We look back at the First World War through the lens of the Country Life Archive.
The Country Life archive has much enlightening detail about the experience of the First World War
On January 22 2014, Country Life began a 10-part series looking at the history of the First World War as revealed by our outstanding archive.
Published weekly since 1897, the magazine was still young when Britain declared war on August 4, 1914. It had largely ignored the Boer War, but the scale of the looming conflict made the subject impossible to escape. Although Country Life never attempted to compete with the daily reportage of newspapers, its own character as a highly produced weekly magazine of catholic tastes made it ideal for providing context for the news and illustrating what papers could only describe. Professional photographs of topical places were regularly published in articles ostensibly concerned with history or culture.
Country Life doesn’t offer a rounded account of the First World War, but each issue is a complete authentic product of its time. As such, a unique authorative history of the First World War – fascinating, curious, poignant and delightful by turns – may be discovered within its pages and, for the first time, we are publishing a selection of these images and articles online.
PART V: THE WAR IN THE TRENCHES
PART VI: ADVERTISING & THE WAR
