Picturing the Great WarThe First World War Blog from Mary Evans Picture Library

London Zoo at War

More than 30 employees at the Zoological Gardens in London (London Zoo) left behind their charges to join up in the early months of the war.  In March 1915, The Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News featured this picture, showing a zookeeper in khaki, returning to his place of work while on leave to visit the seals, and to feed them some fish in what would be a rather charming publicity photograph.

The lack of male zookeepers was rectified by the arrival of women to help out, the first being a Miss Saunders, who was featured in The Queen magazine in April the following year holding a somewhat recalcitrant chicken.  Always meticulously observant when it came to fashion reporting, the magazine was careful to describe Miss Saunders' olive green linen overall which was worn with a fetching hat of 'silver grey straw.'

Elsewhere, some of the animals were used for propaganda purposes.  This obliging tortoise, fittingly named Methusaleh, used his shell to advertise the need for more shells (of a different kind), with a  message which read, 'We can't do without our shells; but they will serve to remind you that there are others - which your country needs.'  http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=21822

 

 

Luci Gosling

 

 

On Anzac Day - Australian sailors visiting Gallipoli battlefields, c.1920

The Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fell at Gallipoli (and subsequent conflicts) are commemorated each year on 25 April with Anzac Day, held on the anniversary of the first landing at Gallipoli. 
The Dardanelles campaign aimed to quickly and decisively capture Constantinople, and knock Turkey, an ally of Germany, out of the war.  But the troops came ashore at Gallipoli that day faced unexpectedly fierce resistance  from the Turks and the situation rapidly turned into a stalemate.  Before surviving troops were evacuated at the end of 1915, over 21,000 British troops, an estimated 10,000 French, 8,709 Australians and 2,721 had either been killed or had died from disease in what had been a disastrous campaign.  
The immense sacrifice of the ANZACs (an acronym for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) made a profound impact back at home in Australia and New Zealand, and almost a century on, the Anzac Day of Remembrance remains Australia's biggest national annual event.  The first Anzac day was held in Australia and London the following year.  The Illustrated London News reported on the memorial service at St. Paul's Cathedral attended by 2,300 Australian and 700 New Zealand troops who had been either wounded or contracted an illness and had been sent back to Britain on sick leave.  In his message to the Governor-General of Australia and the Governor of New Zealand, King George V said; "Tell my people of Australia and New Zealand that to-day I am joining with them in their solemn tribute to the memory of their heroes who died in Gallipoli.  They gave their lives for a supreme cause in gallant comradeship with the rest of my sailors and soldiers who fought and died with them.  Their valour and fortitude have shed fresh lustre on the British arms."
The Turkish troops at Gallipoli also suffered heavy casualties and both sides respectfully acknowledged the sacrifices made.  In 1934, the Turkish President Kemal Ataturk, who had been in command during the campaign, gave a moving tribute in a speech to British, Australian and New Zealand soldiers visiting the battlefields of Gallipoli for the first time.     
"Those heroes that shed their blood
And lost their lives.
You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.
Therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies
And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side
Here in this country of ours.
You, the mothers,
Who sent their sons from far away countries
Wipe away your tears,
Your sons are now lying in our bosom
And are in peace
After having lost their lives on this land they have
Become our sons as well."
These postcards from around 1920 show a group of Australian sailors visiting the old sites at Gallipoli, posing with a 6" gun used for shelling Imros, and around the Turkish monument at Lone Pine, though it is unclear whether this was in an official military capacity, or a trip in memory of comrades who had fallen.  Since another image shows the group supervising the digging for bodies, it seems likely they were there to find and re-inter bodies of Anzacs who were killed in action in the nearby Allied Christian cemetery.  Either way, it would have undoubtedly been a poignant and memorable experience.

http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=21731

Luci Gosling

 

Fritz changes his shop front - a very early anti-German postcard

 

The 35,000 Germans living in Britain at the outbreak of war made up the third largest immigrant group in the country.  They worked in London and in seaside towns often as hairdressers, waiters, musicians, and, frequently, shop owners.

Tony Sarg, an American illustrator born in Guatemala moved to London in 1908 and his fascination with London, and especially the East End, was borne out by his cartoons, usually with 'Cockneyesque' captions.  This postcard, showing a stereotypical German shopkeeper doing his bumbling best to de-Germanise his store front, placing accented patriotic notices in his window and changing his name to one of impeccably British origins, was drawn by Sarg and was probably typical of many businesses populating the areas of the capital he knew well.  Remarkably, the postcard's mark on the back indicates it was sent just six weeks after the outbreak of war demonstrating that as early as this, there was a growing anti-German feeling on the home front.

