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Demons of Deception

Below are current event articles that relate to events, topics, and people found in Demons of Deception.


The Most Loved and Hated Novel About World War I

Smithsonian.com
6/16/2015

On December 5, 1930, just over 12 years after the end of World War I, German moviegoers flocked to Berlin’s Mozart Hall to see one of Hollywood’s latest films. But during the movie, a cadre of 150 Nazi Brownshirts, nearly all too young to have fought in World War I, were led into the theater by propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Spewing anti-Semitic invective at the screen, they repeatedly shouted “Judenfilm!” as they tossed stink bombs from the balcony, threw sneezing powder in the air, and released white mice into the theater. A somewhat shocking turn of events, considering the movie was the highly anticipated adaptation of countryman Erich Maria Remarque’s novel All Quiet on the Western Front, the blockbuster novel that had transfixed the nation months earlier.

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Sunken Wrecks Of Epic WWI Naval Battle Revealed

news.sky.com
6/16/2015

They show the battered wrecks of several of the 25 warships - 14 of them British - that were blown up during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May, 1916. Among them is HMS Invincible which was torn apart by a German shell, killing more than 1,000 sailors. HMS Defence and HMS Queen Mary were also scanned during the survey.

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World War One time capsule discovered in Germany

telegraph.co.uk
11/21/2014

A hundred years after the outbreak of the First World War, builders renovating a historic castle in Germany’s Ruhr valley have found a time capsule that appears to have been left in memory of soldiers who died in the conflict.

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WWI Canadian soldiers' remains identified

cbc.ca
10/5/2014

Nearly a century after they died in battle, the remains of unidentified Canadian soldiers who fought in the First World War are still being found in Europe.
Today the Department of National Defence released the names of four who died during the Battle of Amiens in August 1918.
Their resting place was discovered in 2006 by then 14-year-old Fabien Demeusere, while digging in his back garden in Hallu, France, 120 kilometres north of Paris.

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Trench Warfare in World War I Was a Smarter Strategy Than You Realize

io9.com
9/22/2014

History remembers trench warfare as wasteful, futile, and uninspired, but in reality it was a deeply thought-out system that underwent constant revision. Here's how it worked during World War I.
Top image: A painting by Captain Kenneth Keith Forbes shows a Canadian 6-inch howitzer supporting British troops in the attack on Thiepval on 16 July 1916 during the Somme offensive. Via Canadian Artillery in Action.
It was around this time 100 years ago that the mobile battlefield along the Western Front ground to a screeching halt — a 440 mile stretch that barely moved in the ensuing four years.

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The Legend of What Actually Lived in the "No Man's Land" Between World War I's Trenches

Smithsonian.com
9/8/2014

During World War I, No Man’s Land was both an actual and a metaphorical space. It separated the front lines of the opposing armies and was perhaps the only location where enemy troops could meet without hostility. It was in No Man's Land that the spontaneous Christmas truce of December 1914 took place and where opposing troops might unofficially agree to safely remove their wounded comrades, or even sunbathe on the first days of spring.

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First World War: how Telegraph readers saw it

telegraph.co.uk
9/2/2014

Everyone knows about the horrors of life in the trenches of the First World War, but it’s only recently that the anxieties of people back home in Britain have started to be talked about.
At long last, those feelings are being aired more widely, thanks to a new anthology of letters written, at the time, to The Daily Telegraph. The message these missives impart is of a nation that was desperate to provide support, of any kind, to our brave boys fighting on just the other side of the Channel.

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The Blockbuster World War I Film that Brought Home the Traumatic Impact of War

Smithsonian.com
8/21/2014

The United States had entered the war with high hopes and dreams—aiming to make the world “safe for democracy” as President Woodrow Wilson would proclaim, but by the 1920s there were strong feelings that the U.S. should never have gotten itself involved in the byzantine affairs of the European powers. Isolationist sentiments grew across the country especially after the rejection of the Versailles Treaty by the U.S. Congress in 1920. These feelings of bitterness and disappointment found their fullest expression in the literature of the day, written by members of what has become known as the “Lost Generation,” most notably John Dos Passos, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.

