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  • Military Olympics

    Video

    This film shows the opening march-past of athletes in the Inter-Allied Games held on the outskirts of Paris from 22 June to 6 July 1919. Watch for the cameramen on the left of the frame.

    Competitive events were put on in 22 sports, with 1,500 men from 19 countries competing. Look out for the New Zealanders with their distinctive silver fern – and team coach Sergeant EJ Benjamin carries the New Zealand flag.

    With a team of 300 competitors, the United States dominated and placed first in 19 of the 22 events. The French, Australians and Canadians all entered sizeable teams. New Zealand contributed five athletes in track and field and an eight, four and single sculler in the rowing. One athlete represented for Guatemala.

    New Zealand did well, coming third in the overall rankings in the track and field (United States 92 points, France 12 points, New Zealand 6 points, Australia 5 points). The New Zealand rowing team also did exceptionally well with Darcy Hadfield winning the international single sculls and the fours and eights both gaining third place.

  • Te Hokinga Mai Te Hokowhitu-a-Tū

    Video

    Look at the smiling soldiers, jam-packed along the ship’s rail, the Māori Pioneer Battalion is home at last.

    After a 36-day journey from Liverpool, the SS Westmoreland arrived in Auckland harbour on the evening of Saturday 5 April 1919. It berthed the following morning and 1,033 personnel disembarked to great fanfare – guns fired a salute, all the ships in the harbour sounded their sirens and horns, three bands played patriotic music and dignitaries greeted the men with brief speeches.

    Renowned Te Arawa leader Mita Taupopoki can be seen with his distinctive tāniko bonnet towards the end of the film clip. One of the haka being performed is the Ngāpuhi war cry “Ka eke te wīwī, ka eke te wāwā” – complete with the leaping in unison and brandishing of taiaha and tewhatewha fighting staffs.

    Following the reception at the wharf the Battalion marched to a pōwhiri at Auckland Domain. Tribes from all over the country gathered to welcome the men home, along with thousands of spectators.

    Of the 43,572 servicemen and nurses who returned home in 63 demobilisation sailings, only the Māori Pioneer Battalion returned together, as a complete unit.

  • Amusing sports events

    Video

    Scenes from the “Strawberry Fete” held at Torquay in Devon in the United Kingdom on Alexandra Day, Wednesday 27 June 1917. Promoted by the Four Allied Trades: Dairymen, Fruiterers, Grocers and Bakers, the fete was both a fundraiser and a morale booster.

    Pictured here are New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) personnel, nurses and locals participating in games and novelty races, including blindfolded races, crawling races, wheelbarrow races and apple-eating competitions. Soldiers, too injured to participate, look on.

  • Fighter Aviation Takes Off

    Audio

    In 1916, 2nd Lieutenant Keith Caldwell joined No.75 Squadron of the newly-formed Royal Flying Corps. The squadron went on to have an impressive history as part of the RAF and RNZAF, despite deficiencies in early aircraft design. In this brief interview, Caldwell describes flying BE2 and Sopwith Camel fighter planes. Captain ‘Tiny’ White, another New Zealander in No.75 Squadron recalls the lack of flight instruction available and the sportsman-like ethic between opposing front line forces at the beginning of the war.

  • Every Girl is a Fisher Girl

    Audio

    This rousing music hall song by Australian-born Florrie Forde, popular during WW1, suggests that every girl is ‘fishing for a mate’.

  • Anzac football in London

    Video

    During their war service, Australian troops organised Australian Rules football matches across Europe. The highest profile matches were played in the United Kingdom but one-off matches were also played in other countries, including Belgium and France in 1919.

  • Fill-the-Gap

    Video

    “We are dying of exhaustion for want of a spell”

  • Steeds and shellfire on the Western Front

    Audio

    The horses that were sent to the Western Front during the First World War faced many of the same difficulties as the soldiers that they served. Horses were used to transport officers, heavy artillery and other equipment to the front lines. The artillery conveyed by these horses was an essential element of the military strategies that developed on the battlefront. The Battle of the Somme in 1916 in particular saw the first widespread use of the ‘creeping barrage’, a strategy designed to provide cover for an advancing line of infantry.

    Leonard Leary was a law student in Wellington who first served in Samoa after joining up in 1914 and then joined the British Royal Artillery and fought at the Battle of the Somme. In this 'Spectrum' radio documentary from 1982 he recalls both the trials of controlling horses amid the confusion of a battlefield and the use of the creeping barrage at the Somme.

