Resources: Database: World War I Archives

Resources: Database World War I

Resistance to World War I in Great Britain

More than 20,000 British men of military age refused the draft, and, as a matter of principle, many also refused the non-combatant alternative service offered to conscientious objectors, such as working in war industries or driving ambulances. More than 6,000 of these young men went to prison under very harsh conditions, as did some brave, outspoken critics of the war. This is one of the largest groups of people ever behind bars for political reasons in a Western democracy—and certainly one of the most interesting. Their number included the country’s leading investigative journalist, a future Nobel Prize-winner, more than half »

Thomas Vinciguerra, “The Truce of Christmas, 1914,” New York Times, December 25, 2005

When Europe marched to war in the summer of 1914, both sides thought the fighting would be over in a few weeks. Instead, by the close of December, World War I had already claimed close to a million lives, and it was clear the fighting would go on for a long time. Yet on Dec. 24, much of the Western Front fell silent as ordinary soldiers made temporary peace with the enemy. This was the remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914. It's estimated that about 100,000 men, mainly British and Germans, took part. In fact, the sheer magnitude of the event »

Bertrand Russell, excerpt from “The Ethics of War,” International Journal of Ethics 25 no. 2 (January 1915)

The question whether war is ever justified, and if so under what circumstances, is one which has been forcing itself upon the attention of all thoughtful men. On this question I find myself in the somewhat painful position of holding that no single one of the combatants is justified in the present war [World War I], while not taking the extreme Tolstoyan view that war is under all circumstances a crime. Opinions on such a subject as war are the outcome of feeling rather than of thought: given a man's emotional temperament, his convictions, both on war in general, and »

Antiwar World War I propaganda leaflets

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Albert Einstein, Manifesto to Europeans, 1915

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Brian E. Crim, "'We Ourselves are the War:' Understanding the Relationship between the First World War and the Holocaust" (2009)

“We Ourselves Are the War:” Understanding the Relationship between the First World War and the Holocaust Brian E. Crim, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of History, Lynchburg College Europeans from every walk of life rejoiced at the prospect of war in 1914. The “Old Order” may have blundered into a diplomatic nightmare from which there was no escape, but Europe’s bellicose populations were more interested in the end result—a great national cleansing. After nearly a century of limited engagements within the confines of the balance of power system, colonial adventures in distant lands, and the steady triumph of bourgeois materialism at home, »

Paul Fussell, on Trench warfare

Paul Fussell, University of Pennsylvania on Trenches The first thing was it smelled bad. It smelled bad because there were open latrines everywhere. There were bodies rotting everywhere. Nothing could be done about them. You could throw a shovel full of quick time on them to take some of the smell away, but the odor of the trenches was appalling. It's hard to imagine people living for years in the middle of that smell. That's what they had to endure. Then, of course, no bunks, no places to lie down when you weren't on duty; so you lay in the »

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