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First World War centenary: how the events of August 2 1914 unfolded

telegraph.co.uk
8/2/2014

Britain went to war on August 4 1914. In the second part of a four-day series, we document the dramatic events leading up to the declaration of war as they happened, hour-by-hour.

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So Today I Learned that France built a Replica of Paris in WWI

messynessychic.com
6/11/2014

In Paris, every first Wednesday of the month at noon, without fail you can hear the eerie wail of an air raid siren from wherever you are in the city. They’ve been going since pre-World War II and have these monthly tests to make sure everything is in working order– or to serve as a spooky reminder of what life was like during wartime (that’s the theory I’m going with anyway).

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A History of the First World War in 100 Moments: ‘We desire no conquest, no dominion. The world must be made safe for democracy’

independent.co.uk
6/5/2014

A light rain was falling on the evening of 2 April 1917 as Woodrow Wilson was driven from the White House to Capitol Hill, escorted by a unit of the United States cavalry, to address a specially convened joint session of Congress. According to contemporary accounts, the 28th president looked pale and nervous. But his words betrayed not the slightest doubt or hesitancy.

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World War One: Tyne and Wear's shipbuilding prowess

bbc.com
6/4/2014

World War One is remembered as the first industrial war. A clash of furnace and factory as much as flesh and blood. The chimneys and cranes of this war machine consumed landscapes across Europe. And few were more dominated than the 12 miles of the River Tyne, from the North Sea to the west of Newcastle, devoted to building the world's ships. It is estimated more than three million tonnes of shipping were built in the yards here, on the nearby River Wear and in other north east yards, from 1914 to 1918.

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For men used to mining - fighting in trenches was seen as an escape FROM HELL

express.co.uk
6/1/2014

These days, however, Big Pit digs tourism, not coal; the party descending into the earth are American visitors. There are no working deep-mines remaining in South Wales; already in decline, the area's coalfield was annihilated in the wake of the 1984-5 Miners' Strike, the names of the closed collieries to toll like funeral bells. Mardy. Tower. Deep Navigation. Markham. Lady Windsor. How black was my valley a century ago, on the eve of the Great War, when there were a dozen collieries within sight, and another 600 coal mines across South Wales, employing 232,000 men, who hewed 57 million tons a year, a fifth of the entire output of the United Kingdom. The very earth vibrated to the metronomic percussion of thousands of subterranean men wielding the pick. Coal for the Navy. Coal for industry. Coal for locomotives. Coal for homes.

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We all know the classic First World War films - but what of flops and political embarrassments?

independent.co.uk
5/28/2014

Movie legends including Charlie Chaplin, Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg have attempted to tackle the First World War, but while some have achieved Oscars and box-office success, others have delayed peace talks and enraged renowned world leaders. One of the most famous films, A Farewell to Arms (1932), directed by Frank Borzage, has been digitally restored and is due for re-release in UK cinemas tomorrow.

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The ten men who shaped the road to war

independent.ie
5/10/2014

1 HORATIO KITCHENER As the first British troops marched whistling off to the front in autumn 1914 the cliche of the hour was: "It'll be all over by Christmas." An experienced campaigner on three continents, Horatio Kitchener from Ballylongford, Co Kerry, knew it would be a long haul. As Secretary of State for War he put together the largest volunteer army the world had ever seen, and put industrial production on an efficient war footing.

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World War One author's life-saving helmet returns to Flanders

bbc.com
5/7/2014

A helmet which saved Eric Linklater's life during World War One has returned to the battlefields of Flanders. The Orkney writer had a miraculous escape in 1918 when the tin helmet was pierced by a German bullet. The helmet, which is now displayed in the Orkney Museum, has been loaned back to the Linklater family who took it to Belgium as part of commemorations by the Black Watch regiment. BBC Scotland's Fionn McArthur has been speaking to Eric's son, Magnus Linklater.

