Thursday, January 23, 2014

British Pathé's Free Newsreel Archive Makes 1914 Flicker to Life



Above:  Sarajevo, 28 June 1914. A postcard shows Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie descending the steps of Sarajevo's city hall to their waiting carriage.   Source: Wikimedia Commons.


Forget dusty books and muddy photographs -- with a few clicks of your mouse, you can see the newsreels that your great-grandparents once watched at their neighborhood nickelodeon.

Better still: These flicks won't cost you a nickel.  More than 90,000 newsreels are available for free viewing at the British Pathé home page, here.

British Pathé -- an English branch of the French Pathé Frêres firm that practically invented the news reel in 1908 -- has parked its entire film library online and made many classic clips downloadable, in what may be one of the most generous gestures of good will toward the general public in film history.

One might call the British Pathé Online Archive the "You Tube of Yesteryear.”

These short and digestible news films cover not only military and political events from 1910 to 1970, but also the Hollywood movie stars, pop musicians, sports heroes and fashion models of their day.

While Pathé News photographers clearly enjoyed capturing the follies and frolics of London and Paris in the pre-War years, they really had to prove their chops and personal bravery in 1914. As the machinery of war began grinding into action, Pathé photographers began travelling to war zones and cranking their cameras in the muddy, shell-torn battlefields at Liege, the Ardennes, Tannenberg, the Marnes, Ypres and Aisne.

For history students, these pictures put a human face on the war and bring its opening salvos into vivid focus -- sometimes in grisly and shocking detail.


 
 Above: German troops in Belgium


Parades, speeches, war protests, troops waving goodbye, U-boats sinking steamships, dough boys running in trenches, orphans huddled in bomb shelters, corpses strewn by the sides of roads in France, biplanes in dogfights, exploding Zeppelins -- they're all yours for the viewing, provided you have the time to watch 90,000 of them.

Viewing Guidelines


To guide school groups and amateur historians through this sometimes confusing maze of celluloid, Pathé’s home page provides an easy-to-use search engine and has divided its treasure trove into roughly chronological categories and galleries, covering the years 1890 to 2011.

As the 100th anniversary of the war approaches, writers and historians will probably be most keen to view British Pathé'sWWI – The Definitive Collection” page here. 


Unfortunately, these World War I pages are a bit of a mash-up, and they don’t always list events in the actual order of occurrence. 

For the convenience of those who want to study the events of 1914 roughly in order, then, here is an illustrated chronology of the top headlines of 1914, hyperlinked to relevant Wikipedia articles and placed side-by-side with interesting results from the Pathé search engine:

Chronology of Events in 1914



Above: Ford Assembly Line, 1913

JANUARY


January 7: First steamship passes through the Panama Canal
Newsreel: “With Only Inches to Spare” (1924) Battleship HMS Hood sails through

January 14: Henry Ford starts an assembly line for Model T automobiles

January 24: Opera Madeleine premieres in New York City
Newsreel: “Bomb The Hun Meeting at Opera House” (1914-1918)




FEBRUARY


February 1: The New York Giants and Chicago White Sox play exhibition games in England and, believe it or not,  Egypt
Newsreel: “The Giants and the White Sox” in England (1924)

Newsreels: “Charlie Chaplin
Newsreel: “Picture Houses AKA Cinemas” (1910 – 1920)

February 12: The first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is placed in Washington, D.C.

February 16: First plane flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco

February 26: HMS Britannic, sister ship to the Titanic, is launched at Belfast.
Newsreel: “Launch of HMS Britannic” (1914)
Newsreel: “Olympic and Britannic” collection of newsreels
Newsreel: “HMS Britannic 1914”- Various shots of the Britannic under construction
Newsreel: “Britannic 1914” The steamship Britannic gets a new funnel


Above: Britannic Postcard, 1914   Source: Wikimedia Commons

 

MARCH


March 14: Serbia and Turkey sign a peace accord

March 21: Theresa Weld wins U.S. Lady's Figure Skating Championship

March 22: World's first airline is launched, with flights from Tampa to St. Petersburg, FL




Original poster for the 1914 movie serial.  Source: Wikimedia Commons


APRIL


April 4: The Perils of Pauline, a silent film serial featuring Pearl White as a damsel in distress, opens in Los Angeles

April 9: The World, the Flesh, and the Devil opens at movie theatres in London

April 9: A U.S. ship crew is arrested in Mexico ("The Tampico Affair")

April 11: Playwright George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion premieres
Newswreel: “George Bernard Shaw” 1927 Inteverview

April 20: James Duffy of Canada wins the 18th Boston Marathon .  Below: Duffy training in Hamilton, Ontario, ca. 1912.




