Propaganda And The Great War

Coming into the War Museum's section on the First World War, this is a sculpture that always makes me stop. It's a sculpture depicting a possibly apocryphal account from the war about Germans crucifying a Canadian soldier on a barn door. Stark and brutal, it's a powerful work.

This area is about propaganda of that war, and one of the elements at play here is the story of the Lusitania. It has been a century now since the sinking of that passenger liner (which included among its passengers numerous Canadians), and there are artifacts on display here at the Museum. That includes a porthole taken from the ship decades later, as well as medals from both the Germans and the British linked to the sinking. Around Remembrance Day I was reading Erik Larson's book Dead Wake, which is an account of the sinking, so it seemed appropriate to photograph this.

There is a walk through section further on, a recreation of the trenches as they would have been during that war.

There were also artifacts on display one could touch, with staffers explaining their uses. Since it was Remembrance Day, a great many local schools organized field trips for their students that afternoon, and seeing items like weapons, canteen kits, helmets, and the like was a good hands on way for students to get some exposure to the history.

These two paintings, depicting aerial warfare in that war, have always caught my eye for their visual style.

I just like the lighting of this last shot, which mixes art and military vehicle. Tomorrow we move on to the Second World War.