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Secrets of Mata Hari to be revealed as MI5 files on wartime spies go online

express.co.uk
4/10/2014

The database will feature for the first time some of history’s most famous spies and the secrets in which they traded. Among the names detailed in more than 150 digitised dossiers is Dutch-born Hari, tried for causing the deaths of 50,000 soldiers by spying for German intelligence. She was arrested in February 1917 in Paris before being executed in France aged 41. The documents also include Edith Cavell, a British nurse who helped rescue Allied soldiers but was executed in war-torn Belgium. Others include Arthur Ransome, author of the children’s novel Swallows And Amazons and Sidney Reilly, a Russian-born adventurer whose exploits with the British Secret Service were the inspiration for James Bond.

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First World War shell explodes at former Ypres battlefield killing two people

express.co.uk
3/19/2014

The shell exploded at a construction area in Ypres killing two workers and injuring two others. One person died instantly while the other died on the way to hospital and authorities said an investigation was taking place into the explosion. Ypres police chief Georges Aeck said: "It's a shell that exploded with four workers there, a conventional device from World War One. "One died instantly, another on the way to the hospital."

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Help Transcribe Diaries From World War I

Smithsonian.com
3/18/2014

The National Archives currently has in its collection 1.5 million pages of handwritten diaries kept by soldiers of World War I. They're some of the most requested documents in the National Archives reading room, but until now have been accessible only to anyone who's made the trip to D.C. But now the archivisits are working to put them online, and you can help them. The project is called Operation War Diary, and it comes from a partnership between the National Archives, the citizen science initiative Zooniverse and the Imperial War Museum in the UK. The diaries have all been scanned and posted online for citizen historians to look at and transcribe. According to the project: "The war diaries contain a wealth of information of far greater interest than the army could ever have predicted. They provide unrivalled insight into daily events on the front line, and are full of fascinating detail about the decisions that were made and the activities that resulted from them."

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WW1 German soldier recalls moment he bayoneted foe to death

telegraph.co.uk
3/7/2014

Stefan Westmann was a German medical student when called up for national service in April 1914. He served as a Corporal with the 29th later as a Medical Officer. When the Nazis came to power, he emigrated to Britain and ran a successful gynaecological practice on Harley Street. The German Army of the Kaiser consisted of 800,000 conscripts. There were hardly any professional soldiers. Amongst these 800,000 men they had ten thousand who were called One Year’s Volunteers. That means mostly students and men with higher certification of education

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World War One: 10 interpretations of who started WW1

bbc.com
2/11/2014

No one nation deserves all responsibility for the outbreak of war, but Germany seems to me to deserve most. It alone had power to halt the descent to disaster at any time in July 1914 by withdrawing its "blank cheque" which offered support to Austria for its invasion of Serbia. I'm afraid I am unconvinced by the argument that Serbia was a rogue state which deserved its nemesis at Austria's hands. And I do not believe Russia wanted a European war in 1914 - its leaders knew that it would have been in a far stronger position to fight two years later, having completed its rearmament programme.

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World War One: The circus animals that helped Britain

bbc.com
11/10/2013

On the cobbled streets of industrial Sheffield an Indian elephant dutifully lumbered along. Her task was important - she had to cart munitions, machines and scrap metal around the city, a job previously done by three horses taken off to war. Lizzie - as she was known - was used to performing tricks as part of a travelling menagerie. But with the outbreak of World War One she was conscripted to help with heavy labour, fitted with a harness and sent to work at a scrap metal merchants.

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German Subs: Sunken WWI U-Boats a Bonanza for Historians

abcnew.com
6/21/2013

British archaeologists recently discovered more than 40 German U-boats sunk during World War I off the coast of England. Now they are in a race against time to learn the secrets hidden in their watery graves. On the old game show "What's My Line?" Briton Mark Dunkley might have been described with the following words: "He does what many adventurers around the world can only dream of doing." Dunkley is an underwater archeologist who dives for lost treasures. His most recent discoveries were anything if not eerie.