April 20: Ludlow Massacre: The Colorado National Guard, urged to break up a strike, sets fire to a tent city of 1,200 coal miners, killing at least 25, including two women and 11 children.

April 21: U.S. Naval fleet arrives at Veracruz, Mexico: Battle of Veracruz begins

April 22: George Herman “Babe” Ruth pitches his first professional baseball game
Newsreel: “Babe Ruth – Baseball Player” 1927 footage of Ruth hitting a home run

April 22: Mexico ends diplomatic relations with the United States

April 28: 181 die in a coal mine collapse at Eccles, WV




Above: A British Suffragette, ca. 1910

MAY


May 6: The British House of Lords rejects women's suffrage

May 7: The U.S. Congress establishes Mother's Day
Newsreel: “While Mother Works” (1917)

May 8: Paramount Pictures is formed


 Above: "The Sketchers" (1914) by John Singer Sargent (1856 - 1925)


May 9: President Woodrow Wilson proclaims Mother's Day

May 25: The British House of Commons passes a bill for Irish Home Rule
Newsreel: “Trouble in Ireland” (1910 – 1929)

May 29: The RMS Empress of Ireland collides in the early-morning fog with a Norwegian collier ship, the SS Storstad, and sinks in the St. Lawrence River.  Carrying 1,477 passengers, the ship is swallowed in 14 minutes. 1,012 die.




May 30: RMS Aquitania, weighing in at 45,647 tons, sails on her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York City.
Newsreel: “Aquitania” (1914) – Aquitania being towed out of her shipyard

May 30: René Thomas wins the 1914 Indianapolis 500



Above: René Thomas, Saturday 30 May 1914, at the Indianapolis 500.

JUNE


June 2: Glenn Curtiss flies his Langley Aerodrome

June 6: First airplane flight outside of sight of land (Scotland to Norway)

June 24: King Peter I of Serbia names his son Alexander the Prince Regent
Newsreel: “Engagement of Prince of Serbia” (1914-1919) Serbian royalty

June 27: Jack Johnson beats Frank Moran for World heavyweight boxing title
Newsreel: "The Noble Art - Army Boxing Part 1" (1914-1918) 



Newsreel: “Over By Christmas” (1914)



Above: A contemporary illustration of the assassination at Sarajevo.

Below: A mugshot of the assassin Gavrilo Princip, who was later identified as a member of "The Black Hand" -- a secret military society formed in 1901 by the Serbian Army. By 1914 the Black Hand was no longer operating under its original charter, but under direct control of Serbian military intelligence.


June 28: The July Crisis begins: Austria threatens Serbia with war and invasion. Russia responds by offering to back Serbia (a long-time ally).  Austrians suspect  the Russian military attache's office was aware of the assassination plot prior to June 14.

June 29:  Anti-Serb rioting breaks out in the streets of Sarajevo.  Below: Aftermath of the Sarajevo attacks.  Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons.


June 29: Jina Guseva attempts to assassinate Grigori Rasputin

June 30: Mahatma Gandhi is arrested for leading protests in India
Newsreels: Mahatma Gandhi (5 films)
Newsreel: “Gandhi” (1922) at a Congress rally in India




Above: A commemorative postage stamp, issued in 1917,  features the Archduke and Archduchess of Austria.  Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Below: A map of "The United States of Greater Austria," designed by Aurel Popovici in 1906, clearly illustrates the territorial ambitions of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his family, the Habsburg dynasty.  The Archduke was the presumptive heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary at the time of his assassination.  When Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria died on 21 November 1916, Franz Ferdinand's brother, Karl Franz Joseph, became the new emperor.





