Battlefields Exhibition Materials from RJ Tarr at www.activehistory.co.uk / 1

Instructions to teachers Each character card consists of two parts: a. The numbered, first cell (this should be given to students; it outlines pre-war experiences and should be handed to students) and b. the other two columns (this should be on display, and outlines war and post-war experiences and provides a photo).

With all “character cards” handed out and on display, students have to match up their half of the card to the correct character. It’s a good way of encouraging them to read all about the people involved.

1. Before the war this Adolf Hitler young Austrian had been In 1918 he was gassed during a trying – and failing battle with the British. When miserably - to set himself Germany surrendered he was still up as an artist in Vienna, partially blinded and was thrown Austria. He joined the into a deep depression. He German army in 1914 as channelled his anger into politics soon as war broke out, and and became leader of the German rose to the rank of National Socialist Party and corporal. He won the Iron dictator of Germany. He committed Cross twice for bravery. suicide in 1945.

2. When war broke out in 1914 this young man – a Robert Graves grandson of the German In 1917 he was shot through the historian Leopold von Ranke back and was left for dead. He - was at Cambridge survived the war, but was university studying emotionally damaged; he divorced Classics. He joined the his wife, emigrated to Majorca, British army and became a and wrote one of the greatest respected Officer. Whilst on memoirs of the war: “Goodbye to service he wrote some all that”. He died in 1985, a famous war poetry and famous author but suffering from became friends with nightmares until the last. Siegfried Sassoon.

3. This man was a famous Guillaume Apollinaire poet when the war broke He surprised many of his artistic out - the words on the friends by patriotically joining page were arranged in the war in 1914. He was injured shapes and patterns rather in the temple by shrapnel in than just lines. He was a 1916. He is believed to have friend of Picasso and was coined the term "surrealism" in once under suspicion of describing the 1917 ballet stealing the Mona Lisa Parade. He died of influenza on when it disappeared in 9th November 1918: just two days 1911! before the Armistice. Battlefields Exhibition Materials from RJ Tarr at www.activehistory.co.uk / 2

4. At the outbreak of the Siegfried Sassoon war this young man was an Nicknamed “mad Jack” by his unsuccessful poet from a soldiers, he was a brave officer, wealthy family. He joined single-handedly capturing a the army immediately, but German trench during the Battle broke his arm whilst riding of the Somme. He was famous for and didn’t get to France his bitter war poetry. until 1915, by which time Increasingly reckless, he was his younger brother had invalided out of action. After the already been killed. war he was a celebrated writer and poet. He died in 1967.

5. He joined the army in 1914, like many young men Benjamin Tarr of his age, to avoid the He fought in a number of boredom of working-class campaigns in france after 1914, factory life. He proudly but was killed aged 30 in the posed in his uniform so final stage of the war during the that his pregnant wife last great German Offensive of would have something to May 1918. He is buried near remember him by till he Bethune on the Western Front. got home.

6. Born in South Africa, JRR Tolkein the son of a British civil He fought in the Battle of the servant, he was raised in Somme, seeing combat at Thiepval Birmingham, England. He Ridge. He was invalided out in studied English literature 1916 suffering from trench fever. at Oxford University and By 1918 all of his closest friends graduated with first-class were dead. He went on to write honours in 1915. He The Hobbit and The Lord of the married in 1916 and then Rings, which both have numerous joined the army, training references to the horrors of the at Cannock Chase. trenches. He died in 1973. Fritz Haber 7. In 1909 this young During the war Haber’s chemist in Karlsruhe, discoveries not only helped Germany, found a way to German food production; in create ammonia by addition he personally developed pressurising nitrogen. This his work to produce poison gas. allowed for the creation of His wife committed suicide due to industrial fertilisers which his enthusiasm for this new led to a rapid increase in weapon. It is difficult to food production. determine whether Haber cost more lives than he saved. Battlefields Exhibition Materials from RJ Tarr at www.activehistory.co.uk / 3

8. He was born in Canada Harold Gillies in 1882. He moved to During the war he pioneered London where his medical facial reconstructive for soldiers studies were undertaken at suffering terrible disfigurement Cambridge University and as a result of the war. He St. Bartholomew's Hospital established a hospital at Sidcup, London. He married, had Kent, which is now famous as the four children, and became birthplace of modern plastic a semi-professional golfer. surgery. He died in 1960.