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8 Famous People Who Missed the Lusitania

Smithsonian.com
5/2/2013

When the First World War began, in the summer of 1914, the Lusitania was among the most glamorous and celebrated ships in the world—at one time both the largest and fastest afloat. But the British passenger liner would earn a far more tragic place in history on May 7, 1915, when it was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland, with the loss of nearly 1,200 lives.

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Rare World War I Images Found Inside Antique Camera By Photographer Anton Orlov

huffingtonpost.com
1/11/2013

A blogger passionate about historic photography techniques serendipitously found some old photos inside his newly-purchased camera. As in, World War I old. Last week, Anton Orlov of the Photo Palace blog was cleaning the Jumelle Belllieni stereoscopic camera that he'd bought at an antique store a few days prior, and found the images completely by accident. According to his blog, he opened the film chamber and saw the negatives on a stack of glass plates.

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Disturbing Pathe footage from World War One reveals devastating effects of shell shock on soldiers as they were treated in pioneering Devon hospital

dailymail.co.uk
11/8/2012

Uncontrollable shaking, terrifying nightmares and severe convulsions were among the most devastating symptoms suffered by the many First World War soldiers who suffered shell shock. By the end of the war, more than 80,000 men who had endured the horrors of battle were struggling to return to normality. And here, disturbing footage compiled by British Pathé film archivists and released to MailOnline today, brings home the terrifying reality that for many the war never really ended. At the time, most shell shock victims were treated harshly and with little sympathy as their symptoms were not understood and they were seen as a sign of weakness. But at Newton Abbott's Seale Hayne in Devon, the approach was very different due to the revolutionary approach of a doctor called Arthur Hurst, an army major, who believed he could cure every shell shock victim.

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Document Deep Dive: What Did the Zimmermann Telegram Say?

Smithsonian.com
8/21/2012

On January 17, 1917, British code breakers in Room 40, the cryptoanalysis office of Great Britain’s Naval Intelligence, intercepted a telegram from Germany. At first, they suspected the coded message was a routine communication. But, soon enough, the cryptologists found that what they held in their hands was a top-secret missive that would shift the tides of World War I. Chances are that you have studied the Zimmermann Telegram in a history class, but have you ever actually seen the coded message? German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent the diplomatic message to Heinrich von Eckardt, the German ambassador in Mexico City, instructing him to speak to the president of Mexico. He proposed that the two nations strike an alliance; if Mexico waged war against the United States, thereby distracting Americans from the conflict in Europe, Germany would lend support and help Mexico reclaim Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

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Hitler postcard found in World War I project

bbc.co.uk
5/2/2012

A previously unknown postcard sent by Adolf Hitler when he was a soldier in World War I has been uncovered in a European history project. Hitler's postcard, sent in 1916 when he was recovering from a war wound, was found in Munich, Germany. Oxford University is providing expert advice to the Europeana 1914-1918 project which runs history roadshows. When the postcard was identified, the university's Dr Stuart Lee said he "felt a shudder run through me". "I found it hard to believe that at a local event to record ordinary people's stories, I was seeing a previously unknown document in Hitler's own hand," said Dr Lee.

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Closing the Pigeon Gap

Smithsonian.com
4/17/2012

At midnight on November 12, 1870, two French balloons, inflated with highly flammable coal gas and manned by desperate volunteers, took off from a site in Monmartre, the highest point in Paris. The balloons rose from a city besieged "the Franco-Prussian War had left Paris isolated, and the city had been hastily encircled by the Prussian Army" and they did so on an unlikely mission. They carried with them several dozen pigeons, gathered from lofts across the city, that were part of a last-ditch attempt to establish two-way communication between the capital and the French provisional government in Tours, 130 miles southwest.

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The 'Pompeii' of the Western Front: Archaeologists find the bodies of 21 tragic World War One German soldiers in perfectly preserved trenches where they were buried alive by an Allied shell

dailymail.co.uk
2/10/2012

The bodies of 21 German soldiers entombed in a perfectly preserved World War One shelter have been discovered 94 years after they were killed. The men were part of a larger group of 34 who were buried alive when a huge Allied shell exploded above the tunnel in 1918, causing it to cave in. Thirteen bodies were recovered from the underground shelter, but the remaining men had to be left under a mountain of mud as it was too dangerous to retrieve them. Nearly a century later, French archaeologists stumbled upon the mass grave on the former Western Front in eastern France during excavation work for a road building project.