 

The mood, however, is still light-hearted.  Events of 1915, the following year, such as the execution of British nurse Edith Cavell and the sinking of the 'Lusitania' by German torpedoes, saw the public mood towards the enemy darken.  Following news of the latter, shop fronts in London's East End, such as the one caricaturised by Sarg in this postcard were famously  attacked by angry Londoners in reaction to what they felt were new depths of German barbarity.

  Luci Gosling

Cinema on the Ceiling for wounded soldiers

For many people, cinema was fast becoming a primary source of entertainment during the Great War.  With 3000 cinemas already open around the country in 1914, this number escalated throughout the next four years until in 1921, there were over 4000.  As an entertainment that took place in the dark, there were however, concerns that it might damage the moral fabric of the nation, and a Council for Public Morals lobbied for stricter censorship, while supervisors were installed in picture houses to ensure no indecent behaviour took place in the cheap seats.  

This puritanical zeal was short-sighted and failed to acknowledge the morale-boosting benefits of this new form of entertainment.  It was affordable, accessible and, in general, the films offered escapism as a relief from the daily grind and stresses of war not only to those on the home front, but to soldiers fighting in France and beyond.  Stars of the screen - Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and the inimitable Charlie Chaplin - became popular icons of the era and everyone wanted to see the latest movies (which were, at this stage, still silent).

For some though, the simple pleasures of the cinema, were difficult to come by.  Particularly bedridden wounded soldiers who missed out on screenings enjoyed by their comrades staged in huts and converted barns near the Front.  This problem was ingeniously solved by medical staff at several American base hospitals who projected films onto the ceilings of  wards so that those lying prone were saved from hours of boredom.  The picture, drawn by ILN staff artist, Samuel Begg, appeared on the front cover of The Illustrated London News on August 10th, 1918.   

Luci Gosling

Lieut. Mike Rimington - a First World War horse whisperer

For anyone who has been watching the new BBC1 drama series, 'The Village,' one of the storylines in last Sunday's episode focused on the Army's requirement for horses during the war, a theme that has garnered much interest since the dramatisation of Michael Morpugo's 'War Horse.'  The increasing mechanisation and static nature of trench warfare saw a phasing out of the once pivotal role of the cavalry.  The last charge of the First World War on the Western Front took place on 14th July 1916 at High Wood during the Battle of the Somme; an effective but costly strategy which saw 102 men killed and the loss of 130 horses.  But horses were still badly needed - for transportation and haulage - and back in Britain, as well in North & South America, New Zealand, Portugal, Indian and China - men from the Army Remount Service, part of the Army Service Corps, would track down available horses which would be acquired through compulsory purchase.

Throughout the war, via four main depots in Britain, the Army Remount Service had over 340,000 horses pass through their hands.  Those who joined the service tended to be older, more experienced soldiers such as Lieutenant Mike Rimington, late of the 37th Lancers who had seen action in the Boer War. 

Rimington was the subject of this photo feature in The Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News, a magazine which, through its in-depth coverage of racing, hunting and horse-related subjects in peacetime, took a particular interest in the activities of the Army Remount Service.  With horses in high demand, Rimington's skills in breaking in unruly and unmanageable mounts were invaluable, and he is pictured here, at the Underdale Hall Remount Department near Shrewsbury, with a group of reprobate equines whose past misdemeanours make gruesome reading.  Savage Simon had been described as, 'Vicious and quite unmanageable.  Has injured six men, some badly.  Savaged the rough rider and tore the saddle to pieces.'  Bucking Belle, true to her name, 'bucks viciously when mounting,' Winston Churchill (!) was,'quite unmanageable; very wild in stable; dangerous rearer,' and the malevolently named Crippen had actually struck out and killed an unfortunate groom.