  • Early newsreels: A 1915 Pathé Animated Gazette

    Video

    People went to cinemas during the war to be entertained, but moving-pictures also played an important role in providing cinema-goers with news and information from abroad. Early newsreels, or topical films, were an important part of the typical cinema programme of the time.

    This film is an example of a full-length Pathé Animated Gazette newsreel that was shown during the war. It demonstrates the contents of these types of films and how they mixed serious topics with more light-hearted footage: scenes of the Algerian Native Cavalry in Flanders, a brief glimpse of King George V and Queen Mary making their way through packed London Streets to a service at St Paul’s Cathedral, the opening of a New Zealand military hospital, and Zouaves (Algerian French Infantry).

  • Within Our Gates

    Video

    After the outbreak of war there was a growing public opinion that all Germans in Australia were a threat to security and should be interned. In this cartoon, this attitude appears as a fear that employees of German origin are protected in government jobs.

  • The wounded return home to Australia

    Video

    More than 150 sick and wounded men return to Australia on the S.S Karoola which was fitted as a hospital ship in England. Soldiers suffering severe injuries are transported from the ship to waiting vehicles. They disembark on stretchers and, rather unconventionally, by piggy-back.

    When sick and wounded soldiers left the battlefield they were out of immediate danger, but were not entirely safe until they reached their final destination. It was not uncommon for hospital ships to be attacked, whether because of mistaken identity or intentionally. The Australian hospital ship HMAT Warilda was sunk on 3 August 1918 with the loss of 123 lives. The greatest disaster of this kind was in February 1916 when a German U-boat torpedoed the Canadian hospital ship HMHS Llandovery Castle, with the loss of 234 lives. After the war the U-boat’s captain and two of his lieutenants were charged with war crimes.

  • Boxing and recruiting

    Video

    In the early stages of the war sport was seen as a fertile site for recruitment, and this film shows 17,000 spectators crammed into the Sydney Stadium to witness Les Darcy defend his world middleweight title against American Eddie McGoorty in 1915. An intense affair, Police ended the fight in the 15th round after McGoorty was knocked down for the fourth time. Beforehand the Premier of NSW, William Holman, and the opposition leader, Charles Wade, were scheduled to give a recruitment speech.

    However, as it became obvious that the war would not be over quickly, and as casualties from Gallipoli mounted, sport was condemned as a distraction from fighting and the home front war effort.

  • Patriotic Football

    Video

    Football clubs displayed their patriotism by publishing lists of players (past and present) who had enlisted, and by organising carnivals and events to raise funds for the war effort.  This film shows a fundraising match between the 1915 VFL premiers Carlton and an Army Camp side at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The Camp team, wearing the Collingwood strip, was made up of current and former AFL players who had enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. The match, won by Carlton, raised 248 pounds for the Wounded Soldiers Fund and attracted 6000 spectators.

  • Australian Light Horse in the Middle East

    Video

    The Australian Light Horse Regiments are almost legendary, although accounts of their actions may be more myth than fact. This film shows some of the 6,1000 horses embarking from an AIF transport ship, along with troops. The footage also shows the Imperial Camel Corps, established in January 1916 and made up of British, Australian and NZ battalions, entering the town of Beersheba, with General Edmund Allenby who headed the British Empire’s Egyptian Expeditionary Force. He is seen here after Jerusalem’s fall into Allied hands on 9 December 1917, reading his proclamation of martial law in the nine languages of the city.

  • Australian troops at the Pyramids

    Video

    Australian and New Zealand troops arrived in Egypt in December 1914. They set up Mena Camp near the Great Pyramids outside Cairo and began training in preparation for the Western Front and Gallipoli. This footage sees them exploring the extraordinary landmarks - the Pyramids and the Sphinx.

    While they waited in Egypt to be deployed, the Australian and New Zealand forces were formed into the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) under the command of Lieutenant General William Birdwood. The training the Anzacs received was only rudimentary, and did little to prepare them for what was to come.

  • In the Bull Ring at Sling Camp

    Audio

    Sling Camp on the Salisbury Plains of England was home to four or five thousand New Zealand soldiers at any one time, from 1916 until after the end of the war. It was staffed by New Zealand officers, with the exception of physical instructors whose job it was to get the ‘colonials’ into fighting shape. These men were veteran sergeant-majors of the regular British Army and their territory was the training ground known as ‘The Bull Ring.’  In a 1964 radio interview, Jack Archibald of Nelson recalled the grim conditions he faced there in the harsh winter of 1917.

