- Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can) (30 November 1874 - 24 January 1965) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. A noted statesman, orator and strategist, Churchill was also a soldier in the British Army. He has been studied to a unique extent as part of modern British and world history. - Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, MC (March 18 1893 - November 4 1918) was a British poet and soldier, regarded by many as the leading poet of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trench and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend Siegfried Sassoon and sat in stark contrast to both the public perception of war at the time, and to the confidently patriotic verse written earlier by war poets such as Rupert Brooke. - Rupert Brooke
Rupert Chawner Brooke (August 3, 1887 - April 23, 1915) was an English poet known for his idealistic "War Sonnets" written during the First World War (especially "The Soldier"), as well as for his poetry written outside of war, especially "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester" and "The Great Lover". He was also known for his boyish good looks, which prompted W. B. Yeats to describe him as "the handsomest young man in England". - Hew Strachan
Professor Hew Francis Anthony Strachan, DL, FRSE is a military historian, well known for his work on the administration of the British Army and the history of the First World War. Commissioned by Oxford University Press to write a history of the First World War to replace C.R.M.F Cruttwell's one-volume "A History of the Great War, 1914-1918", Strachan completed the first of three volumes, … - Pat Barker
Pat Barker (born May 8, 1943) is an English writer and historian. She published her first novel, "Union Street", in 1982 and has since won critical acclaim for her First World War series, the "Regeneration" trilogy, a fictionalised account of the wartime experiences of the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, the psychiatrist W. H. R. Rivers, and the fictional protagonist, Lt. Billy Prior. The final book in the trilogy, "The Ghost Road", … - John Thomas
John Thomas (1886 - 1954) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was 31 years old, and a Lance-Corporal in the 2/5th Battalion, The North Staffordshire Regiment (The Prince of Wales's), British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC. On 30 November 1917 at Fontaine, … - Isaac Rosenberg
Isaac Rosenberg (November 25, 1890 - April 1, 1918) was an English poet of the First World War who was considered to be one of the greatest of all British war poets. His "Poems from the Trenches" are recognised as some of the most outstanding written during the First World War. Some sources spell his name Rosenburg. - David Jones
David Jones (10 January 1891 - 7 October 1916) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was 25 years old, and a Sergeant in the 12th Battalion, The King's (Liverpool) Regiment, British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC. On 3 September 1916 at Guillemont, France, … - Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg, known universally as Paul von Hindenburg (October 2, 1847 - August 2, 1934) was a German field marshal and statesman. Hindenburg enjoyed a long if undistinguished career in the Prussian army, eventually retiring in 1913. He was recalled at the outbreak of the First World War, and first came to national attention, at the age of sixty-six, as the victor at Tannenberg in 1914. - Billy Bishop
Air Marshal William Avery "Billy" Bishop VC CB DSO & Bar MC DFC ED (8 February 1894 - 11 September 1956) was a Canadian First World War flying ace, officially credited with 72 victories, the highest number for a British Empire pilot. - Harry Patch
Henry "Harry" Patch (born June 17, 1898) is, at age 109, one of the last three surviving British veterans of the First World War still living in the country. He is, as of 2007, the last surviving Tommy to have served on the Western Front. Before the Great War he worked as an apprentice plumber in Bath. In the Great War, Patch was conscripted into the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. He was a private at the Third Battle of Ypres. - Rebecca West
Dame Rebecca West, DBE (December 21, 1892-March 15, 1983), whose real name was Cicely (she later changed it to "Cicily") Isabel Fairfield, was a British-Irish suffragist and writer famous for her novels, criticism, travel writing--and, at the merely personal level, for her irregular relationship with H. G. Wells. A prolific, protean author, she wrote for "The New Yorker", "The New Republic", "The Sunday Telegraph", … - Otto Dix
Otto Dix (December 2, 1891 - July 25, 1969) was a German painter and printmaker. Noted for his ruthless depictions of Weimar society and of the brutality of war, he is one of the most important artists of the "Neue Sachlichkeit" (New Objectivity). - Gordon Campbell
Vice-Admiral Gordon Campbell VC, DSO & 2 Bars, Croix de guerre avec Palmes, Legion d'Honneur (January 6, 1886 - July 3, 1953) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. Educated at Dulwich College (between 1898 and 1900), he later became a senior officer and politician. - John Monash
