• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Posters from the Great War

The one thing that bought home to the people what the men in the trenches were going through was the film shot by Malins, The Battle of the Ancre and Battle of the Somme it was censored and some of the battle scenes were faked but it was simply horrifying to watch.When It was first shown it caused quite a stir and people walked out of the cinema disgusted with the way the war was shown, here you could see men up to their waist in mud and the dead on the battlefields and the conditions they lived in, this was the first time moving pictures of the war had been seen and although it was a silent film it moved people to tears and for once it made people start to question things after been fed a diet of posters and Gung Ho newspaper reports.
The first lot of casualties at the start of the war were published daily but as the war progressed it was every other day then weekly as the casualty figures grew, till some newspapers dropped the lists alltogether. You only have to follow the newspapers from 1914 to 1919 to see the changing picture that the press(Government) wanted he public to see. At the start of the war even hospital list's were published saying who went where but these were soon dropped as the sheer scale of the figures began to swamp the newspapers. all this can be viewed in the archives of the main libraries in any major town in the UK
 
Now this is a strange poster I came across, note the date 1913 this chap took notice of the rumble of war that was rolling across the land and used this in his Advertisement
Ireland was in tormoil and would not submit to Home Rule and the army was mobilised and facing a grim prospect of war with Ireland on the eve of the Great War. One of the few men that could see the European cataclysm coming was Lord Roberts but he was ridiculed and criticised were ever he went and the sheer scale of what was to come nearly overwhelmed England, it all came true during the summer of 1914..........The Start of the Great War and the death of innocence..... August 4th 1914
Bottom Poster shows Lord Robert who fought in the Sudan and the Boer war
 
Brilliant Cromwell, why on earth they don't bring this type of history into schools is beyond me, I know if we had had this type of teaching we would have learnt alot more about our country and city, keep it up and well done to all the contributers. I keep learning things each day, might go and sit my A level in history now, only if you Cromwell will write the test papers :smitten:
:flower: :cat:
 
loisand said:
Brilliant Cromwell, why on earth they don't bring this type of history into schools is beyond me, I know if we had had this type of teaching we would have learnt alot more about our country and city..
Click to expand...
I agree!!
I gave up history at the end of the 3rd form...didn't take it as one of my O-Level options as it seemed so boring then...
it was still stuck in the middle-ages then...
honestly, I hadn't a clue what the Magna Carta meant to us then (I only learnt a few months ago, at 47, what that was really about)
yet my kids were doing about WW2 a couple/3 years ago (there's 3 years between them).
Thank goodness...and yet I still don't feel that the school went into more recent history well enough, in enough depth. :(
 
Thanks for the encouraging comments for me to keep posting.............History should not be boring it should be exiting and allways leaving you wanting to hear more..........I have bought so many books that go off the rails with boring facts and the book goes in the bin..the way I try to tell it is this... get down to the intresting details and if they want to learn more use the internet or the library.
As a kid I loved History because I could escape from the slums and be fighting in some castle somewere or fighting for my country in some far of place,but it ain't about just kids stuff its more than that.... it led me to travel half way round the World looking for answers and seeing where things happened, I have never been able to lie on a beach, I would be of exploring some far of place or trekking through a desert always looking for the history of the place and have seen all what I want in my life to the Grand Canyon to the Great Pyramids and wandering down the culvert of the River Rea to climbing the Gasometer's of Saltley.
History has played a major part in my life and will till I Die.........
And I will be happy if I have rubbed some of my enthusiasm onto the folk who read these postings
Facts are a Fact but Facts can be Boring and when you are bored you never learn the facts .......
And thats a Fact.......Keep the fact short and simple and folk learn
 
Cromwell, in the grammar school I went to it was all academic...just facts...I've realised since it might have been our teacher that did a bad job...even her voice sent you to sleep...
I sat on the back row...and the class was at the front of the building looking out on the gardens, so my gaze was frequently on them, especially on hot summer afternoons when I nearly dozed off...
until she shouted at me from down her pinz-nez  :( ???
 
I have always liked history mainly because my parents liked it also. The history of the two World Wars wasn't taught or discussed much when I was growing up even though the wars had a huge impact on all our lives at the time. Remembrance Day was the only time we heard about the wars other than brief references to bomb damage, relatives and friends who had died serving in the war and shortages and such like. That was one of the reasons that I took myself and my children to the BMAG event in 1985 which focused on the events of WW2 and it's effect on Birmingham. Nothing on this scale had been put on in Birmingham before this exhibition. It was a sort of "need to know" thing for me and it
solved some unanswered questions at that time..

