Two articles from 1917 heaped praise upon the laureled cranium of the British war correspondent Philip Gibbs (1877 - 1962). Having written diligently for the readers of the DAILY MAIL and DAILY CHRONICLE, who were also anticipating his book THE BATTLE OF THE SOMME (1917), Gibbs was "admitted" to the VANITY FAIR "Hall of Fame" (for whatever that was worth at the time):
"He has been able to bring the wide, modern, romantic outlook to bear in his survey and analysis of fighting and the conditions of fighting"...He is a war-correspondent of a 'new dispensation', giving 'not a realistic or a melodramatic vision of war, but a naturalistic vision'".
At the close of hostilities in 1918, Philip Gibbs was filled with disgust concerning his cooperation with the censors and would begin writing NOW IT CAN BE TOLD (1920), in which he angrily names the bunglers in command and admits that he wrote lies all through the war. Written as a companion piece for "The Spirit of the War at Eton", the article gives an moving account as to how the war affected life on campus while Britain was taking such tremendous losses. Published during the closing months of the war, the following five page article is a beautifully written account, by an Old Etonian illustrating the strange atmosphere felt on the Eton campus as a result of the Great War with all it's sadness and uncertainty.
Click here if you would like to read a magazine article about World War I as it was experienced on the Harrow campus. "Yank and Aussie and Jock, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Pole, Checko-Slovak, Tommy, Indian, all from the newly arrived Brazilians to the wizened and and weather-beaten poilus wearing the seven brisques denoting four years in the furnace, knew no nationality, no difference of tongues or even of uniform."
Click here to read another article about the 1918 Armistice.
The War That Ended Peace: The Road to 1914
William Beebe is best remembered for his exploration of the oceans in a submersible craft called a "Bathysphere", however, as a younger man his study of nature brought him to war-weary Paris.
"Four devastating years of war had altered the city and made quite an affect on the young naturalist. His astute and very moving observations were recorded in this essay, "A Naturalist in Paris".
This link displays the first six pages; the remaining seven pages are available upon request. Attached is one American journalist's view of the Great War as it is waged on the home-front by the British people. He was impressed with the resolve of the population to win the war and he found that everyone, regardless of age or infirmity, was pursuing war work with a surprising earnestness.
"The outward evidences of a nation at war are plentiful in London. Soldiers are everywhere. Columns of armed men and columns of recruits still in civilian clothes march through the streets. Drilling goes on in the parks and other places all day and every day."
Read about how the First World War effected life on the campus of Eton College. | 
