June 28, 2014, marks the 100th anniversary of the official start of World War I, sometimes called the Great War or “the war to end all wars” (a phrase attributed both to H.G. Wells and President Woodrow Wilson). The four-year conflict mobilized more than sixty-five million combatants from such diverse corners as Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey, the Russian Empire, France, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy and the United States. An estimated ten million of them died, roughly 100,000 of them Americans.
In the years since, literature and film have spawned autobiographical and fictional accounts – many of them in foreign films – to bear witness to and comprehend its horrors. They’ve shown us the technological advances at the time such as airplanes, submarines and tanks; the muck of trench warfare; and the political turmoil that redrew the globe and sowed the seeds for the Second World War.
At Word and Film today, I take readers through history using a selection of films about the war to highlight its different aspects, from its beginning (in the satirical “Oh! What a Lovely War”), going in the air and in trenches (“All Quiet on the Western Front,” pictured), and through its final onslaught (“War Horse”).