THE FIRST WORLD WAR

SERIES ONE: European War, 1914-1919, The War Reserve Collection (WRA-WRE) from Cambridge University Library

Part 5: The Royal Army Medical Corps, Red Cross and other Ancillary Series

Part 6: The War at Sea and the War in the Air

Publisher's Note

The First World War:  A Documentary Record is a major microfilm project making available rare and unique sources for the study of what Professor Wilson has described as ‘the world-changing event of this century’.  Series One gives scholars access to the riches of the Cambridge War Reserve Collection and is complete in ten parts:

Part 1: The Card Catalogue Index and Manuscript Listings

Part 2: Trench Journals, Personal Narratives & Reminiscences

Part 3: Allied Propaganda of the First World War

Part 4: German Propaganda of the First World War

Part 5: The Royal Army Medical Corps, Red Cross and other Auxiliary Services

Part 6: The War at Sea and the War in the Air

Part 7: Economics, Finance and Socialism

Part 8: Russian Affairs, Bolshevism and the Eastern Front

Part 9: Peace, Versailles and the League of Nations

Part 10: The Memory of War

This collection is acknowledged to be one of the finest sources of documentation concerning the First World War in the world.

Dr J M Winter, of Pembroke College, Cambridge, is the Consultant Editor for the microfilm edition.  The emphasis is on the inclusion of materials unlikely to be held in most libraries.

The War Reserve Collection was the outcome of the efforts of Francis Jenkinson, Cambridge University Librarian, who decided at the beginning of 1915 to embark upon a comprehensive and systematic collection of all materials pertaining to the European  conflict.  He set to work at once, writing in all directions, literally from Japan to Mexico, to public offices at home and abroad, to men on every front, to English exiles and to sympathetic neutrals.

The result was a collection which documents the military campaigns from the viewpoint of the ordinary soldier as well as that of the generals, and gives full weight to financial, political and economic aspects of the war, and also to the roles of auxiliary services such as the ambulance corps, train services and communications units.  There is material on pacifism and bolshevism, and a detailed record of the propaganda war both in Europe and throughout the world.  The role of women in the war is well represented as are new aspects of warfare such as aerial combat and reconnaissance, submarine warfare and the use of tanks.  There is also much on reconstruction, Versailles, the League of Nations, and the unsatisfactory and inconclusive nature of the peace.

A flavour of the materials is given by Jenkinson’s own letters:

“Dear Sir

I see in the Morning Post reference to the Fifth Gloucester Gazette, and your name is mentioned in connexion with the poems of Lieut. F.W.Harvey.  I am making great efforts to get together a War Collection for preservation in this library, as likely to be interesting hereafter and also useful.  I have a certain number of trench magazines, etc, but I have not got this.  Can you help me get a set?  Or pass this on to some one who can and will?  So many of these publications will disappear after the War that copies ought to be housed in a few safe places.

Believe me,

Yours faithfully

FRANCIS JENKINSON

Librarian”

In May 1915 he wrote:

“An attempt is being made to form an historical collection of pamphlets, newspapers, proclamations, fly sheets, etc …, illustrative of the War”

In 1916 he wrote:

“A special effort has been made to collect, while it is still possible, such ephemeral literature arising out of the War as might hereafter be interesting and useful to students.  German propaganda literature has been accumulated chiefly from Italy, Spain, the United States, and some of the South American Republics.  Much of this is printed in Germany; but some is produced by partizans  at Genoa, Barcelona, Castellon, New York, Chicago, Shanghai, Bogatá, Medellin, Barranquilla, San José, Santiago, Curaçoa …  All serial publications, newspapers, pamphlets, posters, leaflets …, connected with the war have been welcomed, and much help has been given by kind friends, both here and abroad.”

C E Sayle’s editorial piece on the War Collection in ULC (a short periodical record of library achievements published between 1920 and 1923) highlights:

“Among the novelties which form part of the Collection may be mentioned 2 balloons received from Viscount Esher, used for the distribution of propaganda leaflets over the enemy lines; a large number of War Posters from T. Knox-Shaw MA, Lt J.G.A. North and others, some of which were obtained from hoardings in the occupied territory; postcards and letters from prisoners of war; regimental Christmas Cards; a specimen of a cheap novel in Low German, in which is inserted a sheet of printed matter containing news of officers and men in prisoner’s camps in this and other countries; Bolshevik paper money; local credit notes issued in France and Belgium and many other items. … These contributions are due entirely to the enthusiasm and energy of the Librarian, who has in most cases made a personal appeal to the donors.  We are greatly indebted to all those who have interested themselves in our work, and helped to preserve the memorials of the Great War.”