Rimington, the horse-whisperer of his day, tamed them all.  Having reformed their ways, we can't help wondering if Simon, Belle, Winston, Crippen et al survived the war.  Estimates vary but it is thought that around 285,000 horses and mules were killed, or lost at sea during the Great War.  

 http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=21638    

Luci Gosling

The Minister of Munitions' car mascot

A small but significant photograph today, taken in September 1915 and published in The Sketch magazine.   David Lloyd George (1863-1945), who had held the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer in Asquith's Liberal government since 1908, moved to the newly created Ministry of Munitions in May 1915.  The new Minister had openly criticised Lord Kitchener earlier that year, attacking him for the shortage of shells and military supplies and Lloyd George's role allowed him to act with dynamic efficiency to improve Britain's output of armaments.  The supply and allocation of raw materials was tightly controlled and engineering and chemical industries were put under goverment control as part of the war effort.  He employed a network of able, young businessmen, known as 'push and go' men (a term first used by Lloyd George himself in a speech in March that year), who were able to encourage greater production efficiency in factories.  Working conditions improved and the work force expanded, including, the employment of thousands of women workers in munitions and other war-related industries. 
Lloyd George's efficacy in the role is symbolised by this, his car mascot, a gift of thanks from a grateful manufacturer for his role in speeding up the output of munitions.  In 1916, Lloyd George left the Ministry of Munitions in good shape as he took up the post of Secretary of State for War and by the end of that year had replaced Asquith as the people's wartime Prime Minister.
We wonder what happened to his shell-shaped car mascot?  We'd be grateful to hear from anyone who knows.http://www.maryevans.com/lb.php?ref=21621

Luci Gosling

The Patriotic Prince

This photograph of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VIII, appeared in The Tatler on 12 August 1914, the magazine's first war-related issue.  Despite being several inches below the required height, the Prince was granted a commission in the Grenadier Guards at Warley Barracks in Brentwood soon after the outbreak of war.  The regiment was put on forty-eight hour standby and the Prince's nervous but determined expression hints perhaps at the expectation that he would be sent to the front at any moment.  Certainly The Tatler printed the picture as an example to all unmarried men who were wavering about volunteering to serve.

In the event, before he could join his unit in France, he was told by his father, George V, that Lord Kitchener would not permit the future King of England to face the enemy in action, or to risk capture.  'What does it matter?' fumed the Prince, who argued that he had four brothers to take his place if anything were to happen to him.

Eventually, the Prince went to France, where he served  on the staff of Major-General Lord Cavan, with the proviso that he should be kept well away from the fighting.  On one occasion, when he accompanied the divisional commander on an excursion to the front during the Battle of Loos, he returned to his car to find his driver had been killed by flying shrapnel.

Despite the fact the Prince did not take part in fighting, he was a popular figure throughout  the war, playing a morale-boosting role during visits to France, Palestine and Italy.  Portraits taken later in the war show a more mature and self-assured individual in marked contrast to the nervous-looking boy pictured in August 1914.

Luci Gosling

A son brought home to rest - Lieut. Norman Champion de Crespigny

The Champion de Crespigny family of Essex, who came to settle in England in the 18th century,  could trace their Norman roots back to the 1st Crusades.  In Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, 4th Baronet (1847-1935), the knightly blood of his ancestry was more than apparent.  A soldier, sportsman and adventurer, his life reads like that of a fictional Victorian action hero.  After a military career, he became expert in a number of sports.  As a ballooning enthusiast he was the first man to cross the North Sea in 1883.  He was also a big-game hunter, a fearless diver, canoeist, sailor and swimmer (becoming the first European to swim the Nile rapids in 1889) and as a jockey, he rode his last steeplechase at the age of 67.  Unsurprisingly, his maxim in life was, 'Where there is a daring deed to be done in any part of the world, an Englishman should leap to the front to accomplish it.’  In 1872, he married Georgina McKerrel with whom he had five sons and four daughters.  His eldest son, another Claude, committed suicide by shooting himself in 1910, a tragedy exacerbated, thought doctors, through an attack of influenza and madness induced by several heavy falls during polo games.

In 1914, at the outbreak of hostilities, another son, Lieutenant Norman Champion de Crespigny joined the Queen's Bays.  But with the war barely underway, he was killed in action at Nery, near Compiegne in France on 1 September.  Typically, considering his pedigree, he died gallantly while trying to hold an important strategical point against advancing Germans.  As he attempted to take the enemy guns, revolver in hand, he was hit by shrapnel.