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End of an era as last surviving First World War veteran dies just days before her 111th birthday

dailymail.co.uk
2/8/2012

The world's last surviving First World War veteran has died - marking the end of an era in British history. Florence Green, who joined the war effort in September 1918, when she was aged just 17, passed away in her sleep at a Norfolk care home just two weeks before her 111th birthday. The great-grandmother, who lived through all but 400 days of the 20th century, signed up to the Women's Royal Air Force two months before the end of the First World War. She was the last surviving person to have seen active service in the Great War following the death of British-born sailor Claude Choules in Australia last year.

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Inside the real Birdsong tunnels: Never-before-seen images of the mines dug by British 'clay-kickers' under German lines in First World War

dailymail.co.uk
1/27/2012

Flanders fields today bears little sign of the four years of war that claimed so many thousands of lives and ravaged this small corner of the Western Front. But further down, deep below the surface there remains a constant reminder of the bravery and daring of the men who risked their lives for their country.

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Peace on the Western Front, Goodwill in No Man's Land - The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce

Smithsonian.com
12/23/2011

Even at the distance of a century, no war seems more terrible than World War I. In the four years between 1914 and 1918, it killed or wounded more than 25 million people, peculiarly horribly, and (in popular opinion, at least) for less apparent purpose than did any other war before or since. Yet there were still odd moments of joy and hope in the trenches of Flanders and France, and one of the most remarkable came during the first Christmas of the war, a few brief hours during which men from both sides on the Western Front laid down their arms, emerged from their trenches, and shared food, carols, games and comradeship.

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Sabotage in New York Harbor

Smithsonian.com
11/1/2011

All was dark and quiet on Black Tom Island in New York Harbor, not far from the Statue of Liberty, when small fires began to burn on the night of July 30, 1916. Some guards on the island sent for the Jersey City Fire Department, but others fled as quickly as they could, and for good reason: Black Tom was a major munitions depot, with several large "powder piers." That night, Johnson Barge No. 17 was packed with 50 tons of TNT, and 69 railroad freight cars were storing more than a thousand tons of ammunition, all awaiting shipment to Britain and France. Despite America's claim of neutrality in World War I, it was no secret that the United States was selling massive quantities of munitions to the British.

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Remembering Henry Johnson, the Soldier Called "Black Death"

Smithsonian.com
10/25/2011

Like hundreds of thousands of young American men, Henry Johnson returned from World War I and tried to make a life for himself in spite of what he had experienced in a strange and distant land. With dozens of bullet and shrapnel wounds, he knew he was lucky to have survived. His discharge records erroneously made no mention of his injuries, and so Johnson was denied not only a Purple Heart, but a disability allowance as well. Uneducated and in his early twenties, Henry Johnson had no expectations that he could correct the errors in his military record. He simply tried to carry on as well as a black man could in the country he had been willing to give his life for.

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Soldiers' remains found in World War I tunnel

thelocal.de
10/19/2011

Under the rich Alsatian soil lies a labyrinth of passageways buried into the Lerchenberg hills. Built nearly 100 years ago, they were used by soldiers to shelter from shelling during the Great War. The 21 soldiers were found in passageway known as Kilianstollen, inside their almost untouched living quarters.

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Gavrilo Princip's Sandwich

Smithsonian.com
9/15/2011

It was the great flash point of the 20th century, an act that set off a chain reaction of calamity: two World Wars, 80 million deaths, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, the atomic bomb. Yet it might never have happened - we're now told had Gavrilo Princip not got hungry for a sandwich.