I have learned so much from this site in recent times about WW1 and WW2 and this knowledge has certainly put many things into perspective for me about my own famlies loss of a soldier in WW1 and the set back in progress for the whole country following those wars. The pillboxes at the end of the beaches and the mines made into collection boxes had more fascination for me on beach holidays it seems and the Sunday afternoon queues at some manor house in the Cotswolds to see artefacts such as Katherine Parr's false teeth kept my parents amused to no end.
 
I am possibly one of the group who simply enter the site daily and find that on a majority of occasions I have little to offer on particular subjects that are written here.
I do however thoroughly enjoy a number of articles that Cromwell, by name, and others put, both in writing and by means of photography, in such a interesting manner. I thank you, I am sure, on behalf of that small band that look and learn silently.
Three queries however directed to Cromwell. How many boxes, if that is the means of storage, does he have of these magnificent photographs he keeps posting and what size is
his bookcase that holds all the facts? Finally - How many years, dare he say, it has taken him to accumulate them?
I did say that I referred to Cromwell by name but there are others who too make entries that I find so interesting. To start naming may, by default, miss someone who I should not so I again offer to them also, a simply - thank you.
Will
 
Thanks for that Will, I have been involved in Great War History for a number of years and through my sculptures and artifacts I have collected over the years I have with others done talks and shows in Clubs,Schools,Universities etc, and its simply amazing how folk come up to you after and say can you help me ? or I am the last one in the family would you like these photographs because I know when I am gone they will go in the dustbin, sometimes its heartbreaking, I had two people yesterday come over to see me and lent me a notebook from the Great War so I copied it sent it the the archives and an hour later had all the info I wanted thanks to folk like David Langley (Historian) Major Nick Lock RWF who are both passionate about saving and preserving History.
I have been fortunate in having one of the biggest collection of photograph I have seen left me in a will (but that is another story)
And would you believe the good folk on this site have also sent me stuff like Rowan sent me yesterday
Four unpublished Blitz photographs which will be the next posting I do. We have discussed this before but a photograph in a drawer or locked away is no good to man nor beast History should not be owned by anyone (but it is) it should be to share and enjoy.
I have a large Trench art collection but have to walk a steady path as this is a Birmingham History site so I don't post stuff about that you have to strike a fine balance.
I started the Army thread and left it hoping folk would put their memories on and pics ....but nothing which I find strange as I reckon the Generation using this site have a lot to say about WW2 ......but don't want to for one reason or another, I don't want all the History site to become Cromwell's and I am chuffed when folk join in and give me info like is being done on the War Hospitals, which has grown to the best site on the web now for information on that subject all thanks to the help that has been given to me by the good folk on this forum plus John and Rod for providing Web space which I know cost's quite a bit of money and I help them all I can and will continue to do so in the future.
 
Funds for this and funds for that, they had a fund for everything as that was the only way of raising money
 
The Ivory Cross War Society was set up by Lady Robinson wife of the Chief of Imperial Staff and Lord Beatty.to provide men with artificial teeth
One chap John Oxenham who had lost all his teeth wrote the following verse:-

Some could eat, but have no meat,
Some have meat, but cannot eat,
If you have meat,and you can eat
Then to the Lord give Praise !
And think of us, from field and fleet,
Who cannot eat, though we have meat,
And why ? - Because in facing death
We lost our teeth, that you might eat,
In peace your meat,
Now is it meat, that you should eat,
In Peace your meat, while we,who beat away defeat
Go hungry through the lack of teeth
 
Another episode that greatly influenced the people of England and did a lot for the recruitment drive was the execution of British Nurse Miss Edith Cavell by the Germans on Oct 13th 1915
The Charge against her
Harbouring fugitive British and French soldiers and helping them escape from Belgium.
Edith Cavell ran a school for training nurses in Belgium traing nurses from any country Britain and Germany included

Photo 1. The portrait of Miss Edith Cavell that was used all over England by the Recruiting staff.
Photo2. The portrait of the executed Nurse Cavell aiding recruiting.
Calling for "Avengers" to come forward at a recruitment gathering 
Photo 3. The Poster "I want you" seen in the above photo
 