General Sir John Monash GCMG, KCB, VD (27 June 1865 – 8 October 1931), Australian military commander of the First World War. - Gary Sheffield
Dr Gary Sheffield is a British academic and military historian. He has published widely, especially on the First World War, and contributes to many newspapers, journals and magazines. He frequently broadcasts on television and radio. He is variously credited as "Gary Sheffield", "G. Sheffield" and "G. D. Sheffield". Sheffield is currently Professor of War Studies at University of Birmingham. - Jan Smuts
Field Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts, OM, CH, PC, ED, KC, FRS (May 24, 1870 - September 11, 1950) was a prominent South African and British Commonwealth statesman, military leader, and philosopher. In addition to various cabinet appointments, he served as Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa from 1919 until 1924 and from 1939 until 1948. He served as a British Field Marshal in both the First World War and the Second World War. - John Stewart
John Stewart was a Canadian financier and railway builder. He was born in Nedd, Assynt, Sutherland, Scotland on 4 Dec 1860; died 24 Sep 1938 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He started building and contracting with the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline, and went on to build branch lines for them in the Kootenays and Alberta. His Company Foley, Welch and Stewart constructed the PGE, Grand Trunk Pacific, and Canadian Pacific railways in BC. Unfortunately, … - Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, MC, DSO (1893-1968) was an English poet and critic of literature and art. He was born in Kirkbymoorside in North Yorkshire. His studies at the University of Leeds were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I, during which he served in France, where he received both the Military Cross and the Distinguished Service Order. During the war, Read founded with Frank Rutter the journal "Arts and Letters", … - William Robertson
Field Marshal Sir William Robert Robertson, 1st Baronet of Beaconsfield, GCB, GCMG, GCVO, DSO (29 January 1860 – 12 February 1933) was a British Field Marshal who served as Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS) from 1916 to 1918 during the First World War. He is not, as is often incorrectly stated, … - Stanley Spencer
Sir Stanley Spencer (30 June 1891 - 14 December 1959) was an English painter. - William Roberts
William (Bill) Roberts (September 29 1900 - April 30 2006) was one of only a few surviving British veterans of the First World War alive at the start of 2006. As a fourteen-year-old boy Roberts was present in Hartlepool during the Imperial German Navy's bombardment. After Roberts' father was killed in the battle of the Somme in 1916, he joined the RFC. William, who worked as an aircraft fitter, claimed to have flown with T. E. Lawrence. - Romain Rolland
Romain Rolland was a French writer. His first book was published in 1902, when he was already 36 years old. Thirteen years later, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature 1915 "as a tribute to the lofty idealism of his literary production and to the sympathy and love of truth with which he has described different types of human beings." His mind sculpted by a passion for music and discursive admiration for exceptional men, … - John Evans
Alfred John Evans (born May 1, 1889 in Newtowne, Hampshire, died September 18, 1960 in London) was a cricketer who played for Oxford University, Hampshire, Kent and England. He was also an all-round sportsman who enjoyed success in golf and racquets. In a spasmodic first-class cricket career that lasted from 1908 to 1928, Evans, a hard-hitting right-handed batsman and medium-pace bowler, played regularly only when at university. - Duncan Grant
Duncan James Corrowr Grant (21 January 1885 - 8 May 1978) was a Scottish painter and member of the Bloomsbury Group. He is a cousin of John Grant, Lord Huntingtower, being a grandson of the second Sir John Peter Grant. Grant was born in Rothiemurchus near Inverness, Scotland and studied art at the Slade School and in Italy and Paris. He was a cousin (and for some time a lover) of Lytton Strachey: through the Stracheys Duncan was introduced to the Bloomsbury Group, … - J. M. Dent
Joseph Malaby Dent (30 August 1849 - 9 May 1926) was a British book publisher who produced the Everyman's Library series. Dent was born in Darlington and after a short and unsuccessful stint as an apprentice printer he took up bookbinding. At the age of fifteen he gave a talk on James Boswell's Life of Johnson which would be the first book printed in the Everyman's Library. - Martin Middlebrook
Martin Middlebrook (born 1932) is a British military historian and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He wrote his first book "The First Day on the Somme" (1971) following a visit to the First World War battlefields of France and Belgium in 1967. This detailed study of the single worst day for the British Army remains a classic. Middlebrook gave the same single-day treatment to 21 March 1918, the opening of the German Spring Offensive, … - Albert Ball
