Stories from the World War I collection

The Library's collection of World War I diaries offers a glimpse into the life of Australians at war. 

‘The Armistice – agreeing to cease hostilities’ was signed between Germany, France and Britain at 5 am on the morning of 11 November.

To mark the centenary of the peace year, 1919, we take an intimate look at the lives of children during the ‘war to end all wars’.

Hurley's photographs of the western front in 1917 and the Middle East in 1918 are arresting and iconic.

In the early 1920s, an exhibition of war photographs toured Australia, attracting crowds and enthusiastic reviews. Many of the photographs had been taken by Australian servicemen and were enlarged and coloured at Colarts Studios.

Adventure, patriotism, or the call of friendship: many people who had experience in Antarctic exploration volunteered to serve in the World War I.

A century ago most Australians were swept up in the second conscription plebiscite of December 1917.

One hundred years after troops landed at Gallipoli, the Library commissioned five professional photographers to document how the people of New South Wales spent 25 April, 2015.

First hand accounts of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915.

Louis Vasco enlisted as a Sapper, or engineer, but his calling was art.

Henry Marshall was working in the Grace Brothers photographic studio in Sydney when war was declared. 

In 1916 the first statues of soldiers began appearing in Australian towns and the names of the fallen were engraved on monuments to the war dead.

George Bell was a bank officer from Port Headland, Western Australia.

During the First World War nearly 7000 ‘enemy aliens’, mainly of German and Austro-Hungarian origin, were interned in camps in Australia. The Library’s collection of papers of ‘enemy aliens’ interned in Australia during WW1 contains around 40 handwritten diaries written by internees.

After four years of war, ‘normal life’ ceased again in early 1919 as an influenza epidemic spread through the country.

In the trenches of Gallipoli several Australian soldiers made a startling archelogical discovery.

The issue of conscription – compulsory enlistment for military service, particularly for overseas service – has been and remains a contentious issue in Australian life.

They began arriving in France in late spring 1916. 

It was a six-week journey by sea from Australia to Egypt and after the excitement of enlistment, training and farewells some feelings of boredom were inevitable among the troops. 

It is estimated that over one million pairs of socks were knitted by Australian women and children during the war. 

Susan Butler, Editor of the Macquarie Dictionary explores the Digger Dialect. 

Albert William Savage was a professional photographer from Moore Park in Sydney. 

In Sydney in 1918 a shy, one-armed man from the tiny town of Gunbar was selling kisses for 5 shillings each.