Monthly Archives: August 2016

BAGHDAD: THE NEXT PRIZE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

British Turn Retreat into Advantage With Sights on Baghdad, British Command Hesitates. Special to The Great War Project (28-31 August) The war in the Middle East is now focusing on Baghdad. It is a very complex picture. Here’s what it looks like. The British defense forces capitulate at Kut, on the Tigris River south of…

WAR ENGULFS MORE NATIONS

Secret Document Brings Romania into the War; Another Disastrous Miscalculation Special to The Great War Project. (24-27 August) On August 27, precisely a century ago from today, Romania enters the conflict by declaring war on Austria. It is a new war zone, created by a secret agreement between Romania and the Allied powers, giving Romania…

THE MURDEROUS WAR ACROSS AFRICA

Millions of Africans Pressed into Servitude; Disease, Exhaustion Take Their Terrible Toll Special to The Great War Project (20-23 August) Africa is also a front in the First World War: an enormous battleground stretching across the continent. For years, Europe’s great powers are busy carving up Africa into colonial territories. Britain has widespread African colonies.…

THE ENDLESS AGONY OF THE SOMME.

Germans March to Their Death; “Like a Scythe Had Mowed Them Down.” Romania Joins the War. Special to The Great War Project (16-19 August) The Battle of the Somme in northern France rages on. The two sides are locked in mad fury. Neither the British nor the Germans are capable of mounting a knock-out blow…

A GERMAN SOLDIER’S STORY

His Last Day on the Battlefield A Sense of Something Poetic, Now Gone Special to The Great War Project (12-15 August) The Battle of the Somme shows no signs of ending, even though it’s now more than six weeks old. What’s it like? What is it really like to live through this horror? There are…

THE LITTLE KNOWN BATTLE OF ROMANI

Turks Eye Second Attempt to Seize the Suez Canal Under Scorching Sun, the British Reject Ottoman Force. Special to The Great War Project (8-11 August) In early August a century ago, a little remembered battle erupts in the Sinai desert east of the Suez Canal. It takes place in an Egyptian town called Romani. It…

THE PROPAGANDA WAR AT HOME

Press Mobilized More Vigorously Than Ever. The Electrifying Arrival of the Propaganda Film. Special to The Great War Project. (4-7 August) The battle of the Somme on the Western Front rages on. “So many deaths,” writes historian Adam Hochschild, “for a sliver of earth so narrow it could barely be seen on a wall map…

TWO YEARS IN, IT’S TOTAL WAR

A Conflict Never Before Seen in Europe British Goal: Starve the Germans into Submission; It’s Working. Special to The Great War Project. (31 July-3 August) It’s now two years into this terrible war, and the toll of death is already far greater, writes historian Adam Hochschild, than during the entire Napoleonic Wars, the last great…