‘Join the Army and see the world’: Campaigns beyond the Western Front
Various (2016)
This well-named compilation of short films – a mixture of military record and travelogue – was the last item in BFI’s ‘WWI: The View from the Ground’ programme and introduced by Toby Haggith from the Imperial War Museum. Haggith is very different from many presenters at BFI: he can use a microphone, his delivery is easy yet urgent, and he’s self-critical – although with less reason to be than most. On this occasion, he began with an apology for not being better prepared – he’d spent the weekend involved in ‘Battle of the Somme Centenary Tour’ events[1] and the afternoon leading up to this early Monday evening screening failing to find notes he’d made previously on the ‘Join the Army’ items. It would have been good to hear more about the showing of these films in cinemas during and shortly after World War I but an underprepared Toby Haggith is still excellent value. His command of his subject and the evident strength of his feelings about it combine to make him authoritative and engaging.
‘Join the Army’ comprised five pieces, shown in the following sequence: With the British Troops in Macedonia (1917); Heroes of Gallipoli (1920); With the Kut Relief Forces in Mesopotamia (1916); Operations of the British Expeditionary Force in East Africa (1916); Baghdad, Babylon and Baalbec – Advance of the Crusaders into Mesopotamia (1920). (The year shown in brackets after the title indicates the date of the film’s completion and/or release. The date of the action described in the films ranges from mid-1915 to 1918.) The production companies included, among others, Gaumont (for the Kut Relief film) and the Australian War Memorial (for the Gallipoli piece). The credited camera operators were Ellis Ashmead Bartlett and E Brooks (Gallipoli); Cherry Kearton (East Africa); and Ariel L Varges and Harold Jeapes (Baghdad, Babylon and Baalbec).
Some of this material seems remarkable chiefly because it exists at all but it adds up to a vivid reminder of how Britain’s Great War effort beyond the Western Front was assisted by parts of the Empire beyond Europe – not only the Australasian forces at Gallipoli but also troops and various civilian support from Africa and India. The exotic elements of the films include, as well as descriptions of various natives going about their everyday business, shots of places and architecture of biblical and classical antiquity (some of which, as Toby Haggith pointed out, have been destroyed as a result of much more recent warfare in the Near East). For a twenty-first century viewer, watching British WWI forces on these sites makes for an extraordinary collision of two historical worlds. Costas Fotopoulos supplied a highly effective live piano accompaniment to the proceedings.
3 October 2016
[1] http://www.1914.org/news/somme100-film-the-battle-of-the-somme-centenary-tour/