  • Neptune’s Daughter

    Video

    In Neptune’s Daughter, an “eight-reel spectacular pictorial triumph” made by Hollywood's Universal Studio, Australian celebrity Annette Kellerman plays a mermaid who swears vengeance on the fisherman who trapped and killed her little sister in their nets. Transforming into a human, she seeks the King with the intention of killing him as his laws were responsible for the death. After being discovered, Annette makes her escape and is thrown back into the sea where she realises that she is in love with the King.

    Kellerman was internationally famous for long-distance swimming and became a life-long advocate for women’s fitness. It was claimed she had the exact physical measurements of the Venus de Milo statue. Neptune’s Daughter showcases Kellerman’s aquatic skills as well as her “perfect” figure, which was shown, “in the nude—beautifully, chastely in the nude”, as Australian Theatre Magazine commented. She also pioneered changes to female swimwear, even though her close-fitting athletic bathing suit provoked a 1907 arrest for indecency in Boston, USA.

  • Maggots and brandy – evacuating wounded men

    Audio

    Facilities for evacuating and treating men wounded on Gallipoli were woefully inadequate. The British military command had not anticipated such large numbers of casualties, who often waited for days unattended on the narrow beach before they could be transported by ship to a hospital. Alexander McLachlan, a Scots officer on board the transport ship Saturnia, recalls in this 1969 interview how he and his colleagues were unable to cope with the vast numbers of sick and wounded.

  • Gallipoli’s wounded return to Wellington

    Audio

    On 15 July 1915 the transport ship Willochra brought the first group of men wounded in the Gallipoli campaign back to a civic reception in Wellington. Seeing the bandaged and traumatised men paraded in the city’s Town Hall made a big impact on young Max Riske, who was taken to the reception by his mother. Sixty years later, he vividly recalled how the experience changed opinions about the war for him and many other Wellingtonians.

  • New Zealand soldiers recover from battle wounds

    Video

    After being wounded in battle, many Anzac soldiers were shipped to England to recover. Once their injuries healed, they were sent to convalescent camps around the country to restore them to fighting fitness. This short film shows New Zealanders at a convalescent camp taking part in training exercises to improve their fitness. As the film shows, training was not all hard work, and they certainly had some fun at the camps.

  • Nurses remember the sinking of the Marquette

    Audio

    Three New Zealand nurses - Elizabeth Young, Mary Gould and Jeanne Peek (née Sinclair) - recount their experiences of the sinking of the troopship S.S. Marquette on 23 October 1915. The nurses were part of the New Zealand No. 1 Stationary Hospital unit, which was sailing on the troop transport from Alexandria, Egypt, to Salonika (Thessaloniki) in Greece, when their ship was struck by a torpedo from a German U-boat.

  • Who was to blame for the sinking of the Marquette?

    Audio

    Thirty-two New Zealand medical staff, including ten nurses, were killed when the troop transport ship SS Marquette was sunk by a torpedo from a German U-boat on 23 October 1915. The Marquette was en route from Alexandria to Salonika, carrying troops of the British 29th Division Ammunition Column, Royal Field Artillery, along with their equipment and animals. The medical personnel, equipment and stores of the New Zealand No. 1 Stationary Hospital were also on board. Questions were later asked about why a hospital unit was travelling with an ammunition column, which made the ship a legitimate military target.

    In this 1965 recording two survivors, Herbert Hyde and Alexander Prentice of the New Zealand Medical Corps, recall the shipwreck and their impressions of why the disaster happened.

  • From Queen Street to the front

    Video

    Although the details are uncertain, this brief film clip shows the Auckland Mounted Rifles Regiment marching down Queen Street on 22 September 1914, after a civic farewell at the Auckland Domain. The New Zealand Herald newspaper reported that “[f]lags were waved, and lusty cheers were given as the troops passed”. These scenes were later included in the 1928 Australian film The Exploits of the Emden. The original footage, like much film from that era, is now long lost.

  • Dust in our ears, eyes, mouth, nose and everywhere

    Video

    In late 1914 the New Zealand and Australian forces were diverted from their original destination of England to Egypt. There they combined to form the ANZAC Corps that would eventually fight in the Gallipoli campaign. This film shows an activity that became a routine part of soldiers’ life - the troop inspection.

    As well as the blazing Egyptian heat, the ANZAC troops had another menace to contend with – dust. Herbert Hart wrote in his diary “[t]he sand is worked into such fine dust near camp, that it now flies everywhere whenever the troops move over it. We had dust in our ears, eyes, mouth, nose and everywhere, it fell from our puggarees [cloth wrapped around the regulation sun helmets], pouches, pockets, putties [long cloth strips wrapped around the calves] or from all our clothes.”