Captain Albert Ball (1896-1917) was Britain's highest scoring profile fighter pilot during World War One. Ball, who was born in Nottingham, enlisted with the British Army upon the outbreak of war in August 1914, receiving a commission into the Sherwood Foresters. In time he sought and received a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps. - James Miller
James Miller (4 May 1890-31 July 1916) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was 26 years old, and a private in the 7th Battalion, The King's Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment, British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC. On 30/31 July 1916 at Bazentin-le-Petit, France, … - Charles Murray
Charles Murray (September 27, 1864 - April 12, 1941) was a poet who wrote in the Doric dialect of Scots. He was born and raised in Alford in north east Scotland. However he wrote much of his poetry while living in South Africa where he spent most of his working life as a successful civil engineer. His first volume, "A Handful of Heather" (1893), was privately printed and he withdrew it shortly after publication to rework many of the poems within it. - John Maxwell
General Sir John Maxwell (d. 1929) was a British Army officer. For a time he served on the western front in the first world war until he was given command of the Army in Egypt. He is mainly known for his role in defeating the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland and in pursuing the execution of the leaders of the Rising. He was later assigned to a quiet military posting in the north of England. - George Johnson
George Henry Johnson (May 1, 1894 - August 30, 2006) was, at the time of his death, California's oldest man at 112 years of age and one of the few surviving veterans of the First World War. He was drafted into the United States Army in 1917, and served in the Fourteenth Company, 154th Battalion. He did not see combat during the war (but served at Fort Greene, North Carolina and Fort Dix, New Jersey), … - Paul Berman
Paul Berman is an American author and journalist who writes on politics and literature. His articles have been published in The New Republic, The New York Times Book Review and Slate, and he is the author of several books, including "A Tale of Two Utopias" and "Terror and Liberalism." Berman received his undergraduate education from Columbia University, from which he graduated in 1971. He has reported on Nicaragua's civil wars, Mexico's elections, … - Norman Franks
Norman L. R. Franks is an English writer who specialises in aviation related topics. His works include: * "Above the Trenches", "Over the Front", and "Above the Lines", dealing with flying aces of the First World War * "Typhoon Attack", "Tempest Pilot", "Air Battle for Dunkirk" He was a consultant for the Channel 4 television series "Dogfight: The Mystery of the Red Baron". - William Taylor
William Herbert Taylor (23 June 1885 - 27 May 1959) was an English cricketer: a right-handed batsman and right-arm fast-medium bowler who played 107 times for Worcestershire between 1909 and 1925, captaining the county in 1914, 1919 and 1922. He also made three first-class appearances for HK Foster's XI. Born in Sale, Cheshire, Taylor made his debut in Worcestershire's County Championship game against Kent on 14 June 1909, … - James Webb
James Webb (January 13, 1946 - May 9, 1980) was a Scottish historian and biographer. Webb, born in Edinburgh, was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. He is remembered primarily for two works "The Occult Underground" and "The Occult Establishment". "Occult Underground" was originally titled "Flight from Reason". He also wrote an important, and somewhat debated biography of G. I. Gurdjieff, "The Harmonious Circle". - Gordon Corrigan
Gordon Corrigan MBE is a British solider and historian. Corrigan was educated at the Royal School, Armagh, and the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is formerly a regular officer in the British Army's Royal Gurkha Rifles; following his retirement in 1998, he became a freelance military historian. Author of" Mud, Blood and Poppycock", a history of the First World War which challenges a number of popular cultural beliefs about that conflict. - John Collins
John Collins VC DCM (September 10, 1880 – September 3, 1951) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was 40 years old, and an Acting Corporal in the 25th Battalion, The Royal Welch Fusiliers, British Army during the First World War when the following deed took place for which he was awarded the VC. - Philipp Scheidemann
Philipp Scheidemann (26 July 1865 - 29 November 1939) was a German Social Democratic politician, who proclaimed the Republic on 9 November 1918, and who became the first Chancellor of the Weimar Republic. Beginning his career as a journalist, Scheidemann became a Reichstag delegate for the Social Democrats in 1903, and soon rose to be one of the principal leaders of the party. - John O'Neill
John O'Neill (also spelt O'Niell) (VC, MM) (February 10, 1897 - October 16, 1942) was a Scottish recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. He was 21 years old, and a sergeant in the 2nd Battalion, The Prince of Wales's Leinster Regiment, …
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