The material takes many forms.  There are original, hastily printed trench  journals still bearing the mud of the battlefield.  There are leaflets dropped into enemy cities and posters and pamphlets designed to increase morale.  There are privately printed memoirs and souvenir books recording personal experiences of combatants or recalling the shared experiences of hospitals, prison camps or troopships.  Many of these items are unique and were only preserved thanks to Jenkinson’s efforts.

Part 1:   The Card Catalogue and Manuscript Listings

The first part contains the all important card catalogue index of the collection which includes materials added up to 1990 and from Cambridge University Library’s general collections.  This is arranged alphabetically and is an important bibliographic resource for Word War I studies in its own right.  Also included is the handwritten catalogue of the War Reserve Collection organised thematically and by shelf mark (WRA - WRE).  This enables scholars to track down all of the items relating to ‘Prisoners & Atrocities’ or ‘Sport & Social Life’, for instance.  It is important to note that the following nine parts do not cover the collection in its entirety.  We have avoided commonly held books, official histories and most items published after 1925.

Part 2:   Trench Journals, Personal Narratives & Reminiscences

“There can be no doubt that [Jenkinson] rendered a great public service … and that some day the historian … will turn with avidity to the ill-printed scraps, often stained with the Flanders mud, to the pages of The Grim Old Lion’s Dare Devil’s Gazette or The Two-Asuere, and bless the man who managed to save them from the dust heap.”

C E Sayle, Cambridge University Library, 1923

Trench Journals, Personal Narratives and Reminiscences provide an immediate and personal perspective on the war.  They bring home the realities of trench warfare, and describe the experiences of infantrymen, officers, airmen, the medical corps, those at training camps, the tank corps, sappers, captured troops, soldiers on their way home and soldiers new to the front.  There is much gallows humour and many eye-witness reports of major events.  The material comes from the complete spectrum of participants.  British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian troops are most heavily represented - as one would expect - but there are also significant German, French, American, Spanish, Swedish and Polish sources and additional materials from Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Singapore, South Africa and Switzerland.

The titles are highly evocative:  The Anzac Book:  written and illustrated in Gallipoli; Anzac Bulletin;  Aussie;  La Baïonette;  Barrak;  Breath o’ the Heather;  The Camel Corps Review;  Canadian Sapper;  Chronicles of the NZEF;  Le Claque á Fond;  The Codford Wheeze;  The Dead Horse Corner Gazette  (Canadian BEF);  Deutsche Internierten-Zeitung;  Doings in German East Africa;  The Eaglet  (US Forces Magazine);  The Fag-End  (NZEF);  The Gasper;  The Iodine Chronicle (journal of No 1 Canadian Field Ambulance);  Journal des Internés Français;  Lager-Echo;  Lancashire Lads and Field Guns;  The Mudhook, incorporating the Dardanelles Dug-out Gossip;  Poison Gas;  Pulham Patrol;  The Tenedos Times:  journal of the Mediterranean destroyer flotilla;  The Whippet (a tank corps journal);  The Whizz-bang;  The Wormlet;  and  The WRAF on the Rhine.  There are also two gatherings of manuscript letters from the front and miscellaneous items such as dictionaries of trench slang.

Parts 3 & 4:  Allied Propaganda of the First World War and German Propaganda of the First World War

The international dimensions of the First World War are revealed in Parts 3 and 4 of this project which make available Allied and German propaganda printed and distributed in Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Columbia, Denmark, Ecuador, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Holland, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States and Venezuela.  The material includes cartoons, posters, newspapers, pamphlets and leaflets.

Germany spent over 100 million dollars on direct propaganda in newspapers and other publications.  The British centre for propaganda at Wellington House, London, was headed by Sir Gilbert Parker.  Much of the effort aimed at the United States before 1917.  The great battles of Verdun, the Somme and Passchendaele gave rise to tremendous outpourings on each side trying to justify the stalemate, slaughter and renewed offensives.

In this project all types of material are portrayed:  appeals to keep up the spirits of the troops; the undermining of enemy civilian and front-line morale and finally the wooing of neutrals.

There is also material on: conscription and enlistment; the violation of Belgian neutrality; claims and counter-claims about who started the war; appeals on the basis of race and attempts to win the support of Islamic states; the colonial dimensions of the war; and efforts to win the post-war end-game at Versailles.

Part 5:   The Royal Army Medical Corps, Red Cross and other Auxiliary Services

The fifth part deals with the activities of the auxiliary services during the war.  These range from field ambulances and military hospitals, through concert parties and famine relief organisations, to the work of munitions factories and railway interests in the war.  There is even a work on the role of pigeons in the war.