This amazing advert which was used by Bovril in the Great War takes a bit of believing, till I did a bit of research on it and found out the following
H.M.H.S ANGLIA was one of the many hospital ships sunk in the Great War by mine or torpedo and if the ship had a Red Cross painted on the side or flying a Red Cross Flag it gave the ship no immunity
"ANGLIA" was built in 1900, at 1862 tons and a top speed of 21 knots. She was taken over as an auxiliary hospital ship at the start of the Great War
H.M.H.S. "ANGLIA" when it left France was loaded with 372 wounded other ranks military personnel, 13 wounded officers, 1 nurse and 390 military personnel on the 17th November 1915 at 12:30 pm while commanded by Capt. Lionel John Manning, she a hit a mine while off Folkestone and quickly started sinking bow first. The Royal Navy H.M.S. "HAZARD" was soon on the scene and picked up a lot of the survivors
164 people went down with the ship and the rest were rescued by HMS "HAZARD"
(Note, that all though "ANGLIA" is a war grave it has been vandalized over the years by wreck divers)
One of the survivors was George Ebenezer Knight who was born in Wolverhampton and was serving with the Canadian Over-Seas Expeditionary Forces he enlisted on 3rd Nov.1914
The  crew lost, are commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial WWI section.
 
This Poster........No P.C.today.... but the thought was there, when over 90% of the population smoked.
Smoking concerts were all the rage where everyone lit up and puffed away to their hearts content
Smoking was actively encouraged in the army of that time, even Princess Mary sent an appeal out for money to buy the soldiers pipes and tobacco at Christmas here is the one in my collection showing the Tobacco Tin, Christmas Card and Photo of Princess Mary, some contained tobacco and a pipe or cigarettes and a bullet pencil and for the ones who did not smoke they contained chocolate
 
The YMCA not only provided huts for the War effort in England and behind the lines on the battlefields of France and Belgium, but the also provided huts for our POW's interned in Holland
In the Great War Holland was a neutral country but like everything else rules had to be made and adhered to, all the British subjects were rounded up and asked to sign a declaration that they would not fight in the war and remain in Holland. All those that did were allowed exceptional liberties like wives allowed to live with husbands etc.
They were even allowed to make two trips a year to England as long as they returned.
Any officer that would not sign the declaration was sent to a prisoner of war camp at Wierickerschan.
Those that signed the declaration and then escaped back to England were promptly returned to Holland
Electrified fencing was placed between the border of Holland and Belgium and any pilot that landed in Holland was interned
The Link below provides fascinating reading
https://www.wereldoorlog1418.nl/englishcamp/index.html
 
Even with all what was going on folk still had a sense of humour as this picture shows
 
A truly great rare photograph of Lord Kitchener addressing a recruitment meeting on July 9th.
I have cropped photo to show the detail better......taken from my book by Edgar Wallace "The War of the Nations".......nearly all the posters shown I have posted
 
I didn't really know the pressure put on our young men at that time to join up......It made me feel guilty just reading the posters.....I like many others have thought how we would have reacted if we lived them days.....I think I would have join up quite quickly.....not because I am brave.....because I wouldn't want others pointing their finger at me calling me names........these posters do really bring home the intimidation our young and old men had to deal with.......shocking........I wonder what reaction we would have this day and age if the government red or blue posted a similar poster campaign.......I think most of us would tell them to f### ##f.........
 
The best way I can describe how you can be brainwashed by what you see is going to the local flea pit (picture house) which we all did as kids and when watching a Western you cheered when the cavalry came and booed at the Indians........knowing what I know now the Indians were the good guys having their land taken.........How many kids fought in the Great War and were pressured to go and died and how many women felt guilty after pressurising the menfolk who died.......and how many men come back and thought.........was it all worth it ? while 1000's marched with pride after beating their enemy......
Strange World we live in......and we all seem to have different values each thinking.......I am right
 
John, That could have been my first thought about a campaign in a modern idiom
re signing up to go to war from ads in the media etc. being greeted with disdain from citizens of the age required. I would, however, hope that if the country was in danger of being overun that men and women would come forward to support the effort.

Crom...so true about cowboys and Indians. We were definitely brainwashed with the matinee films. On reflection and having met many First Nation people as we in Canada call them and have found them to be totally different to what I thought they would be like.
They have lost so much to immigrants over the years and putting them on reservations didn't help.
 
Another two posters and a photo of a recruiting sergeant explaining to a potential recruit on a map all about his regiment immortal fame, but not explaining how many men got wiped out.......to achieve it.....
 
Postcard Ww1

Cromwell this is not a poster and I do not know if it in any another posts but here it is.POSTCARD FROM THE GREAT WAR.
 
Aston, it is a poster from the Great War reproduced on postcards in sets of six and sold in Museums etc.
 
:angel: As I have said with the WWII Posters, I have found all these posters extraordinary and interesting. The amount of pressure put on these young men beggars belief, thanks Commie :cool:
 
Aston, My Son has the lot as he told me last week....and put them on show when we did a talk at Tamworth Castle on the Great War
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top