In the Collection

The National Portrait Gallery Collection contains 641 portraits made during the years of the Great War, and many more of people and groups involved in the conflict.

Groups

Groups of individuals connected by different activities during the First World War

Air force

During the Great War the air force were used for both reconnaissance and battle purposes, with Observation balloons becoming an equally valuable target for enemy aircraft. The Great War would see the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1916, and pilots such as Lanoe Hawker and William Avery would become celebrity heroes, after receiving the Victoria Cross for their bravery in battle.

Army

The Great War was the first modern war, with the use of machinery, tanks and trench warfare; troops dug in along the battle lines as ground was lost and gained. Some of the wars greatest losses came from these land battles, which would include The Battle of Mons, The Somme and Passchendaele. Inspired by Lord Kitchener's recruitment campaigns, and the 1916 conscription act, the British army went from a peace time volunteer force of 400,000 to approximately 4 million men serving during the Great War.

British Expeditionary Force

In 1914, Britain despatched its first round of forces to fight in Belgium and France; they were known as the British Expeditionary Force or BEF. Although the term is applicable to all the forces that fought throughout the war, it is usually reserved for those men who volunteered for the regular army before the war, taking part in the first battles.

Conscientious objectors

1916 brought the introduction of conscription with the Military Service Act, and objection became a formal stance, with thousands of men's fates decided by the Military Service Tribunal. Most were put to war work on non combatant duties at aid posts, or driving field ambulances, but many where imprisoned for total refusal to take any part in any wartime activity.

Entertainers

From the force's sweethearts singing on the frontline, to lifting spirits on the home front, wartime entertainers played a crucial role in keeping up the morale of the troops abroad and those at home. Performers would often risk their lives travelling to the front lines to perform for the serving men.

Medical services

Women would form large parts of the medical relief service, at home, and eventually on the front line, with the Voluntary Aid Detachment and International Red Cross. At home, voluntary ambulance drivers would transport the wounded from the bombing raids to safety and medical care. In the trenches cases of infection, gangrene or trench foot were high and caused major problems for the soldiers, already trying to survive in the quagmire that engulfed them.

Navy

The widespread introduction of modern communication techniques such as radio and sonar greatly changed the way Naval forces where used in the Great War. Gallipoli, on the northern bank of the Dardanelles, and Dogger Bank in the North Sea, where the location for some of the biggest navel battles of the Great War. Naval blockades nearly lost, and in turn, helped win the war, as each side attempted to stop all supplies reaching their intended destinations.

Official war artists

A group of artists chosen to produce works documenting the war for the official government scheme, run by the War Propaganda Bureau. The first artist chosen was Muirhead Bone in May 1916, followed by others such as Olive Edis, Augustus John and Stanley Spencer. Another official artist, Paul Nash, subsequently voiced objections to the scheme, and the way the WPB exercised rigid restrictions regarding artist's content.

Poets

Although Edward Marsh published the work of those today considered First World War Poets including Robert Ranke Graves and Siegfreid Sassoon, together in the 1917 anthology of Georgian Poetry, many moved in different literary circles and did not identify as part of a group. Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy were considered war poets although they had not served in the military themselves. In contrast, a majority of those considered First World War Poets, served in the trenches of the Western front and became casualties of the conflict.

Politicians

Politicians from all over the world were drawn together from initial secret talks, to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Great Britain began the war under Herbert Asquith, who led a coalition government from 1915, and was then taken over the following year by David Lloyd George and his formation of the War Cabinet.

Spies and propaganda

Led by the War Propaganda Bureau and the Secret Intelligence Service, propaganda became a part of everyday life during the Great War, with some well known intellectuals recruited into the Intelligence service. Propaganda came in many forms, from moving speeches, inspiring bravery in the face of adversary, to troop recruitment posters.

The home front

Those left at home were reminded that there was still Work of National Importance to be done, which included everything from raising funds for the war effort and buying war bonds, to farming, and the taking over of jobs left by the men who had gone to fight. Many women would work in the dangerous munitions factories, where the risk of explosion and infection from chemicals was high. People in reserved occupations such as miners and ship builders where encouraged to work even harder, as they literally fuelled the war effort.