JULY


July 5: Germany offers to help Austria fight Russia

July 15: Mexican president Victoriano Huerta flees to Europe with 2 million pesos
Newsreel: “General Gullardo – Huerta’s Lieutenant” (1910-1919)

July 17: New York Giants outfielder Red Murray is knocked unconscious by lighting after catching a fly ball, ending a game that ran for 21 innings

July 18: The U.S. Army establishes the Army Air Service as a wing of its Signal Corps. The Aeronautical Division became a component of the  U.S. Army Signal Corps on 1 August 1907 and operated at Ft. Myer, VA  until 18 July 1914.  In 1913, the United States had a total of 18 pilots and 31 aircraft.

Below: The Wright Military Flyer arrives at Ft. Myer in 1908.  




July 23: Austria-Hungary issues a war ultimatum to Serbia
Newsreel: “King Peter I Mobilisation Decree” (1914)

July 26 - 28: First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, orders an armada of British warships, known as “The Grand Fleet,” to rendezvous at Scapa Flow

Newsreel: “Mr. Churchill’s Departure” 1914
Newsreel: “Ls – Winston Churchill” 1914

July 27 – 31: Great Stock Market Crisis of 1914: U.S. Secretary of Treasury William McAdoo, alarmed that Europeans are rapidly withdrawing huge sums of gold from U.S. banks, abruptly shuts down the Wall Street stock market, and keeps it closed for four months

Below: William Gibbs McAdoo, 46th Secretary of the Treasury and an "ex-officio" member of the first Federal Reserve Board (1914). 





July 28: A new dance craze called the Fox Trot begins with a show by Harry Fox and the Dolly Sisters at the New Amsterdam Theatre’s Roof Garden, New York.
Newsreel: “A Fox Trot” (1920)



July 28: Austria-Hungary triggers World War I by declaring war on Serbia
Newsreel: “World Troubles 1914-1934

July 29: Austria bombs Belgrade, Serbia

July 29: Czar Nicholas II mobilizes Russian troops on the Austrian border
Newsreel: “Russian Army” (July 29-31,1914). Soldiers depart for the front.
Newsreel: “Nicholas II” with his troops (1914)
Newsreel: “Czar with his troops” (1914-1918)

July 30: Austria and Russia announce general mobilization of troops

July 30: French troops mobilize and move to 10 km from German border
Newsreel: “Mobilisation 1914 – The Call to Arms” 1914-1918
Newsreel: “Mobilisation” (August 1914) a French crowd at the railway station
Newsreel: “Boats Requisitioned” (France 1914) Boats on the Seine used for transport

July 31: German Emperor Wilhelm II demands that Russia halt its mobilization
Newsreel: “Kaiser Wilhelm Various” (1913)
Newsreel: “The Kaiser in the Field” (1914-1918)




AUGUST


August 1: Germany declares war on Russia; the British fleet reaches Scapa Flow
Newsreels: Scapa Flow Page (29 films)

August 1-2: German infantry invade and overthrow Luxembourg

August 2: Russian troops invade Eastern Prussia

August 2: A conference at Potsdam (the Kaiser’s residence) ends

August 2: Belgium receives a German war ultimatum

August 2: Great Britain announces mobilization
Newsreel: “Various Library Stories” Britain mobilizes its troops




August 3: Belgium rejects demand for free crossing by the German Army

August 3: Germany invades Belgium, declares war on France
Newsreel: “German Troops in Belgium” 1914-1918

August 3: Great Britain declares war on Germany
Newsreel: “Crowds at Trafalgar Square and Stock Exchange” (August 1914) Londoners wait to hear declaration of war.

