Gallipoli

A moving and disturbing documentary about the Gallipoli campaign of WWI. In this months long battle of attrition, British, French and ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.) forces faced off against Turkish and German troops. The Turks were dug into trenches on the high ground and both sides suffered horrible casualties amidst appaling conditions. Gallipoli was the largest amphibious military operation ever attempted up to that time. It was also one of the most tragic failures experienced by the Allies during the war and was ultimately responsible for Winston Churchill losing his position as First Lord of the Admiralty.

This film was a joint Australian and Turkish production, so it does an excellent job of giving both sides of this story. This film is also available on Netflix here.

UPDATE:
The old links are broken unfortunately, but here is another Documentary about Gallipoli available on youTube (at least for now)

Christmas Truce

BBC story about the Christmas Truce of 1914, here. Featuring eyewitness accounts.

WWI Propaganda Posters.

A really nice collection of WWI propaganda posters can be found here, along with a ton of great historical information as well!

When the Tigers Broke Free

Clip from the Pink Floyd movie "The Wall."

World War I in Colour - War is pointless.

Footage of troops fighting in the trenches of WWI. More like this to follow.

World War I was the first modern global military conflict which took place in Europe between 1914 to 1918. Archaic military tactics met modern industrialised warfare for the first time, resulting casualties on a previously unimaginable scale. Men rotted in the mud, then were sent to face massed machine gun fire, modern artillary, tanks and chemical weapons. Approximately 16 million soldiers and civilians died and countless others were physically maimed or mentally scarred by the horrors of trench warfare.
Music: Clint Mansell - The Last Man

via sconicbomb 

And here is a video that shows the human toll of trench warfare. Warning this video is disturbing.

Rare Colour Footage of the Blitz

Detail of a bomb map of Westminster.

LONDON – Rare color footage of the bomb damage inflicted on London during World War II has surfaced on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Blitz. The Blitz began on September 7, 1940 and continued until May 1941.

Historian Neil Bright

"It changed the face of London. Almost 30,000 Londoners were killed, which is half the deaths nationwide. Many others went to stay with relatives and never came back. The population of the city went down considerably. Several areas which were bombed out had to be completely rebuilt."

read more here

see more video here

Dateline 1941: British Forces Invade Iran

Dateline 1941: British Forces Invade Iran

by William Jason Mathews on Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 2:51pm

"This incident brings into war a neutral and pacific country which has had no other care than the safeguarding of tranquillity and the reform of the country." - Reza Shah Pahlavi in letter to Franklin Roosevelt, 25 August 1941

During World War Two, Great Britain and the Soviet Union launched a joint invasion of the neutral Imperial State of Iran in a action named 'Operation Countenance'. Operation Countenance was conducted between August 25 and September 17, 1941, would lead to an occupation that would last until 1946, and would end the reign of Reza Shah, who is considered today, by many, to be the father of the modern Iranian nation.

Reza Shah Pahlavi

In 1933, Reza Shah had demanded the abolishment of the D'Arcey Oil concession. The concession was a 60 year contract granting extensive rights to exploit Persian oil reserves, and had resulted in the creation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC). A controlling interest in APOC had been purchased in 1913 by the British Crown at the behest of then First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. According to Kevin Myers writing in the Irish Journal, The Independent: in 1923, the Burmah Oil Company (APOC's parent corporation) secretly gave £5,000 (a huge sum at the time) to future Prime Minister Winston Churchill to lobby the British government on their behalf. Their goal was to monopolise Persian oil resources. 

The Iranian government had many complaints about the scope and transparency of APOC operations in Iran: unfair compensation, opaque accounting, and mistreatment of workers among them. But despite his previously hard-line stance, the Shah quickly gave in to British demands after Britain took the matter to the Permanent Court of International Justice at the Hague. 

The Iranians had become deeply suspicious of the perceived colonial aspirations of the British and Russian empires. But they found a willing commercial partner in Hitler's Germany, and one that was apparently willing to deal with them as equals. By 1939 Germany had become Iran's leading trade partner, and by 1941 accounted for nearly 50% of all of Iran's foreign trade. Germany was actively helping to modernize Iran. Yet, officially, Iran was a declared 'neutral' country in the World conflict.

His [Reza Shah's] foreign policy, which had consisted essentially of playing the Soviet Union off against Great Britain, failed when those two powers joined in 1941 to fight the Germans. - Encyclopedia Britannica.http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/500867/Reza-Shah-Pahlavi

Now, 8 years after the Shah had tried to nullify the D'Arcey concession, under the aegis of Churchill, Britain had invaded Iran. The BBC states about the action:

The invasion and occupation of Persia was swift and undemanding. The British units invaded Persia from their bases in Iraq, to the south of Iran. The Russians invaded from the north. Persian resistance was rapidly overwhelmed and neutralised by Soviet and British tanks and infantry. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a1130121.shtml

The proximate cause of the invasion was that Iran had refused to allow Allied troops to be deployed on Iranian territory, and had refused to deport German nationals working in Iran, though they probably numbered less than 1000, according to British Intelligence reports.

It was clear from their message of August 6 that the Persians would not meet our wishes regarding the expulsion of German agents and residents from their country, and that we should have to resort to force. The next stage was to co-ordinate our plans, diplomatic and military, with those of the Russians. - Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Volume III, The Grand Alliancehttp://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/Petroleum/iran.htm

More important was the need to safeguard materials and munitions traveling to the Soviet Republic under the U.S. Lend Lease act via the southern, Persian Gulf route. The Allies also hoped to prevent Germany from seizing, or other wise making use of, Persian oil fields. Additionally, the invasion would be a foil against Turkey, which was an Axis power during World War II.

The need to pass munitions and supplies of all kinds to the Soviet Government and the extreme difficulties of the Arctic route, together with future strategic possibilities, made it eminently desirable to open the fullest communication with Russia through Persia. The Persian oilfields were a prime war factor. An active and numerous German mission had installed itself in Teheran, and German prestige stood high.... We welcomed the opportunity of joining hands with the Russians and proposed to them a joint campaign. - Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Volume III, The Grand Alliance

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/Petroleum/iran.htm

Winston Churchill

Churchill would subsequently call Iran the 'Bridge to Victory'. But there was still one problem, what to do with the popular and decidedly anti-colonial Shah.

The 'Great' Shah had sought to modernize Iran. During his reign, Iran had built thousands of miles of highways, installed modern communications systems, established the University of Tehran, promoted European style education, increased the number of industrial operations many times over, and built the Trans-Iranian Railway. Under his government women were no longer required to wear the veil, in fact it was no longer allowed. Jews were shown respect by the regime. But during this time he had also made many enemies. He had tried to curtail foreign influence, to the detriment of the British, the Dutch, and other colonial powers, and he had alienated the Muslim clerics by rejecting Islamic tradition.

The British would see to it that his control of 'their' oil was at an end. He was 'asked' to abdicate in favor of his young son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Mohammad claimed his fathers rule on September 16, 1941. Reza Shah was forced into exile in South Africa, where the British could keep close tabs on him. He would die 3 years later, still residing in Johannesburg, at the age of 66.

This would not be the last time the British would intervene by placing Mohammad Reza Pahlavi upon the throne of Iran.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi