1 August 1914/2014

From The Telegraph: "First World War Centenary: how events unfolded on August 1 1914"
Image © The Telegraph

One hundred years ago today: Germany declares war on Russia, 1 August 1914--a date recognized as the official start of the First World War.

And so it began to begin...

As one who hangs down-bending from the side
Of a slow-moving boat, upon the breast
Of a still water, solacing himself
With such discoveries as his eye can make
Beneath him in the bottom of the deep,
Sees many beauteous sights--weeds, fishes, flowers,
Grots, pebbles, roots of trees, and fancies more,
Yet often is perplexed, and cannot part
The shadow from the substance, rocks and sky,
Mountains and clouds, reflected in the depth
Of the clear flood, from things which there abide
In their true dwelling; now is crossed by gleam
Of his own image, by a sunbeam now,
And wavering motions sent he knows not whence,
Impediments that make his task more sweet;
Such pleasant office have we long pursued
Incumbent o'er the surface of past time
With like success, nor often have appeared
Shapes fairer or less doubtfully discerned
Than these to which the Tale, indulgent Friend!
Would now direct thy notice.

 --William Wordsworth, The Prelude, Book 4, ll. 256-76

                  

Hello Readers,

It's somewhat strange, waiting with bated breath for the steady gears of history to make their circuit towards the date when we can look back exactly one hundred years to the start of the Great War. It's as though we anticipate some kind of perspicuity that, like gazing down into a glass-clear lake, is only possible when the present aligns with the past just so. Like Wordsworth's boy looking down into the "still water" and confused by the reflections therein of sky and earth and of "his own image", though, perhaps we may find (and perhaps we already know) that shadow and substance cannot be so easily separated. Though the great span of time that a centennial marks might suggest a certain poignant stillness, calming the past into clarity and granting us objective distance, our own image may surprise us in those depths. What might we learn about ourselves and our world by looking  for and listening to those ghosts of 1914? As we have for some time now on this blog, we shall continue ask to this very question. We will continue to chase shadow and substance in the (deceptively) glassy deep of hundred-year-old history.

As we near and enter the official centenary, it is my aim to direct the blog towards following events of the war's unfolding over the years 1914-1918. 

To that end, I present a small collection of articles about the events of exactly one hundred years ago, when Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia:

• History Channel: This Day in History: Austria-Hungary Declares War on Serbia

• The Telegraph: "WWI: 7 Days to Go"

• Mental Floss: WWI Centennial: Austria-Hungary Declares War on Serbia

• New York Times Learning Network: On this Day...(Reprint of 1914 article: "Austria Formally Declares War on Servia..."

And a last-but-not-least suggestion: hstry.org's fascinating "Back to the Mud" blog series on one man's adventure through family WWI history.


Till next time,
Fiona


© Fiona Robinson

The first Ghosts of 1914...

Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie leave Sarajevo City Hall on June 28, 1914.
© JU Muzej Sarajevo/Washington Post/Reuters

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, on June 28 1914, in Sarajevo. This was the day, a century ago, when the world began hurtling towards the Great War. Though the conflict would not begin officially until August, we might say that the Archduke and his wife, Sophie, were the first Ghosts of 1914.

As I mentioned in my earlier post, hstry.org has held a fantastic Twitter reenactment of the assassination today, related from the perspective of a journalist who was there at the time. You can review their posts from today here:

HstryOrg on Twitter

The Archduke and Sophie shortly before the assassination, June 28, 1914
© IWM (Q 79761)

There are many other resources for those seeking more about what happened on this dreaded day, one hundred years ago. A selected few, for those new to this history and for seasoned sleuths:

• Washington Post blog post on the assassination
• Wikipedia on the assassination and on the Archduke
• Margaret Woolmans: The Assasination of the Archduke

There is also news of the centenary observations, some of which have provoked serious controversy due to the persistent instability that WWI brought to Eastern Europe.

• Huffington Post: Franz Ferdinand Centenary
• The Guardian: Serbian Leaders Boycott Franz Ferdinand Commemoration

And for those of us who wonder what might have been, had this day's ancestor (June 28, 1914) been no more remarkable to us today than any other, several writers have written or explored alternate histories. These are just a few:

• The Telegraph: What if Archduke Franz Ferdinand had Lived?
• Richard Lebow: The Archduke Lives!
• NY Times: If Franz Ferdinand Had Lived

1911 Gräf & Stift open car in which Archduke Ferdinand was killed.
Military History Museum in Vienna, Austria.

There is something so compelling about asking what our world would be like if, at the conclusion of that day in Sarajevo, the car bearing the Archduke and his party had simply returned to the train station in Sarajevo and nothing more of deep significance had been recorded. We'd like to think that the millions of Great War casualties would never have happened, that so many lives cut short or  harmed by the four years of strife and its aftermath could have remained untouched, undisturbed, and that a gentler course of history might have run peacefully through the first decades of the twentieth century. Perhaps this could have happened. But I think the most useful aspect of such dreams of a peaceful 1914-1918 is the waking from them, with eyes open to modern conflict and searching for the way to peace.

Yours,

Fiona

© Fiona Robinson

Carrier Pigeons and Tweeting: oh, what a digital war!

Cher Ami, an heroic U.S. Army Signal Corps carrier pigeon.
Washington DC: The Smithsonian Museum

Hello, friends.

I have a feeling that our Ghosts of 1914 would not be so taken aback to find that, as we approach the centennial anniversary of the Great War's start, our relationship to the war can now be (and may be primarily) digitally mediated. We've gone from carrier pigeons, like the brave and beautiful Cher Ami, who risked HER life to save hundreds of soldiers (and whom I saw on display at the Smithsonian Museum of American History on a recent jaunt to Washington DC),  to Twitter.

