 1914 had come true.
© Fiona Robinson