August 4: Germany declares war on Belgium

August 4: German troops burn the Belgian village of Battice, shooting local priests
Newsreel: "Anti-German Riots" (1914) Aftermath of attacks on German-owned shops

August 4: United States declares neutrality in World War I
Newsreel: “Wilson Walks through Belgian Ruins” 1914-1918

August 4: King Albert I becomes supreme commander of the Belgian Army
Newsreel: “King of Belgium” 1914-1918
Newsreel: “King & Queen of Belgium” 1914-1918 fly in biplane
Newsreel: “Belgium’s Mission to USA” 1914-1918

August 4: Lord Kitchener becomes the British Minister of War
Newsreels: Lord Kitchener (15 films)
Newsreel: “England Answers the Call” (1914 or 1915) Brits answer Lord Kitchener’s call to form a huge volunteer army



  
Above: A famous "Lord Kitchener Wants You" poster that later appeared in the 5 September 1914 London  Opinion magazine.  Source: Wikimedia Commons.

August 5: The U.S. and Nicaragua sign a treaty granting canal rights to the United States

August 6: Austria declares war on Russia and Serbia
Newsreel: WWI Serbia Page (11 films)

August 6: Serbia declares war on Germany

August 6: The French cavalry enter Belgium
Newsreel: “Training Cavalry Recruits” 1914-1918 

August 6: German Zeppelins bomb the city of Liege, Belgium, killing 9.  The first German Zeppelin raids on England begin several months later, in January 1915.
Newsreels: Zeppelin Page (14 films)
Newsreel: “Airship” (1914) Views from an airship in flight
Newsreel: “Tribute to General Leman” (1920) by citizens of Liege



Above: Zeppelin LZ13 Hansa (1912), one of three commercial Zeppelins that were requisitioned by the German air force in 1914  and converted into attack aircraft.  Most of Germany's Zeppelins were built by DELAG, the  Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Aktiengesellschaft (the "German Airship Travel Corporation").


August 7: The German Army occupies the city of Liege

August 7-8: French troops under Gen. Bonneau occupy Mulhouse, Alsace

August 8: Montenegro declares war on Germany


 Above: U-boat sinking a troop transport ship, by Willy Stower (1864-1931).

August 9: German submarine U-15 sinks a British cruiser

August 11: France declares war on Austria-Hungary

August 12: The Battle of Haelen, Belgium ("Battle of the Silver Helmets") begins

August 12: Great Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary

August 12: Russian troops occupy East Prussia

August 15: Germans bomb and assault Dinant, Belgium; Lt. Charles de Gaulle is injured.


 A German bombing raid (1917). Source: Wikimedia Commons.


August 15: Japan joins the side of the allies.
Newsreel: "Japan in the First World War" Page (9 films)

August 15: The Panama Canal opens

August 15: Architect Frank Lloyd Wright's living quarters at Taliesen are burned to the ground and seven people murdered there by a deranged male servant

August 16: Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata overrun Mexico

August 16: The Battle of Cer marks beginning of the Serbian Campaign



August 18: The Belgian Army withdraws to Antwerp

August 18: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson issues a "Proclamation of Neutrality"

August 19: The German Army executes 150 Belgians by firing squad;

August 19: The German fleet bombards the British coast

August 20: The German Army captures Brussels, Belgium
Newsreel: "Belgian Retreat" (1914) Belgian refugees

August 21: A French offensive begins in the Ardennes / Sambre
Newsreels: "WWI Western Front" Page (43 films)

August 25 The German Army ravages the city of Leuven

August 26-30: At the Battle of Tannenberg, Germany defeats Russia





SEPTEMBER


September 5 -12: At the First Battle of the Marne: French and British forces successfully defend Paris and wreck Germany’s Schlieffen Plan for a “lightning war” or quick victory.
Newsreel: "Battle of Marne - French Troops" (1916)

September 8: The HMS Oceanic, sister ship of the Titanic, runs aground and sinks off Scotland. First Officer Charles Lightroller (also the most senior officer to survive the Titanic sinking) was the last man off the Oceanic.
Newsreels: "Requisitioned Liners: Olympic, Britannic, Rohilla and Carmania" Page (9 films)

September 15: U.S. Marines march out of Vera Cruz, Mexico

September 15-18: At the First Battle of Aisne, Germans defeat the French

September 18: Gen. Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorf und von Hindenberg, having led the German victory at Tannenberg,  becomes commander of Germany’s Eastern Front.   

Below: Gen. Hindenburg (1847 - 1934) later became Germany's president from 1925 to 1934.  Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons.