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WWI underground: Unearthing the hidden tunnel war

bbc.co.uk
6/10/2011

Archaeologists are beginning the most detailed ever study of a Western Front battlefield, an untouched site where 28 British tunnellers lie entombed after dying during brutal underground warfare. For WWI historians, it's the "holy grail". When military historian Jeremy Banning stepped on to a patch of rough scrubland in northern France four months ago, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

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Women Spies of the Civil War

Smithsonian.com
5/9/2011

Hundreds of women served as spies during the Civil War. Here's a look at six who risked their lives in daring and unexpected ways.

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Australia's oldest man, World War I veteran Claude Choules dies at 110

perthnow.com.au
5/5/2011

WA's national treasure Claude Choules, Australia's oldest man and the world's last surviving World War I veteran, has died in Perth aged 110. Mr Choules was a man who made the best of life and devoted himself to his family and country. His fighting spirit helped him survive two world wars, and also live long enough to become the oldest man in WA and the last World War I veteran living in Australia.

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CIA recipe for invisible ink among newly released WWI-era documents

washingtonpost.com
4/19/2011

So you want to open sealed envelopes without getting caught? Here's the secret, according to one of the six oldest classified documents in possession of the Central Intelligence Agency: "Mix 5 drams copper acetol arsenate. 3 ounces acetone and add 1 pint amyl alcohol (fusil-oil). Heat in water bath - steam rising will dissolve the sealing material of its mucilage, wax or oil." But there's a warning for the intrepid spy: "Do not inhale fumes."

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Frank Buckles, last American veteran of World War I, dies at 110

latimes.com
3/1/2011

Frank Woodruff Buckles, a onetime Missouri farm boy who was the last known living American veteran of World War I, has died. He was 110. Buckles, who later spent more than three years in a Japanese POW camp as a civilian in the Philippines during World War II, died Sunday of natural causes at his home in Charles Town, W.Va., family spokesman David DeJonge said.

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Over 1,650 German mortar shells unearthed near site of First World War's Battle of Verdun

dailymail.co.uk
12/20/2010

Some 1,652 German mortar shells have been found in a small French village in the Hinterland between France and Germany - a flash point in the First World War. The village Coucy-ls-Eppes, where the shells were unearthed after a house was being constructed, is very near to the site of the Battle of Verdun, one of the major battles on the Western Front. Locals have been evacuated until Friday for safety reasons and the shells, which are almost 100 years old, will be destroyed in nearby military camps.

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Remains of once-missing WWI veteran to be interred

12/9/2010

A U.S. soldier who had been missing in action for 92 years will be buried with full military honors Thursday. On Wednesday, the Department of Defense's POW/Missing Personnel Office said the remains of Army Private Henry A. Weikel, 28, of Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania, had been identified and returned to his family for burial. Weikel will be laid to rest in Annville, Pennsylvania, the office said in a statement.

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A realistic experience of trench warfare for students

oxfordreview.com
12/1/2010

Armed with rubber grenades, wooden rifles and bayonets, about 70 Grade 10 students from Woodstock, London, Strathroy and other communities exper ienced first hand what it felt like for soldiers in the trenches of the First World War on Tuesday. The experience is nothing new to Robin Barker-James, owner of "The Trenches" farm on New Road, but the 14-and 15-year-old students were clearly overwhelmed by the experience and the prospect of going to war. "I just couldn't handle it," Daniel Vandenbr ink said. "I don't want to kill anyone. It's not worth all the lives people lost." Daniel and his friend, Kyle Dejong, agreed war would take a toll on them. "I'd probably go insane," Kyle added.

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The forgotten father of mechanized warfare

torontosun.com
11/6/2010

Remembrance Day seems appropriate to remember the remarkable story of the French officer in the Canadian army in the First World War who invented mobile mechanized warfare. Raymond Brutinel, who died in France at age 82 in 1964, altered forever the face of war. An as-yet unpublished book tells how Brutinel, a reserve officer in the French army, made a fortune in Canada in Edmonton, and when the First World War started along with Sir Clifford Sifton and others financed the formation of what was to become the 1st Motor Machine Gun Brigade, (the Emma Gees), commanded by himself.

