First World War: 1918 Voices from the BBC Archive

Authors: Sarah Kilgarriff
Publisher: BBC
Edition: 1
Publish Year: 2018
ISBN: 9781785299131

A unique collection of historic recordings in which the last brutal encounters of the war and the mixed emotions of the armistice are remembered by troops from both sides. Memorable reminiscences include an evocative portrait of poet Wilfred Owen, killed shortly before the armistice; American troops on their initiation into the horrors of battle, and reflections on the "punitive" demands of the Paris Peace conference. As the Treaty of Versailles was being drafted, the German navy decided its own fate in one final act of defiance, witnessed by a group of school children on an outing in Scapa Flow. These enduring recollections from the men who fought and the women who waited are a poignant and powerful reminder of the shocking realities of the war.