Enoch Morrel He was caught asleep on guard 9. Before the war he was duty and sentenced to be shot. a warehouse man in the However, he was given the chance fruit and vegetable market to go out under fire to bring in the Bull Ring, back casualties rather than be Birmingham. At the executed. He managed to bring outbreak of war he was in someone back and so got his the Territorial Army, age reprieve. After the war he 17, so went straight to married and 3 sons and 4 Belgium. daughters, one of whom became Mr. Albiston’s mother. He died in 1934.

10. He was a draper before Frederick Laughton the war and came from He was was promoted to the rank Scotland. He joined the of lieutenant. After the war he Gordon Highlanders, but as was stationed in Cologne in they weren't going to Germany in the army of France and he wanted to occupation and was in a cavalry fight he joined the regiment. Once he left the army Machine gun corps and a few years later, he went back went to the trenches to his original occupation. He instead. was Mrs. Patrick’s grandfather.

Daniel Griffiths 11. He came from Bewdley He was blown up in the trenches in Worcestershire, England, in northern France in 1916. His leaving behind a young wife had to support their young wife and a son who was son until he became old enough to just one year old. go to work at the age of fourteen. He grew up to become Mrs. Barry’s father. Battlefields Exhibition Materials from RJ Tarr at www.activehistory.co.uk / 4

12. He joined the Navy Ernest Baker-Wells after being raised in a He was eventually rescued from Navy orphanage. His ship the sea by a fishing boat and was hit by a German U- survived the war, but suffered Boat in 1914 and he swam from post-traumatic stress from the sinking vessel to disorder. He never properly another ship, which was adjusted to civilian life, earning sunk in its turn. He a little money from playing piano clambered on a lifeboat but in pubs until his early death. was ordered out because it His sister’s grandson is Mr. was overcrowded. Jones. Stuart Fletcher He served with the Royal Army 13. He was born in Medical Corps as a private in Heanor, Derbyshire on 19 Mesopotamia until he was May 1898. His father ran discharged in November 1919. a lace firm. He Whilst there he took a number of left school to enlist and unique photographs which are now was sent to Mesopotamia as housed in the Imperial War a stretcher bearer. Museum. After the war he went to work in the family lace firm. He was Mrs. Perrussel’s grandfather. William John Shepherd 14. He was born in In 1915 he joined the Canadian Newbury, Berkshire on 29th Overseas Expeditionary Force and May 1886. He had one went to France, where his skills brother and two sisters. He as a butcher made him invaluable moved to Ditchingham in for providing food to the troops. Norfolk and then decided to He married in 1917 and moved emigrate to Canada in back to England after the war. He had two children: Peter, who 1910. He was a butcher by trade. died in WW2, and Mary, who became Mr. Hunt’s grandmother. He died in 1927.

15. She was born in 1905 in a small village near Olga Cavalli Venice; at that time her All her family had to flee by village was a few train to Calabria to be far away kilometers away from the from the battle zone; when she Austrian border. As the came back more than a year later Austrian-Hungarian empire the entire village had been was an ally of Germany, destroyed. Her parents recovered this Italian region was their stove from the ruins; that was the only thing they had left. attacked by Austrians when Italy joined the war on the Olga was Mr. Cavalli’s side of the allies in 1917. grandmother. Battlefields Exhibition Materials from RJ Tarr at www.activehistory.co.uk / 5

16. Before the war, this Mata hari Dutch entertainer had During the war she became a spy found fame in france by for france but was then arrested developing a sexy dance by the french for being a double routine in Paris clubs. She agent working for the germans. had affairs with a number She was executed by firing squad, of powerful people although historians since think including the crown prince she was probably “framed” by the of Germany. Germans.

17. This middle-class lady Edith Cavell was the daughter of an She helped 200 Allied soldiers English vicar and trained escape from German-occupied as a governness, then as a Belgium during World War I, for nurse. She moved to which she was arrested. She was Belgium in 1910 to take court-martialled and found guilty charge of a number of of treason. Sentenced to death, hospitals and schools. On she was shot by firing squad. She the outbreak of war she received worldwide sympathetic joined the Red Cross. press coverage.

