“I shall not easily forget those long winter nights in the front line. Darkness fell about four in the afternoon and dawn was not until eight next morning. These sixteen hours of blackness were broken by gun flashes, the gleam of star shells and punctuated by the scream of a shell or the sudden heart-stopping rattle of a machine-gun. The long hours crept by with leaden feet and sometimes it seemed as if time itself was dead.”
F. Noakes, in ‘The Distant Drum’
One can hardly imagine what living at war must be like. Most people who had to live through war agree on one point: life is never the same after war.
We shall now explore some aspects of the development of WW1.
Let’s begin by looking at the chronology of the war. Below, are two timelines that will help you analyse the main events during WW1.
https://www.theworldwar.org/explore/interactive-wwi-timeline
http://www.greatwar.co.uk/timeline/ww1-timeline.htm
Next, we will work on some aspects of life during the war.
- Start by exploring trench life through the following animation.
- Then, listen to one story from the ones provided here.
Your task is the following: as you look through the chronology, as you explore trench life as well as while listening to one soldier story of your choice, you should be taking down notes on a sheet of paper. That information will later be turned into a poster that you will post in your blog.
