FREE PHOTO ARTICLE: Summer, 1914

Ages ago, I bought this amazing, huge format book full of images of the opening weeks of the First World War. It was full of lesser spotted images and I thought it would be AMAZING to mine it for images when it came to Ring of Fire. Then I put it at the back of a wardrobe and forgot about it.

Oops.

So this week, to give myself a bit of a break from writing over the festive season, I thought I’d bring you some of the best images in a two-part feature so that at least they would see the light of day somehow. I’ve made the first part free, by way of a Christmas present…

I have a vested interest in this one because it features George V, whose war I wrote a book about. This is the clearest version of an image like this I’ve seen, and it shows the scene outside Buckingham Palace on the night of 3rd August, as the clock ticked down towards the expiration of Britain’s ultimatum to Germany. Crowds had been gathering outside the palace, along the Mall, all the way down to Whitehall and Downing Street all day. At the palace, they were calling for the King, singing “We want King George” to the tune of the chimes of Big Ben. To his bemusement, the King had to appear on the balcony several times that evening, before he was finally allowed to go to bed. He was variously joined to wave to crowds by the Queen and by his heir, the future Duke of Windsor. The same pattern emerged the following evening, which began to get a bit annoying, before he decided everyone had had enough of this sort of thing. Below, you can see a scene from earlier in the day, taken down at the Palace of Westminster at the other end of the Mall.

In Ring of Fire, we talk about global trade, and how it ground to a halt in the opening weeks of war with devastating impact across the globe because the normal chain of supply got broken. This photo is that in action. At any given time, broadly speaking Britain had eight weeks worth of food on hand. After that, if nothing came in, people would begin to starve. Here, at a British port, you can see the authorities seizing frozen meat from cargo holds as part of emergency measures to make sure that the country did not run out of food.

Another thing the British government grabbed from private individuals in spades were vehicles. This photo of commandeered motorcycles reminds me of George Fletcher, who gets a mention in Ring of Fire but much more coverage in my book about Eton College and the First World War. George was rapidly recruited to the Intelligence Corps in the opening hours of the war on account of his fluency in French and German. George was sent to Kensington Gardens to collect a motorcycle, which he ended up hating because he had visions of himself riding across the battlefields on a white horse. So this image might have been taken there. Lorries and cars were collected at Hyde Park too.

One of the first things we talk about in Ring of Fire is how the Royal Navy was getting ready for war before anybody else. This image shows naval reservists, of which Britain had far too many to accommodate on the outbreak of war, reporting for service at Portsmouth.

The Royal Navy also suffered some of Britain’s first casualties of the war. As early as 6th August, HMS Amphion hit a mine and sank. One officer and 131 men were killed. This image shows a naval funeral taking place at Shottery, near Harwich.

Leaving Britain behind, this image speaks to the size of the logistical effort required to get the Austrian army to war in 1914. In it, you can see supplies of uniforms being sorted.

In Ring of Fire, although we point out that the emotions and responses to the outbreak of war were complex and ever-changing, we do talk about the traditional interpretation of the ‘spirit’ of 1914, and the crowds that gathered across the world. One of the largest was in Petrograd, and we point out that this was unique in that it comprised large amounts of working class people. In places like London and Berlin, for example, working class people were largely absent. They needed to earn a living, and the crowds were made up of the middle and even upper classes who could better afford the free time required to wander the streets and wave flags. It’s not glaringly obvious from these images, but for comparison, the image below is from Berlin.

In the book, we relate an anecdote about the devastated response of the German Ambassador to London on the outbreak of war. Prince Lichnowsky was a real anglophile, but of course had to leave his delightful residence right near St. James’s Palace, parallel to the Mall on the outbreak of war. Here you can see some sort of mark identifying the building being removed from the door after his departure.

We talk about Boy Scouts in the book, too, because they were a great way to talk about the agency that children had on the outbreak of war, and to point out that they experienced the conflict too. These scouts in London are helping guard baggage as it is moved from a barracks to a railway station for departure.

And finally for today, women, too. They were mobilised in numbers unheard of prior to 1914. This image shows Red Cross Nurses preparing for war in Harwich.

I’ll have another 12 images for you on Friday…