Norman was buried at Nery but disinterred later and returned home to be buried in the family mausoleum at Champion Lodge, Maldon, Essex, which his father had built in the grounds for his eldest son.  The exhumation had been difficult, buried as he was in a grave with 17 other soldiers and he was eventually identified by the name on the neckband of his shirt.  The ceremony, carried out with full military honours, was recorded in the Essex County Chronicle on 13 November 1914.  'The body, enclosed in a coffin of polished oak, with silver-plated furniture, arrived in London on Monday, and was conveyed to Maldon by train on Tuesday. Major General Heath, of the South Midland Division, sent a gun carriage, on which the remains were conveyed to Champion Lodge. Sir Claude and Lady de Crespigny met the train and followed the coffin to their residence, Sir Claude walking behind the gun carriage.

For the funeral the 7th Worcestershires provided the firing party (H Company); band and escort (D Company); The Queen’s Bays the bearers and trumpeters; and the Warwickshires the gun, a 15-pounder. Capt. Grosvenor was in charge of the troops. A large and sympathetic crowd gathered round the Crescent, in the centre of which is erected the mausoleum of polished granite, and the appearance of the long procession, moving in front of Champion Lodge and across the meadow to the spot was striking in the extreme. The firing Party, with arms reversed, marched slowly at the head, followed by the band, including the drums and buglers, with drums draped with crêpe, and under Drum-Major Gale; than came thee surpliced choir of Great Totham Church and the clergy; the gun and carriage, drawn by six jet black horses, the coffin being covered by the Union Jack; and the mourners and intimate friends, the escort bringing up the rear.

The solemn music of the Dead March, played by the band, and borne on the keen November Breeze for miles, was peculiarly impressive. At the Crescent eight stalwart N. C. O.’s of the Bays quietly and reverently shouldered their burden, and the Rev. H.T.W. Eyre, vicar of Great Totham, began the burial service. He was assisted by the Rev. R. Moseley, chaplain of the Royal Chapel, Chelsea. During the service the firing party stood at the present, and the other troops remained bareheaded. At the close of the service, which included the hymn, “God of the Living in Whose Eyes,” three volleys were fired, and the trumpeters sounded the “Last Post”.'

Lieutenant Norman Champion de Crespigny was one of the few officers whose body was returned to England before the practice was forbidden in 1915.

Luci Gosling

 

The Better 'Ole

We begin this blog with perhaps the most famous cartoon by the most famous cartoonist of the Great War.  Bruce Bairnsfather’s ‘Better ‘Ole,’ was published in The Bystander magazine’s Christmas number on 24 November 1915 and was an instant hit with its readers both at home and at the front, summing up, as it did, that most elemental of human conditions - discontent.  Under the title, ‘One of our minor wars – "Well, if you knows of a better ‘ole, go to it"’, the scenario of two hapless Tommies, marooned in a shell-hole in No-Man’s Land during a heavy bombardment and bickering over their predicament conjured humour out of the blackest of situations and epitomised both the dry wit of the typical British Tommy with his world-weary wisecracks, not to mention his admirable stoicism.    

Captain Bruce Bairnsfather, 1^st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment had limited success as a commercial artist prior to the outbreak of war.  But his talent for drawing found him fans in the trenches and after decorating several officers’ dug-outs in France, he was persuaded to send one of his drawings back to Britain for publication.  The magazine he chose to approach was The Bystander, purely due to the fact that a copy of it was lying around and its size and format seemed to suit his cartoons.  Much to his surprise, he received a letter of acceptance a few weeks later, together with a cheque for two guineas and a request for more drawings.  His first cartoon, ‘Where did that one go?’, appeared in the magazine on 31 March 1915 and was the first of hundreds Bairnsfather would draw for the publication through the war and beyond.  ‘The Better ‘Ole’ was reproduced countless times, with a colour version appearing in one of a series of portfolios called ‘Fragments from France,’ released by The Bystander through the war and later on a range of pottery by Grimwades.  When Bairnsfather penned a stage adaptation of his cartoons with Arthur Eliot which was staged at the Oxford Theatre, London in 1917, there was only one name for the play - ‘The Better ‘Ole.’  

Bairnsfather’s cartoons are a well-loved and integral part of Great War popular culture; and are likewise an integral part of our WW1 collections here, housing, as we do, the complete run of The Bystander which is part of the Illustrated London News archive.   ‘The Better Ole’ may be familiar to anyone with a passing interest in the First World War but we’ll be featuring lots more about Bairnsfather in this blog over the coming months, including, we hope, some more unexpected and little-seen images of his life, work and legacy.

Click here to see some other examples of Bairnsfather's work.

Luci Gosling