  • The Anzac convoy departs from Albany

    Video

    The Main Body of the NZ Expeditionary Force steamed off from Wellington on 16 October 1914. The convoy consisted of 10 transport ships and four escorts, carrying 8000 soldiers and nearly 4000 horses. They arrived in Albany on 28 October to join up with 28 Australian Imperial Force troopships. The combined Anzac fleet of 38 troopships and escorts, carrying 30,000 soldiers and 7,500 horses, departed Albany on 1 November.

    This film shows soldiers of the Auckland Infantry Battalion ready to embark on Albany Wharf, and the line of grey-painted New Zealand troopships waiting to follow the Australian convoy ships (which retained their civilian colours). This vast fleet took soldiers from Australia and New Zealand halfway around the world to participate in the First World War.

  • Readying the Samoan Expeditionary Force

    Video

    When war was declared in August 1914, New Zealand was asked by the British Government to capture German Samoa. A Samoan Expeditionary Force made up of just over 1300 soldiers, mostly from the Wellington region, departed for the Samoan capital, Apia, on 15 August. Little resistance was met when the troops landed a fortnight later, and a New Zealand military administration occupied Samoa over the course of the war.

    No footage of the New Zealand occupation of Samoa exists. However, this is footage of the two troopships, S.S. Monowai and S.S. Moeraki, which transported the Samoan Expeditionary Force. While the provenance of this film is unknown, the fact that the transport ships are still in civilian colours, a "2" is evident on the side of one of them (the troopship number), the dress of the sentry and the presence of a 12 pound gun suggests that it shows a glimpse of the preparation on Wellington’s waterfront for New Zealand’s first action during the war.

  • Poor old soldiers, both two-legged and four-legged

    Audio

    Horses were among the unsung heroes of the NZEF during World War One. Ten thousand horses were sent overseas over the course of the war. They were used by mounted troops and officers, and for transporting equipment and artillery. The life of a horse in the army was a tough one. They endured brutal conditions travelling to the front and at the battlefield, and only a handful returned back to New Zealand, as Percy Lowndes recalled in 1969.

  • Auckland Cup, 1912

    Video

    In 1912 Ellerslie was still a young suburb of Auckland, with a population of only around a thousand. It was also the home of the racecourse, and people streamed in from all over the city to watch the Auckland Cup, then New Zealand’s richest horse race. This film shows the Australian horse Bobrikoff taking the 1912 Cup.

    With few private cars, and public transport still in its infancy, most of these punters would have arrived by train. Horse-racing was for many years one of the most popular forms of entertainment in New Zealand. The First World War did not interrupt the running of the Auckland Cup, although there would have been significantly fewer men at race meetings during 1914-1918.

  • Fashion on the field, 1912

    Video

    “To-day is Taranaki Cup day – the sportsman’s day in Taranaki – and from near and far worshippers at the shrine of Pegasus will do pilgrimage to the local racecourse to lay their offerings on the altar of sport.” (Taranaki Daily News, 14 February 1912)

    By 1912 signs of militarism in New Zealand - like compulsory military training, and the commissioning of the battleship HMS New Zealand - were increasing. In the rural province of Taranaki, however, the threat of war seemed a million miles away as crowds assembled for the Taranaki Cup horse race. They are seen here dressed in their finest, parading on the lawn, meeting and greeting, seeing and being seen. These scenes were quickly processed and screened at the local Empire Picture Palace, “the home of intellectual refinement”, the very next day.

  • The First Anzac at Gallipoli

    Audio

    Britain’s Royal Navy was in charge of landing the first Australians and New Zealanders at Gallipoli on April 25 1915. From their troop transport ships, the men were loaded into smaller boats which were towed as close to the beach as possible. The steam-powered ‘picket’ boats which towed them were commanded by teenage Navy midshipmen like 15-year-old Eric Bush, who was responsible for getting about 200 Anzacs ashore. Among the first Australians to land was Private James Bostock, who recalls how he jumped overboard and waded onto the beach at what would soon be known as Anzac Cove. Both men were recorded in 1955 for a BBC radio documentary marking the 40th anniversary of the landings.

  • A.I.F Parade and Departure

    Video

    In the first months after Australia entered the war, the public mood was wildly enthusiastic and patriotic. That mood is evident in this clip, showing cheering crowds gathered to support a military parade as AIF troops depart on the troopship A2 Geelong. The ship can be briefly glimpsed departing at the end of this film.

  • Expert rough-riders – Australian Light Horse

    Video

    By 1914 Australian horsemen had proved themselves as expert rough-riders and good shots in wartime. Untrained colonial cavalry had distinguished themselves in the Boer War, and Australia had 23 regiments of volunteer cavalry at the outbreak of WW1. Many men from these regiments joined the Light Horse Regiments of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF). Some are seen here in training with their horses, and in a military parade. Troops are also shown departing on the troopship A2 Geelong, farewelled by a huge crowd as the ship leaves the dock.

