Beauty in the apertures of pain

Non-comprehensive film diary 2018

Allied ships bring supplies to port in Jaffa, to aid the Allied offensive in Palestine in 1918. This image was taken using the Paget process, an early experiment in color photography.

Today is the centennial of the US entry into WWI. Within weeks of the US entry the @americanlibraryassoc formed a preliminary committee that became the Library War Service. http://bit.ly/2oEDRZO

They could not tell, I still fill their silence Out, 70x70cm, Indian ink on paper, Untold story 50x70cm ink on paper

The 4th of May is Memorial Day of 2nd World War victims in the Netherlands and all victims from wars after.

Stubby was a Boston Terrier that wandered into the grounds of Yale University in July 1917. It just so happened that members of the 102nd infantry were training in Yale on this particular day. Thus, the story of the most decorated dog of World War I was born. As the soldiers were training, Stubby refused to leave their side. After growing fond of the friendly pup, Corporal Robert Conroy decided that when it was time to ship out, he would hide Stubby onboard. When they departed in France, Corporal Conroy hid Stubby in his jacket. When he was eventually discovered by the commanding officer, he was aghast to see Stubby salute him. The soldiers had trained him to salute upon request. He was allowed to stay, it was decided.

For 18 months, Stubby served in the trenches of France; he participated in four offended and 17 battles. His first injury was inhalation of toxic gas. As a result, Stubby became very sensitive to the smell - something that came in handy. When Stubby smelt the gas, he would run to all of the soldiers barking to awaken them. Additionally, Stubby would run through the trenches to find wounded soldiers. He was trained to differentiate between English and German language and bark whenever he found an English speaking soldier who was injured. In one of his most impressive endeavours, he captured a German spy. As he was mapping out the allied trenches, the German spy spotted Stubby and called out to him in English. Recognising the language of the enemy, Stubby attacked him. It was this heroic event that promoted Stubby to rank of sergeant.

After the war, he became an American celebrity, even visiting the White House twice and meeting President Woodrow Wilson. He passed away at the age of nine or ten and his body was donated to the Smithsonian Institute.

Vera Brittain, author of Testament of Youth, one of the classic memoirs of the First World War and of feminist and pacifist literature. Brittain left Oxford to volunteer as a nurse in Britain and in France. During the war she lost her fiancé Roland Leighton, her friend Victor Richardson, and her brother Edward, losses that profoundly influenced her work.

Franz Kafka, Diaries

Thom Atkinson - Soldiers’ Inventories.

Thom has revisited his Soldiers’ Inventories series and has shot new inventories specific to the kit that different countries took to battle with them during the First World War. The images were shown recently in The Telegraph, to accompany an article discussing the particularities of each kit. To read the article, please follow this link.

The images featured show the kits of:

Germany. A German Private Living in the Battle of the Somme, 1916. (Top image.)

Britain. A British Sergeant in the Battle of the Somme, 1916. (Left, middle image.)

Russia. The 1st Russian Women’s Battalion of Death. (Right, middle image.)

France. A French Private Soldier in the Battle of Verdun, 1916. (Bottom image.) 

The work is also featuring in Creative Review. Article here. 

Scarred by war: Battlefield landscapes from First World War 100 years on

Source: The telegraph

World War I: Misc.

This tin of cigarettes was among the personal belongings of Private Albert Tattersall, who died of wounds sustained on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He was serving with the 20th Battalion, Manchester Regiment (5th City Pals). He had joined this Pals battalion along with his brothers John and Norman

July the 28th, World War I starts [This newspaper was relesaed on August the 5th (And it’s a satire from The Onion, be aware of that)].

A little WWI humor to ease you into the long holiday weekend. 

888,246 Ceramic Poppies Flow Like Blood from the Tower of London to Commemorate Britain’s Involvement in WWI

The Christmas Truce of 1914

In the week before Christmas 1914, the attitude in the trenches was very different to the usual trench misery that is usually associated with the Western Front. There was a series of unofficial ceasefires and occasions of soldiers singing carols across to each other. By Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, soldiers were crossing No Man’s Land to exchange small gifts and food with one another. They also became friendly enough to play football matches with each other. In all, about 100,000 British and German soldiers took part in these unsanctioned truces. 

The truce did not take place everywhere on the Front, with some sections still fighting on Christmas Day and others only agreeing to stop fighting to recover the dead, but they were relatively widespread. Some truces lasted until New Years Day, whilst others merely lasted through Christmas night. When the high command of both sides heard about the truces, they prohibited such fraternisation in future. Despite this, some truces took place in 1915, however not nearly as many. There is evidence that the soldiers were unhappy with this ban on truces and many tried to disobey and start football matches and gift swapping once more, but most were ordered back on threat of punishment. There is a record that the German soldiers continued to try and start truces, as the British soldiers were being forced to continue fighting. Adolf Hitler, fighting at this time, was apparently opposed to the truces. With the escalation of violence at the Somme and the use of poison gas in 1916, meant that the truces were mostly over by this Christmas. 

What say you?

If you listen/watch one thing today, let it be this superlative narrative poem by Heathcote Williams, read by Alan Cox - Harry Patch : Anti-War Hero