Thursday, July 31, 2014

One Man's War Remembered


On the 1st August 1914 Germany declared war on Russia. Germany followed this up, two days, later by declaring war on France. One day later Britain declared war on Germany. The First World War had truly begun.

One hundred years later the pace of World War I mapping is also gathering in momentum. The latest World War I map is this impressive Esri Story Map about one Australian farm-hand's journey from rural Victoria to his death in action on the grim battlefields of Gallipoli.

It is hard for anyone to fathom the sheer scale of the over 16 million deaths of World War I. For King and Country - John Henry Cartwright's Gallipoli campaign 1914-1915 focuses on just one of those 16 million life and death stories and is all the more poignant for it. The map traces John Cartwright's journey from Victoria in Australia to Gallipoli. The map is illustrated by vintage photographs, archive film and some of Cartwright's own military records.

The map is a fitting memorial to the sacrifice made by John Henry Cartwright and somehow even brings more clearly into focus the lives of the millions of other servicemen and women who died fighting in World War I.

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