Some of the groups dealt with are: The Red Cross (American, British & Canadian Divisions); The Royal Army Medical Corps; The American Poets Ambulances in Italy; the Friends Ambulance Unit; Princess Louise Scottish Hospital, Glasgow; The Anglo-French-American Hospital at Neuilly-sur-Seine; the New Zealand Medical Service; The Indian Military Hospital at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton; the French Relief Fund; the Commission for the Relief of Belgium; the National Food Fund; and the YMCA.  These sources will deepen our understanding of the substantial and very valuable work performed by these services during the war and will open up many new avenues for research.

Some of the more than 600 individual booklets, souvenirs, magazines, manuscript letters and other items included are:  Records of Railway Interests in the War (including Ambulance trains, GW Railway Hospital, ships etc), London, 1914-1917; SSA 10. Notes on the work of a British Volunteer Ambulance Company with the 2nd French Army, Sheffield, 1918; Notes on the employment of women on munitions of war, London 1916; American Poets Ambulances in Italy, [New York], 1918; Tales of a field ambulance (privately printed), Southend-on-Sea, 1935; New Zealand Medical Service by A D Carbery, Auckland, 1924; G H Edington, With the 1st Lowland FA in Gallipoli, Glasgow, 1920; J R Lord, The Story of the Italian War Hospital, London, 1920; Wounded by Arnold Bennett, Wheton, 1915; The War Work of the Auxiliary Hospitals, Kendal, 1921;  and The American Women’s War relief fund:  Report of work, 1915.

Part 6:  The War at Sea and the War in the Air

The War at Sea played a substantial role in the outcome of the Great War.  Over 100 rare titles are featured in this sixth part documenting major engagements, campaigns and minor episodes in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, North Sea and elsewhere from British, French, German, Italian and Scandinavian perspectives.  Titles such as: The Battle Cruisers at the action of the Falkland Islands, W Verner, London, 1920;  Dardanelles dilemma:  the Story of the Naval Operations, London, 1935; Skagerrak! Der Ruhmestag der deutschen Flotte, Berlin, 1916; SMS Wolf, K A Nerger, Berlin, 1918; La bataille navale du Jutland by Captaine de Fregate de Parseval, Paris, 1919; La guerre navale et l’offensive, by Admiral Degouy, 2nd edition, Paris, 1917; and The Italian Navy in the World War 1915-1918, Roma, 1927.

Submarine warfare is extensively documented with items such as: A Rousseau’s Submarines and Blockade, Paris, 1917;  A Lauren’s Introduction  a l’étude del la guerre sous-marine, Paris 1921; A Gayer’s Deutschen U-Boote in ihrer kriegfuhrüng, Berlin, 4 vols, 1920-1930; G G Freiherr von Forstner’s Als U-Boots Kommandant gegen England, Wien, Berlin, 1916; R H Gibson’s German submarine war 1914-1918, London, 1931; and M. Medina’s Submarinos en el Mar Glacial, Barcelona, 1918

There is much on the experiences of merchant shipping during the war, and material on the role of Britain’s Sea Soldiers including, Merchantmen-at Arms; The British Merchants’ Service in the War by David Bone, London, 1919; “The Syren and Shipping” Mercantile War Loss Book, London, [1919]; National Service of the British Merchant Seamen by Father Hopkins, London, 1920; and Civilian Seamen in War by N Collins, Alpena, 1924.

A smaller amount of material relates to aerial warfare from Zeppelin raids and observation balloons to the fledgling Army Air Corps and the exploits of Baron von Richthofen.  Such titles include: The German air raids on Great Britain 1914-1918, by J Morris, London, [1922]; Progress of aviation in the war period by L Bairstow, London, 1919; The ideals and training of a flying officer by R W Maclennan, Toronto, 1921; and Zeppeline uber England, Gotha, 1916.

Part 7:  Economics, Finance and Socialism

In this section the economic, industrial and financial fortunes of both the Allied and Axis powers can be compared and contrasted.  Also included is material on the perceived threats of the rise of socialism and the union movement.

The economic strength of the Allies derived from their extra-European reserves of manpower, material and money.  This is borne out by a number of publications including: J W Grice’s The Resources of Empire, 1989, and  La Fête de l’Empire britannique, 1918.

Germany and Austria-Hungary could not match this second line of supply, support and finance and the longer the war dragged on the greater was the economic gap between the two sides.  E F Davies on British and German finance, 1915, and L R Gottlieb’s Financial status of the belligerents, New York, 1920, are two of the titles which chart this progress.