The other day, it struck me that this is probably the first war, and certainly the first major global conflict, whose one hundredth anniversary could become so digital. As 1914-1918's digital renaissance takes on further zeroes and ones, it is fitting, I think, to consider the  novel technological ways in which we can invite the Ghosts of 1914 to become part of our lives--our awareness, our everyday existence. 

On that note, the good folks at an exciting multimedia history education project, hstry, have shared with me that they are having a most interesting event later this month: a reenactment of Franz Ferdinand's 1914 assasination on Twitter. Here are the details:

hstry: Franz Ferdinand's Assasination Relived on Twitter!

What's more, hstry's blog will be featuring stories from a journey through WWI family history. Stay tuned for that!

While I'm delighted and intrigued at hstry's Twitter reenactment, don't be surprised to hear more on our avian Ghost of 1914, Cher Ami, quite soon...

Cheers,

Fiona

© Fiona Robinson

Lives of the First World War Project

Had to pause studying for finals to post this exciting news:

The IWM has just launched their incredible Lives of the First World War project!


On the project website, they say:

Imperial War Museums needs you to help piece together the Life Stories of more than 8 million men and women who made a contribution during the First World War.

How could I resist such a call to duty? Looking forward to getting started soon and I hope you'll join the ghosts of 1914 in this exciting endeavor! More of my own posts will arrive here at the blog soon too.

--Fiona

Springtime Tidbits

Hello Readers!

Some interesting WWI tidbits from around the ether:

Is it true that all ten brothers in the Calpin family of York went to war AND returned alive? It's not the most reliable source, but the Daily Mail has been featuring some intriguing stories of WWI lately and this one really caught my eye. Might warrant some further research:

"Band of TEN Brothers: When the Call Came to Serve..."

Then, on my local public radio station, there were the following excellent programs and series (the first two of which explore counter-factual histories (an interesting genre)) about WWI:

• NPR's "What if World War I Had Never Happened?"
• All Things Considered: "A World Without World War One"
• Forum: "The Music of War"

Enjoy and stay tuned for more!

Fiona

Love and Filmic Ephemera

"Forget Me Not" WWI decorated needlepoint token. Image from: Needleprint, May 2010.

Happy Valentine's Day to you, dear readers!

I wish you a day on which you feel assured or simply hopeful about love's presence and power in your own life and in a global sense too.

In honor of this holiday, I might direct you to past posts about chocolate and Valentine's postcards or sweetheart brooches.

Today, I'll add to this little collection of sweet treasures a couple of film snippets found in the IWM's online collections. They capture a few moments of WWI-era weddings, whether that of a Canadian officer at St. James's church, Picadilly or that of the 1916 wedding of Field Marshal French's son. I can't seem to upload thumbnails of the videos here, but click on the links and watch, and then come back!

In the first film's case, the bride and groom emerge on the church steps after their ceremony. It is fascinating to notice that, in this early era of "moving pictures," the happy couple and their wedding party are at first quite static, posing for photographs. Then, perhaps prompted by the man behind the movie camera, they launch into (somewhat self-conscious looking) motion, talking and interacting with the flower girls and bridesmaids who hold giant baskets of posies. Clearly, these pleasantries are staged, with darting glances at the cameras indicating the couples' awareness of being on film.

The second wedding is a portion of WWI-era newsreel, only the opening act in a set of footage that includes military operations and geographical documentary. The couple in question, the Honorable John R. L. French and his wife, Olivia, whisk past the cameras in the first few seconds of the reel. He wears his uniform and she is clothed in a veritable cloud of white, veils and dress sailing across the frame and into their car. Lest we feel denied more of an onlooker's pleasure in the happy occasion, we are next presented with a sequence filmed at the groom's family home. We see the newlyweds strolling in the garden with John's mother. While Mr. French looks rather serious and tends to avert his gaze, the new Mrs. French smiles blithely and moves with quite impressive ease in front of the mechanical eye of the camera. Ultimately, they play with pets and walk confidently towards us down a beautiful tree-lined path, as though the stars of a feature film marching right up to the celluloid boundary that separates the viewer's world and theirs.

"We're off to see the Wizard!" © Warner Brothers, image from "I Heart the Talkies."

If the last seconds of the wedding film remind us of something like the above famous film scenes, it is only because of our post-1939 perspective, of course. And yet, by the 1910s, film acting was its own art, and viewers understood a range of tropes as conveyed in this medium (such a topic deserves its own post). Suffice it to say that the happy couple in the French wedding footage, as they walk down that path along with the elder Mrs. French, appear confident, energetic, and perhaps relieved that their time on film is coming to a close.

Weddings on film, as the two WWI-era examples show us, were the modern way to publicize society marriages, something which, in one form or another, was nothing new. And yet, the dynamic sight of a bride sweeping down the church steps all in white or a happy couple together, enjoying the greenery and simple pleasures of a garden, was no doubt a thrill and an encouragement to this particular era's viewers. Other war footage was not far behind (and in fact was joined to the French wedding scenes as part of a larger news program). Thus, these fleeting glimpses of post-ceremony smiles or the swish of veils and skirts would have linked an often tense and unpredictable wartime moment with farther-reaching eras, traditions, and celebrations. Life did go on, and weddings and wartime were not mutually exclusive.

Donald and Flossie Tutt. © The Centre for Kentish Studies

I realize that this post has taken a somewhat serious tack, though Valentine's Day is not usually the most serious holiday in the calendar. But amid all of the candy, cards, gifts, phone calls, joys, and disappointments that this day can bring in all its many forms, these bits of filmic ephemera show us that love conquers all.

© Fiona Robinson