All Stories

A Cold War era treatment of an earlier conflict, Paths of Glory engages injustice within the ranks during World War I through the efforts of a regimental commander in the French army, played by Kirk Douglas, to stem callous treatment of line troops by the French high command. Built upon class divisions, the film depicts an entrenched establishment that cannot be challenged no matter how irrational or heartless the orders from above.

Although less well known than Wings, The Dawn Patrol, and Hell’s Angels, The Eagle and the Hawk was one of the best World War I dramas of the 1930s.  Based on an original story by John Monk Saunders, who also wrote the original story for Wings, The Eagle and the Hawk focuses on the psychological aspects of wartime aerial combat.  It explores the cumulative effects on pilots and crews who fought in the skies during World War I, rather than on the romanticized heroic exploits of fighter pilots.

All Quiet on the Western Front, based on the 1929 novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque, is still considered one of the best films ever made in the war movie genre. Released in 1930, All Quiet on the Western Front was a reflection of the profound disillusionment with war in the post-World War I (WWI) era. It was the first significant anti-war movie, exploring the war’s physical and psychological impact on a generation lost to war.

Hell’s Angels, along with Wings and The Dawn Patrol, is considered one of the three great early aviation films that defined the genre. The movie featured authentic aerial combat scenes, innovative camera work, and incredible miniature effects. Upwards of 50 aircraft, nearly half actual World War I airplanes, were assembled for the production, and some 75 pilots were employed to fly the aerial sequences and pilot the camera planes. 

After Germany invaded Belgium in August 1914, a British blockade to prevent supplies reaching Germany also isolated the Belgian people. The Commission for Belgian Relief (CRB), chaired by future U.S. president Herbert Hoover, negotiated delivery of food and goods to civilians living there. Among the items was thread to Belgian lace makers. The CRB managed sales and deliveries of Belgian war lace to people in the Allied countries wishing to support the Belgian population.

With male family members at the battlefront, wounded, or killed, French peasant women used their needlework skills to maintain their livelihoods and rebuild their war-torn communities. Thousands of American women volunteers in France, especially those associated with the American Committee for a Devastated France, sponsored them.

War souvenirs are as old as warfare itself. Be they trophies of victory or personal keepsakes of combat experiences, soldiers have always saved material evidence of their wartime service. Some, if they had the skills, turned the materials of war into art.

The signature aspect of the First World War in Europe was the protracted stalemate of trench warfare. After a brief period of mobility over the battlefield in the first months of the conflict, the opposing armies settled into a long and deadly war of attrition.

World War I, also known as the Great War, engaged all the great powers of Europe, and their worldwide colonial empires, including South Africa, German East Africa, French West Africa, Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, India, Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, the West Indies, and Canada. The United States, Japan, and China also entered the conflict. More than 70 million military personnel were mobilized by all nations. The modern industrial capacity of the principal combatant countries fueled one of history’s most destructive wars. 

Mobilization of the American war effort was an immense undertaking. Decisions about everything from how to form fighting units, to manufacturing the needed equipment, to the logistics of transport and supply had to be addressed. Part of this planning was the decision to send artists to cover the war in Europe.

Eight professional illustrators, commissioned as U.S. Army officers, were embedded with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France in early 1918. Their mission was to capture the wide-ranging activities of American soldiers, including combat, with the intent of shaping popular understanding at home of the war experiences of the AEF.