5 legendary personalities who influenced the course of the First World War

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The First World War is an event that literally shook the whole world, horrifying with its indescribable scale and consequences. And, of course, as in any other bloodshed, there were leaders and heroes who saved more than one thousand people, and simply inhuman persons who killed tens and hundreds of thousands of people. Your attention is a list of five personalities who became the most iconic faces of this terrible era and whose names are still on everyone's lips.

1. Wilfred Owen

Perhaps the greatest poet of World War I, Wilfred Owen wrote impressive poetry criticizing the harsh reality of war. This was in stark contrast to the public perception of the war at the time. Owen's interest in poetry can be traced back to 1904, during a vacation in Cheshire. His early influences included Bible verses and famous romantic poets of the time, especially P. B. Shelley and John Keats. After leaving school, he worked as a teacher's assistant and taught English to children near Bordeaux, France when the war broke out in the summer of 1914. During the first months of the war, he was not involved in the conflict, but felt pressure and guilt as the war progressed. As a result, on October 21, 1915, he returned to England and volunteered for the service. By mid-1916, Owen was on the front lines in France, receiving the rank of junior lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment. Soon after, he suffered a concussion and was sent to the hospital, where he struck up a great friendship with fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon, who had a strong influence on his future work.

After treatment, Owen returned to France and was sent back to the trenches in August 1918. This marked the beginning of his most prolific period as a war poet, with iconic poems such as Anthem of Doomed Youth, Futility, Strange Encounter and Dulce et Decorum Est. In September, he captured an enemy machine-gun position during the attack and was awarded the Military Cross for his efforts, and on November 4, 1918, he was killed in action while crossing the Sambre-Oise canal. This event took place exactly one week before the signing of the armistice that ended the war.

2. Edith Cavell

An English nurse and possibly a spy, Edith Cavell became a popular figure in World War I for helping two hundred Allied soldiers flee German-occupied Belgium. After working as a governess for several years, Edith Cavell took up the nursing profession in 1896, becoming a trainee nurse at a London hospital. In 1907, Cavell was recruited by Dr. Antoine Depage to become Matrona at the Berkendael Medical Institute in Brussels, Belgium. When the war broke out in 1914, Edith was in England, but quickly returned to her institute, which was captured by the Red Cross after the German occupation of Belgium.

Carrying out her duties towards soldiers on both sides, she was part of a group that sheltered wounded British and French soldiers as well as Belgian and French civilians from the German authorities. These people were provided with false documents and then taken from occupied Belgium to the neutral Netherlands. Edith Cavell was arrested, among others, in August 1915 for harboring and helping Allied soldiers. Following her arrest, propaganda efforts on both sides portrayed Cavell as either a good nurse or an enemy operative. Edith was tried in secret and held in solitary confinement for diplomatic reasons before being sentenced to death. On October 12, 1915, she was shot.

3. Paul von Lettow-Forbeck

Known for his exceptional guerrilla warfare skills, Paul von Lettow-Forbeck was a German general and colonial administrator who commanded Germany's small African forces during World War I. Nicknamed the "Lion of Africa", he was virtually invincible in World War I and rose to fame by conquering Mozambique. Forbeck developed his skills by serving against the Boxer Rebellion in China (1900) and on an expedition to suppress the Herero and Hottentot uprising (1904-07) in South West Africa. When World War I broke out, he was appointed military commander of German East Africa, where in late 1914 he repelled a British landing in Tanzania with one-eighth of the enemy's strength.

During the war, with a total of no more than fourteen thousand people (including three thousand German and eleven thousand Askari (native African troops of Askari, which means "soldier" in Arabic), Lettov-Forbek managed to enter the battle, holding and repelling the outnumbered British, Belgian and Portuguese forces (estimated at three hundred thousand people). Known for living by the military code of chivalry, honor and respect for the enemy, Lettov-Forbeck treated his African Ascari no differently than with whites He was also the only German commander to invade British soil during the war, and after the end of the war in November 1914, he and his invincible army finally laid down their arms before the end of that month.

4. Ernest Hemingway

When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, Ernest Hemingway was in high school, and President Woodrow Wilson made sure America remained neutral in conflict. However, in April 1917 America decided to join the Allies, and Hemingway tried to enlist in the army as soon as he was eighteen years old. But he was rejected by the US Army, Navy and Marines due to poor vision in his left eye. Wanting to take part in the military action, Hemingway tried to enroll in the Red Cross, where he was admitted in December 1917, becoming an ambulance driver in Italy.

On the day he arrived in Italy, a military factory exploded and he had to carry the mutilated bodies. This was for him a premature and powerful initiation into the horrors of war. Ernest started his work in Schio, Italy as an ambulance driver. A few weeks after his arrival, when Ernest was distributing chocolate and cigarettes to Italian soldiers in the trenches near the front line, he was badly wounded by a shrapnel from an Austrian mortar shell. It should be noted that, despite this injury, he managed to carry the wounded soldier on his back to the first aid station. This earned him the Italian Silver Medal for Valor. After the war, Hemingway became a renowned writer, winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954. Hemingway's injury along the Piave River in Italy and his subsequent recovery in a Milan hospital, including his relationship with nurse Agnes von Kurowski, all inspired him to write the legendary and great novel Farewell to Arms.

5. Francis Pegamagabo

One of the highest paid soldiers in Canadian military history, Francis Pegamagabo was an accomplished marksman and scout. Known as the most effective and deadly sniper in World War I, he kills 378 Germans and captures 300 more using the much-maligned Ross rifle. A member of the First Nation, he volunteered for the Canadian Expeditionary Force shortly after the outbreak of the war. In February 1915, he was deployed overseas with the 1st Canadian Infantry Battalion and fought in the Second Battle of Ypres, where he began to build his reputation as a sniper and scout. At the Battle of the Somme in 1916, he was wounded in the left leg, but soon recovered and joined his battalion as they marched into Belgium. During these two battles, Pegamagabo transmitted messages along the front lines and was awarded the Medal of War for his valiant efforts.

In addition to his superior sniper skills, he was also rewarded for heroic, brave deeds. Francis earned the bar for his military medal by playing an important role as a liaison between units on the 1st Battalion's flank and leading reinforcements at the Second Battle of Paschendale. In 1918, his company was left almost without ammunition, but Pegamagabo withstood the fire of heavy machine guns and rifles, and, entering neutral territory, brought enough ammunition for his post to continue moving. Despite being a hero among his fellow soldiers, he was almost forgotten as soon as he returned home to Canada. And yet, he was one of the most effective snipers of the First World War.

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