Mentor: Kimberly Hamlin, Ph.D.

War. What a frightening word. While the world waits on the day when fighting ceases, death and destruction command our attention. Whispers and grumblings ever seem to be on the horizon, and for the citizens of the world going into World War One, they were unaware of their part in an extinction event. This war specifically is a complex conflict that stood as the annihilation of the “old world”, courtesy of the emergence of modern warfare. For this paper I examined archival sources in London at the Wellcome Center and The National Archives, along with digital archival materials at the National Army Museum and The Commonwealth War Graves Commission to understand the paradoxical nature of this war from a distinctly British perspective. I felt as though it was important to view this war through the British perspective as they were involved quite early on, and their story emulates that of the war-the old giving way to the new. The imperial power of the British Empire would quickly fade, thus mirroring the nature of this war as a bridge into a new era. Sources I will cover consider how the old world held its romanticism with its ceremonial significance in carrying swords into battle, and ideas of honor, valor, and glory in military might through personal accounts. Even medieval-seeming issues like the plague and dysentery still plagued the soldiers of WWI through photographs and hospital charting; even being swept off the battlefield in a wagon was a reality. Components such as these and the English high esteem for aristocracy as heads of organizations and imperialistic fervor would become lessened over time as the world faced new and deadly warfare involving machine guns with their more rapid and greater reaching bullets. Through the ages, World War One stands unique; it stands as a death of the old world meeting the prometheus of a modern age.

Explore the Project