18. The third daughter of Maria Bochkareva a peasant family, she was In 1914 she joined the Russian born in Tomsk, Siberia in Army. Although the men laughed 1889. Badly beaten by her at having a woman in their alcoholic father, she left regiment, she soon gained their home at fifteen and respect in battle and eventually eventually became foreman formed the “Women’s Death of a team of 25 male Battalion” of 300 women. After workers. She married twice the Russian revolution she was but left her husbands after captured by the Bolsheviks and they beat her. executed. Edith Wharton 19. This American writer Throughout the war she worked wrote a number of popular tirelessly in charitable efforts and humorous short stories for refugees fleeing the Front and was a friend of the Line and in 1916 was named a writer Henry James. After Chevalier of the Legion of Honor her husband became in recognition of her work. In mentally ill she moved 1921 her novel “The Age of away to France, where she Innocence” made her the first was based when war broke woman to be awarded the Pullitzer out in 1914. Prize for literature. She died in 1937. Battlefields Exhibition Materials from RJ Tarr at www.activehistory.co.uk / 6

20. She was a French Marion Crandell language instructor at St. In March 1918, a German Katharine's School in artillery shell hit the hostel Davenport, Iowa. She left where she was working as a YMCA for Paris to aid French canteen worker. Marion Crandell soldiers during World War was the first American woman I. Since she had been killed while in active service in educated in Paris, she felt World War I. She was buried in a that her knowledge of French hospital cemetery in St. Menehould. Later, her remains France and the language would be extremely helpful. were transferred to the Meuse Argonne American Cemetery.

21. She was born into a Mary Borden wealthy Chicago family. She She used her own money to set up attended Vassar College, a hospital close to the Front in graduating with a B.A. in 1915. There she met and later 1907. In 1908 she married married a Brigadier General. She George Douglas Turner, wrote some famous poetry about with whom she had three the war including “The Song of daughters. She was living the Mud”. She stayed in France in England in 1914 at the and fought with the Resistance in outbreak of the war. WW2. She died in 1968.

22. She was born in Flora Sandes Yorkshire in 1876. As a In August 1914 she went to child she enjoyed riding Serbia, joined their army and and shooting and said that rose to the rank of Sergeant she wished she had been Major: the only British woman to born a boy. She learned to officially enrol as a soldier in drive a French racing car. World War I. In 1916 she was She volunteered to become seriously wounded by a grenade in a nurse on the outbreak of hand to hand combat. She married war, but was rejected due a Serbian General, was captured to a lack of by the Germans during World War qualifications. Two, and died in 1955. Vera Brittain 23. Born in Newcastle to a é middle-class family, she Her fianc and her brother were was studying English both killed during the war. She Literature at Oxford became an active pacifist after University when the war the war, publishing a famous broke out. She suspended memoir – “Testament of Youth”. her studies and her She died in 1970 and left planned marriage to instructions for her ashes to be scattered on the grave of her volunteer as a nurse at the Front and headed out brother. Her daughter is the to France in 1915. former Labour cabinet minister, Shirley Williams. Battlefields Exhibition Materials from RJ Tarr at www.activehistory.co.uk / 7

24. She was born in India, Elsie Inglis the daughter of a British She set up the Scottish Women's civil servant. She was Hospitals for Foreign Service raised in Edinburgh, where Committee, which sent teams to she was one of the first France, Serbia and Russia. In women to attend university 1915 she was captured in Serbia and qualify as a doctor. and sent home but promptly She set up her own headed out to Russia. She was hospital to care for poor forced to return to the United women. Kingdom suffering from cancer. She died in 1917.

25. Born in Turbot Township, Milton, in Helen Fairchild central Pennsylvania, she After arriving in France, she graduated from volunteered for front-line duty at Pennsylvania Hospital in a casualty clearing station at the 1913. Along with 63 other Third Battle of Ypres, where she nurses, she volunteered for was exposed to heavy shelling the American Expeditionary including the use of mustard gas. Force to help care for Suffering from an ulcer and wounded soldiers after the weakened by poison gas, she died United States entered World after surgery in Ypres in 1918. War I in 1917.

26. The daughter of the Christabel Pankhurst leader of the suffragette Upon the outbreak of war she movement - which tried to suspended her political activities get women the vote - she and instead campaigned for women was well-known before the to be allowed to serve in the war for her vicious attacks army and in the factories. After upon male chauvinists. She the war she unsuccessfully tried was convicted on several to get elected as a Member of occasions for physical Parliament. She moved to the assault. United States, where she died in 1958.

Marina Yurlova 27. She was born in a In 1915 she was wounded while small village in the blasting bridges across the Erivan Caucasus mountains in River. After being treated at the 1901. When she was Red Cross hospital in Baku, fourteen years old she Yurlova returned to the Eastern joined the Russian Army. Front. In 1916 she was wounded At first she worked as a again and suffered a complete groom in Armenia but after mental breakdown. In 1919 she two months was sent to was released and emigrated to the fight the Turkish Army. United States, where she published two autobiographies.