WWI [was Re: [Leica] Embedded Brit journalists will receive Iraq]

[Chris Chen <furcafe@yahoo.com>]

I don't know whether they're "misconceptions" so much
as the fact that our "modern memory" (to quote
Fussell) of the Great War is colored by the
trenchantly anti-war art & literature that came out
it.  HOwever, I agree that many people today seem to
forget how much popular support there was for fighting
WWI (in the same way that people forget how much
dissension & division existed during WWII).

As to photography during WWI, to bring things sort of
back on-topic, were there many cameras & films
available @ the time that could have captured
battlefield action?  I'm thinking that much of the
available equipment was too big & cumbersome & the
films (or plates) too slow.

Chris
- --------------

Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 14:59:56 -0500
From: Johnny Deadman <lists@johnbrownlow.com>
Subject: Re: [Leica] Embedded Brit journalists will
receive Iraq 
Campaignmedal
Message-ID:
<04DE61F3-6704-11D8-B6F3-000393AC0E1A@johnbrownlow.com>
References:
<LNBBLBNFHNEHGFKFMALGIEPJJOAB.timatherton@theedge.ca>

I think there are plenty of misconceptions about WWI.
I think we will 
see some revisionism before the centenary. The
slaughter was 
undoubtedly horrific and the mode of warfare,
transitional between 
cavalry and mechanics, diabolical, but it wasn't
senseless nor, 
arguably, unnecessary. A war would have come sooner or
later once the 
immoveable object of the British Empire met the
irresistible force of 
German expansionism. Sarajevo lit the powder keg but
the sparks would 
have kept on coming.

After WWI the cry that went up was for social reform
at home, and for 
an international political settlement that would
prevent another war 
like it. The voices that said the whole thing had been
a terrible 
mistake were almost silent, as far as I am aware from
my own reading.

As for film and photography of WWI, there is actually
lots of archive 
footage of horrible things behind the lines (I've seen
most of it) but 
little battle footage for the simple reason that
cameras generally 
required hand winding and to poke your head above the
parapet during 
action would be suicide. There are fragments of battle
footage shot 
from just above the trench wall but not much. Most of
the rest of it is 
staged.

I do think people were aware, by late 1916 at least,
of the level of 
casualties simply because so many families had lost
sons, husbands and 
fathers. There continued to be an extremely strong
belief, in GB 
anyway, that the war was justified and that it was a
man's duty to go 
and fight. It's not the case that there was a sudden
realization 
afterwards of how many people had died.

On Feb 24, 2004, at 9:47 AM, Tim Atherton wrote:

>
>> As to WWI, reporting and photography were heavily
censored; had they 
>> not
>> been, and had folks at home been aware of the
utterly senseless,
>> unnecessary slaughter of that particular war, it is
likely there 
would
>> have been major resistance to the war in the Allied
nations.
>
> What's interesting about WWI is that the work of the
official "War
> Artists" - especially British & Canadian, while
generally not seen 
> until
> somewhat later, probably gave (and still gives) a
much more accurate 
> account
> of what was happening and the reality of the
situation "in the 
> trenches"
>
> tim

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools
- --
To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html