Battle of WWI merchant raiders: HMS Alcantara v SMS Greif
On February 27, 1916, the Norwegian cargo ship Rena steamed out of Cuxhaven on Germany’s North Sea coast. In peacetime, this would not have been…
General Jan Smuts: Fighting Snobbery and Germany in East Africa in WWI
As a South African officer in the British Army of World War One, General Jan Smuts struggled against prejudice as much as he did against…
The Early Days Of Drones – Unmanned Aircraft From World War One And World War Two
Unmanned aerial vehicles, popularly known as drones, are most often associated with airstrikes in modern warfare, but their history goes much further back than that.…
The Youngest Soldier In WWI Was A Serbian Boy, Aged 8
Momčilo Gavrić was the youngest soldier in the First World War. He was born in May 1st, in 1906 in a village near the town of Loznica in…
Ticking Time Bomb: The Mines At Messines, Over 1 Million Tons of Explosives, 20 Detonated, 5 Remain, Waiting
In 1917, the world was engulfed in war. For the first time, the economics of industry had been applied to warfare on a huge scale.…
4 Great British doctors of WW1 – advances in weaponry inflicted incredible destruction upon fighting men
Success in war is as much about avoiding death as about inflicting it. In modern warfare, doctors, nurses and field medics are as vital to…
His Eyes Express The Madness Of The War: Shell Shocked Soldier In A Trench During The Somme Offensive
Shell shock was one of the major side effects of WWI. Many soldiers suffered from it, as it was caused by the heavy explosions and constant…
The Most Decorated Pacifist Of WWI: Stormed German Machine Gun Nests, Taking 35 Machine Guns, Silencing 25 German Troops & Captured 132
He was a deeply religious man who abhorred violence and warfare. Despite that, he went on to become the most decorated veteran of WWI. Alvin…
Reasons World War I Became Inevitable
The First World War was a conflict of unprecedented scale and destructiveness. Though its impact was unexpected, the arrival of war itself was not. Though…
The British POW Who Was Given Permission To Visit His Dying Mother – He Returned To Camp Voluntarily Only To Dig A Tunnel And Escape
In WWI the German Empire was on the rampage. Europe has always existed through a complex network of alliances. When Germany united in 1871, it…
These Innovations In Weapons Technology Came To Prominence In WWI, The First Fully-Industrialised War
WWI was the first fully industrialized war. Advances in technology and manufacturing brought whole new ways of killing onto the battlefield. Here are some of…
Frontier Fortresses Of The First World War
Fortresses seldom feature in images of 20th-century warfare. However, in WWI, where for three years the Western Front turned into extended siege lines, large forts…