  • Distraction from the war – a day at the beach

    Video

    This brief clip from around 1914 is one of few surviving film records of Australian beach scenes from this period. Beachgoers of both sexes are seen strolling along the sand of an unidentified beach in their Sunday best. A small group playing in the shallows is all male since ‘open bathing’ (swimming outdoors) was still considered somewhat improper at this time. A glimpse of a lone skiff indicates that Australians were quick to embrace all aquatic sports, not just swimming.

  • Australia will be there

    Audio

    Of all the patriotic songs of WW1, 'Australia Will Be There' is probably the one best known to Australians. It became the marching song of the Australian Expeditionary Forces and was used to rally the troops as they marched away from home. 'Australia Will Be There' was written in 1915 by Walter ‘Skipper’ Francis. The song quotes from ‘ Auld Lang Syne’ in its chorus and is often given its longer title, 'For Auld Land Syne - Australia Will Be There '.

  • Sailing into war, 1914

    Video

    For many Anzac soldiers, their outward voyage on a troopship was their first overseas experience. The excitement of departure was soon replaced by seasickness on one of the world’s roughest seas. On the long voyage to Egypt they took part in leisure activities and routine training exercises like those shown here. Officers organised physical training programmes, inoculations, lectures and target practice sessions to keep the troops occupied.

  • Joining the Flotilla, 1914

    Video

    At the outbreak of war in August 1914, dozens of vessels were hastily converted into troopships to transport military units to their destinations overseas. This film shows newly recruited AIF troops boarding troopships at Woolloomooloo (Sydney, NSW) and Port Melbourne (Melbourne, Vic.)  Their ships then joined the flotilla at King George Sound (Albany, WA), the final Australian anchorage for the first convoy of almost 30,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers heading to Egypt.

  • Departure of Reinforcements for the Front

    Video

    Troops (seen from dock) wave from ship prior to departure. Numerous civilians hold streamers connected with occupants of ship, while other civilians wave handkerchiefs as the ship leaves the wharf. The HMAT A20 Hororata weighed 9,400 tons with an average cruise speed of 14 knots or 25.92 kmph. It was owned by the New Zealand Shipping Co Ltd, London, and leased by the Commonwealth until 11 September 1917.

  • A troopship departs for Albany, 1914

    Video

    When Australia entered the First World War in support of Britain, ships were urgently needed to transport troops to the distant battlefields. The hastily refitted ships also had to carry the troops’ horses and military stores, plus wool, metals, meat, flour and other foodstuffs, mainly for the armies of Britain and France. This film shows the loading and departure of troops HMAT (His Majesty’s Australian Transport) A20 Hororata from Port Melbourne, Victoria on 18 October 1914. Troops move up the gangplanks of the transport ship. A tug then tows the Hororata out of port and it joins other ships in the convoy to head out to sea.

  • Unloading barges, Anzac Cove

    Image

    This scene of soldiers unloading barges at what became known as Anzac Cove captures one moment in the landing and subsequent eight-month campaign at Gallipoli. The soldiers’ routine activity does little to indicate the heavy casualties incurred or the physical hardships endured. Turkish gunners had a good fix on Anzac Cove and many men were killed and badly wounded in the beach area or by the water.

  • Washing the horses, Suvla Bay

    Image

    With the Gallipoli campaign at deadlock, a smaller Allied force, including Australians and New Zealanders, made an amphibious landing at Suvla Bay on the Aegean Sea to relieve pressure on the main force. Many horses accompanied the landing parties, providing vital transport for men and material. This photograph shows men washing their horses in advance of the Suvla attack, with mules, tents and other equipment in the background.

  • Farewelling troops in Wellington

    Video

    This rare film records a civic ceremony for New Zealand troops departing for the front. It shows the official farewell to the Wellington Section of the NZ Expeditionary Force on 24 September 1914. The troops are inspected by a group of dignitaries, including Prime Minister William Massey, Lord Liverpool the Governor-General and Major General Sir Alexander Godley. They then march four abreast down Adelaide Road and along Lambton Quay, Wellington’s main shopping street. The men of the NZEF are then seen crammed on board the deck and high up on the rigging of a troopship. Most have happy faces as they await what they expected would be a grand adventure. Contrast this with the more subdued figures of the 6th Reinforcement who appear at the end of the film. They are seen departing for the front in August 1915, when the horrors of the Gallipoli Campaign had become widely known.