Some groups prospered in wartime - war contractors do not go poor, and for workers in war industries pay was relatively good, though the hours of work required were very long.  Unemployment vanished and wages rose, especially those of unskilled workers.  Nonetheless, for those in Vienna, Prague, Budapest or Berlin the war was a time of severe deprivation, well recorded in the Food supply of the Republic of Austria, Vienna, 1920.

However, J A Hutton’s The effects of the War on cotton-growing in the British Empire, 1916, and Annie Besant’s The War and its lessons, 1920, bear out the fact that the Allies were not without their problems too.

Socialism and the war is well covered in a number of ephemeral items and rare printed works reflecting the link between the rise of socialism and the financial, economic and social conditions created during the war years.  Revolution in Russia, the threat that revolution would spread throughout Europe, economic disorder and the inflationary spiral in Germany, the power vacuum left by the defeat of the Axis Powers and the problems of the peace settlement were all important factors, challenging the stability of the existing world order.

Part 8:  Russian Affairs, Bolshevism and the Eastern Front

In Part 8 Alexinsky’s La Russie et la guerre, Paris,1915, Levinson’s The tragedy of the Jews in the European war zone, Edinburgh, nd, Les Ukrainies et la guerre universelle, Lucerne, 1919, and Why is War carried on in East Galicia?, Vienna, 1919, provide a vivid picture of the devastating realities of the conflict on the Eastern front.

The social history of the Russian Revolution is well covered, with many publications from Petrograd, Moscow, Lucerne, Leipzig, Stockholm and Berlin providing detailed assessments of events such as:  A Kollantay’s, The activity of the Russian peoples commissariat for Social Welfare, London, 1919, and Message from the Petrograd Soviet, 1919.

American, British, French, Swiss, and Russian imprints cover topics such as the horrors of Bolshevism; Jewish Pogroms in Ukraine; peasant communes; social reconstruction in Russia; life in Petrograd; proletarian culture; lessons of the Russian Revolution; and the Russian plan for the League of Nations.  Arthur Ransome’s The Truth about Russia, 1919, is included as well as titles by Andreiev, Dobrynin, Gorki, Kerry, Lansbury, Lenin, Litvinov, MacDonald, Nevski, Reed, Sanders, Stepankovski, Timochenko and Williams.

Part 9:  Peace, Versailles and the League of Nations

The Peace Treaty, supposedly based on Wilson’s Fourteen Points, did not herald a new start in international affairs.  Instead, the old order reasserted its will and humiliated the losers.  The manoeuvrings of the Peace Conferences can be studied through the eyes of the lobbyists, critics and participants, with much material in Part 9 on post-war reconstruction and the creation of the League of Nations.  Titles included are: League to enforce Peace.  American Branch.  Its proposals and what they mean, Philadelphia, 1915, Délégation bulgare à la Conférence de la Paix, Paris, 1919.

These documents can be used to look at a range of issues including the failure of the League of Nations, the consequences of American isolationism, control of the mandated territories, the contribution of the Dominions and the unbalanced nature of  the peace settlement.

Part 10:  The Memory of War

Part 10 provides literary and graphic reflections on the conflict, featuring poetry, cartoons, contemporary paintings, photographs, pictures of statues, records of grave-sites and memorial tributes.  Such memories of war have now become an important research topic.

One of the most extraordinary features of the First World War was the extent to which it gave birth to a special literature of commemoration, touching a chord in public taste and popular memory.  Paul Fussell in The Great War and Modern Memory, London, 1975, asserts that a new language and a new kind of literature were written by the soldiers - on occasion bitter, wistful, sad and deeply ironic.  Was this just a continuation of the old traditions or did these writings have a higher impact on the characteristics and form of twentieth century literature?

Fussell claims that much war literature lies on the boundary between the realistic and ironic.  How is this borne out through a study of poetry, novels, memorial tributes and other writings?  How does the range of sensibilities in French and German literature fit into the Fussell’s model?  Below are some of the titles which illustrate how such qualities can be examined in detail: 

France, A. Sur la voie glorieuse, Paris, 1915

Ross, J A.  The Awakening:  A tragedy in three acts,  Sydney, 1915

Naik, D A.  India’s Ode on War,  Bombay, 1915

Seymour, Arthur. Good Bye-ee! London, 1919

The First World War dominates the history of the first half of the Twentieth Century.  The shock waves that it set off were felt long after the armistice of November 1918.  This microfilm edition of the War Reserve Collection at Cambridge University Library is a major contribution to a fuller understanding of the conflict, and it will pave the way for much new research and appraisal.

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