Thomas Dworzak Veteran's Day Parade. WW1. The First World War presented African Americans, subjected to segregation laws and racist violence, with a dilemma: whether or not to serve in the US armed forces. Seen a (...)
s an imperialist war by some African American leaders, others, such as William Du Bois, one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, saw it as a chance to demonstrate their "unfaltering loyalty" to their country. While 380,000 African Americans were called to serve, over half of them in France, soldiers and officers were still trained at segregated training camps. Du Bois wrote of his community's task after the war, “by God in heaven, we are cowards and jackasses if now that the war is over, we do not marshal every ounce of our brain and brawn to fight a sterner, longer, more unbending battle against the forces of hell in our own land.” USA, NY, New York. 2016/11. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak Museum of the battle of Paschendaele. Most shells and amunition in WW1 were painted in bright colours. Around 1.5 billion shells were fired on the Western Front, with innovations such as timed and (...)
delayed fuses designed for maximum lethality. "Now then soldier, get down them stairs/Into your dug-out and say your prayers/Hush! Here comes a whizzbang..." (British trench song). Paeschendaele, Belgium, 2013/07. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak In February 1918, hearing that the Tsar had been deposed in the Russian revolution, sailors with the Austro-Hungarian fleet based in Kotor, or Cattaro, mutinied, first calling for better conditions (...)
, then making political demands. A loyal naval unit entered the port and quickly suppressed the mutiny, with hundreds of sailors imprisoned and four of the mutiny's leaders - a Czech and three Croats - were executed. Kotor. Montenegro. 2014/06. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak Qajar Shah dressed in German uniform, exhibition of Qajar photographs, Tehran. Persia was supposedly neutral during the First World War but its strategic location between Russia, the Ottoman Empire (...)
and Britain's fiercely guarded colonial crown jewel, India, - and the territory's vast oil reserves - meant Persia, according to one British diplomat, "had been exposed to violations and sufferings not endured by any other neutral country". The country was effectively partitoned between Russian forces in the north and the British in the south, the latter protecting concessions belonging to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, the forerunner of BP. Germany's Intelligence Bureau for the East tried to foment rebellion among the local tribes against British occupation while the collapse of Russian forces after the 1917 revolution saw Ottoman forces try and retake territory in the last months of World War One. War and its attendant shortages brought about the deaths of up to 2 million Persian subjects between 1917 and 1919 from famine, typhus, cholera, plague and finally influenza. Tehran, Iran. 4/2014. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak Mosque, Broken Hill. A train of 40 ore wagons left Broken Hill on 1 January 1915 carrying 1,200 of the townspeople out to the annual New Year's Day picnic in the nearby countryside. Lying in wait w (...)
ere Badsha Mahomed Güll and Mullah Abdullah, two former camel drovers originally from India's Northwest Frontier province (now in Pakistan), who had heeded the Ottoman sultan's call for "jihad", or "holy war", against Britain. The two men fired several shots at the train, killing four and wounding seven, from a trench dug behind an icecream cart they owned and from which flew a makeshift Ottoman flag. The two men died in a shootout with police three hours later. Police mananaged to avert a revenge attack against a nearby camp of Afghans, the mob burning down a German clubhouse instead. Australia, 2018 © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak Bismarck Sea. The northeastern part of present-day Papua New Guinea became a German colony in 1885, the main island being renamed Kaiser Wilhelmsland and the nearby islands the Bismarck Archipelago (...)
. Along with establishing radio transmitters for Germany's Pacific fleet, the German colonists aimed to turn the area into a second Java, producing tobacco and cocoa. However, limited labour resources meant the colonists were limited to exporting copra (coconut kernels) and Birds of Paradise, collected by local islanders forced to work for the colonists. The colony fell to Australian forces in September 1914. Kabakon, Kerawara and Credner Islands. Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. 2018/7. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak "Flames and Light" WW1 spectacle. By attacking the fortified French city of Verdun, situated on the Meuse River and for centuries a defensive outpost against France's northern enemies, the German c (...)
hief of staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, deduced correctly that France would throw all it had to stop this symbolic town falling into German hands. After capturing the Meuse heights, Falkenhayn planned to rain heavy artillery down on the French reserves sent up to recapture Verdun. German forces launched "Unternehmen Gericht" (Operation Judgement) on 21 February 1916, firing a million shells in the first eight hours of the battle, pausing at midday to try and lure out unwary survivors when the shelling resumed. Centenary of the WW1 battle of Verdun. Verdun, France. 2016/05. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos
Thomas Dworzak Memorial to the Australian Light Horse. After two unsuccessful attacks on Gaza, General Edmund Allenby attempted to break the Turkish defences in Palestine with an attack on the town of Beersheba t (...)
o the north. On 31 October 1917, the Australian Light Horse were given orders to take the town. Infantrymen who used horses for transport, they had no swords so they charged the Ottoman positions holding sharpened bayonets, jumped their trenches and then turned back to dismount and fight with their rifles, routing the Turkish forces. The charge was celebrated with a reenactment in the Negev desert a century later. According to Australian historian Jonathan King, "Gallipoli was a British-led defeat. Beersheba was an Australian-led victory." Beersheva, Israel. 2018/7. © Thomas Dworzak | Magnum Photos