 

September 22: A German submarine designated U-9 sinks 3 British ironclads, HMS Aboukir, HMS Cressy and HMS Hogue, the “Live Bait Squadron.”. 1,459 die

September 28 - October 9: German forces move into Antwerp, Belgium



OCTOBER


October 5: The first aerial combats of World War I take place
Newsreels: WWI Aerial Warfare Page (31 films) 
Newsreel: "Battle Planes" (1914)
Newsreel: "Home of the Penguins" (1914) Women RAF motorbike and car drivers at work

October 12: The First Battle of Ypres (Belgium) begins
Newsreels: Ypres Page (11 films)

October 15: The Battle of the Vistula River (Hindenberg’s first attempt to capture Warsaw) begins on the Eastern Front. It ends November 1 with a Russian victory.

October 29: Turkish warships storm the Black Sea

October 29 - November 2: Russia declares war on Turkey and the Ottoman Empire

October 30: An Allied offensive at Ypres (aka “Wipers") begins
Newsreel: "War Graves Ypres" (1971)

October 31: Great Britain and France declare war on Turkey





NOVEMBER


November 2 - 5: Great Britain annexes Cyprus

November 4: Vogue magazine holds its first model show, "Fashion Fete"

November 7: Japan attacks German allies at Shanghai

November 11 The Battle of Lodz (Poland) begins

November 16: The U.S. Federal Reserve System formally opens

November 17: The U.S. declares the Panama Canal Zone neutral

November 22: The city of Ypres, Belgium, is badly burned by German bombing



November 23: The U.S. Army retreats from Mexico

November 26: Battleship HMS Bulwark explodes at Sheerness Harbour, 788 die

November 28: The New York Stock Exhcange re-opens for bond trading



  Above:  Cover art for Irving Berlin's Broadway hit Watch Your Step

 

DECEMBER 


December 2: The Austrian Army occupies Belgrade, Serbia

December 5: The Italian Parliament declares the neutrality of Italy

December 8: British and German fleets battle at Falkland Islands

December 8: Irving Berlin musical Watch Your Step premieres




Above: Vernon and Irene Castle, the stars of Irving Berlin's musical Watch Your Step, demonstrate their version of the "no touch tango."  This photo is from their 1914 book Modern Dancing. In the stage production of Watch Your Step they refined and popularized the FoxtrotPhoto Source: Wikimedia Commons.
  

December 10: The French government, having evacuated in September, returns to Paris

December 12: Wall Street Crashes: The Dow Jones drops by 24 percent in one day

December 15: The Battle of Lodz ends, Russians retreat toward Moscow

December 16: German battleships bombard English ports of Hartlepool, Scarborough

December 17: Great Britain declares Egypt a protectorate



December 21: Charlie Chaplin's film Tillie's Punctured Romance debuts

December 23: Australian and New Zealand troops arrive in Cairo

December 24: German planes bomb Dover, England

December 25: British and German troops spontaneously declare a legendary one-day Christmas Truce. They meet in "No Man's Land" to talk, exchange gifts, sing carols and play a few games of football before going back to the war.
Newsreel: “Santa Claus Parade Rolls Down Broadway” (1914-1919)

December 31: The New York Yankees baseball team is purchased for $460,000




BOOKS


For book-lovers who wish there were a companion volume to go along with these British Pathé news reels, the following ebook from Project Gutenberg (also free on Amazon.com in Kindle format) may be of interest. 


The New York Times "Current History" provides an excellent collection of newspaper articles, speeches and letters that present the original propaganda (sales pitch) given to the public as events unfolded. Here, in the bombastic style of the period, the German, Austrian, French, British and Russian ministers who started the war try to explain why it had to happen.

Those who fancy something much, much more dramatic and absorbing must run, not walk, to their local library and check out Barbara Tuchman's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece The Guns of August: The Outbreak of World War I (New York: Random House, 1962), a book selected by Modern Library as “one of the 100 best nonfiction books ever written.”

President John F. Kennedy once called The Guns of August his favorite book: He said its insights helped him to avoid World War III during the Cuban Missile crisis.

Apparently one can learn something from World War I after all.



Sources


Historical Events for Year 1914