Patrick Gregory on how Armistice Day 2018 was commemorated across the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland. The Service of Remembrance at Westminster Abbey: Her Majesty the Queen stands with the German President, Dr Frank-Walter Steinmeier, HRH The Prince of Wales and the Dean of Westminster, The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, as [...]
On the Centenary of the Bolshevik coup, Patrick Gregory looks back at the turmoil which propelled Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's revolutionaries to power in Russia during the First World War. Statue of Lenin, founder of the Soviet state, in St Petersburg. Russia's former capital bore the name Leningrad from 1924 until the collapse of the Soviet Union [...]
100 years ago, a fight against a new German advance in Northern France was developing into a defining moment for the US Marines. The first full American-led offensive of the Great War had resulted in the capture of Cantigny in the Somme as May ended. But June opened with the Allies struggling to contain a [...]
As commemorations get underway to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Jutland, a new exhibition examining the battle has just opened at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich in London. Patrick Gregory took a tour. Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Commander-in-Chief of Britain's Grand Fleet at the Battle of Jutland in 1916 [...]
On 26 June 1918 the US Marines’ fight for Belleau Wood finally came to an end, cleared of the last pockets of German resistance which had clung on in its northernmost reaches. The battle in this obscure wood 50 miles from Paris had become a focal point of American military hopes at the time, [...]
Reviewer Andy Moreton is moved by this story of Clifford Kimber, a student from Stanford University, California, who signed up soon after the United States declared war in the spring of 1917. Clifford left his home in Palo Alto to become a volunteer ambulance driver in the 2nd Stanford Unit and in his safe [...]
The National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, has announced a major new expansion of its gallery space in the run-up to America's Centennial commemorations. It is the result of a recent and highly successful Call to Duty fundraising drive which saw a host of local institutions and benefactors heeding the museum’s call. Arthur Clifford Kimber [...]
Posted on centenarynews.com on 06 April 2017 A touring exhibition to mark the centenary of America's entry into the First World War has opened in Guildhall Yard in the City of London. 'The Doughboys 1917-1918' is the latest in the series of 'Fields of Battle-Lands of Peace' exhibitions by photographer Mike Sheil, writes Patrick Gregory. 'Fields of Battle, Lands of [...]
President Woodrow Wilson narrowly won a second term in November 1916 on a platform of 'He Kept Us out of War', reflects Patrick Gregory. President Woodrow Wilson (Library of Congress, photograph by Harris & Ewing/Wikimedia Commons) As American voters queued on 7 November 1916 to cast their ballots in their country’s elections, few of [...]
As preparations continue to mark the 2017 centenary of America’s entry into the First World War, the United States’ National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, has announced plans for a major expansion of its gallery space. The National World War I Museum & Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri - expanding for the Centenary [...]