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China's WW I Effort Draws New Attention

voanews.com
9/23/2010

World War I drew in people from around the world, including 140,000 Chinese workers who served on the Western Front. A new museum exhibition in Flanders, Belgium, highlights China's role in the war. It appears the curators have had to cancel plans to take it to China.

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Ten Inventions That Inadvertently Transformed Warfare

Smithsonian.com
9/19/2010

Bayonet: In the early 17th century, sportsmen in France and Spain adopted the practice of attaching knives to their muskets when hunting dangerous game, such as wild boar. The hunters particularly favored knives that were made in Bayonnet a small French town near the Spanish border long renowned for its quality cutlery.

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Discovered after 90 years: Diary complete with amazing paintings and drawings that bring to life the horror faced by Tommies in the WWI trenches

dailymail.co.uk
9/14/2010

A fresh insight into life in the trenches in World War One has been discovered in a series of amazing sketches and drawings found in a soldier's diary hidden away for 90 years. Lieutenant Kenneth Wootton's 120-page journal vividly brings to life the horror of major WWI battles, and even includes detailed ink drawings of tanks and battle movements.

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The Shock of War

Smithsonian.com
9/5/2010

In September 1914, at the very outset of the great war, a dreadful rumor arose. It was said that at the Battle of the Marne, east of Paris, soldiers on the front line had been discovered standing at their posts in all the dutiful military posturesbut not alive. Every normal attitude of life was imitated by these dead men, according to the patriotic serial The Times History of the War, published in 1916. The illusion was so complete that often the living would speak to the dead before they realized the true state of affairs. Asphyxia, caused by the powerful new high-explosive shells, was the cause for the phenomenonor so it was claimed.

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Americas Bloodiest Battle

AmericanHeritage.com
7/26/2010

On October 11, 1918, late in the afternoon, a platoon of American doughboys marched to the front in eastern France, passing shattered villages, forests reduced to matchsticks, and water-filled shell craters. At every step the Americans struggled to free their boots from the slopping mud. Icy wind and rain slashed at their clothing, and water poured in steady streams from the rims of their helmets, somewhat obscuring the devastation.

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Digging up chemical weapons in D.C.

latimes.com
5/9/2010

Reporting from Washington Greg Nielson pushed a joystick, and a video camera zoomed in on three men in moon suits and gas masks as they prepared to blow up a weapon of mass destruction less than five miles from the White House.

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Chinese on the Western Front?

cumberland-courier.whereilive.
3/17/2010

Chinese on the Western Front? Many Australians have grown up hearing stories from the battlefields of WW1, but Chinese men on the Western Front? How did this happen, and why? Between 1914 and 1918, the governments of France and Britain recruited thousands of Chinese labourers and transported them to Europe to help the Allied war effort, thousands died by enemy fire. A few were executed by their employers.

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Henry Allingham: Haunted by the Great War

telegraph.co.uk
7/18/2009

He was haunted by a nightmare memory of falling into a trench on the Western Front. With a clear mind, even as he reached his 113th birthday, he could recall the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, the Wright brothers' first flight two years later and seeing WG Grace bat sometime between 2003 and 2006, though he could not remember how many runs Grace scored. His experience of the trenches came was when he was looking for the remains of aircraft that had been shot down.

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Saving the Jews of Nazi France

Smithsonian.com
3/25/2009

An internationally known german novelist, Lion Feuchtwanger had been a harsh critic of Adolf Hitler since the 1920s. One of his novels, The Oppermanns, was a thinly veiled expos of Nazi brutality. He called the Fhrer's Mein Kampf a 140,000-word book with 140,000 mistakes. "The Nazis had denounced me as Enemy Number One," he once said. They also stripped him of his German citizenship and publicly burned his books.

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Cemeteries of the world: Verdun, France

www.examiner.com
3/16/2009

Travel to Verdun knowing that you will be moved by the incredible loss of life that occurred here during World War I. The city of Verdun is not the main attraction; it is the overwhelming mass of headstones that draw visitors to this quiet area in Northern France.

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