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In their own words: collecting experiences of the First World War

This project aims provide context for an individual's experience of WWI by linking to personal narratives written by people in the same situation. By the end of this project, someone who wants to research a soldier in WWI but doesn't know a thing about how armies were structured should be able to find a personal account from someone in a similar role written at about the same time and place. We'll never really know what it was like for those who experienced the First World War, but we can come closer to understanding it by collecting the words they left behind.

How you can help

In this phase of the project, the aim is find a personal narrative - a diary, letters, memoirs or images - for each military unit in the British Army. Populating the lists of battalions and linking the numerous personal and official diaries, letters, memoirs, etc already online is a huge task and it can only be done with your help. Help us share the soldiers' experiences of WWI in their own words by adding links to their diaries or letters to their battalion or regiment's page.

Anyone can sign up to this wiki (but not you, spam bots!) to help out. If you get stuck, just drop me a line; I'm @mia_out on twitter.

• There is an excellent page of Infantry Battalion War Diary Transcript Links (WW1) containing 'links to transcripts of First World War British Army infantry battalion war diaries from WO 95 which have already been published on other sites'. These official unit diaries should be added to the relevant battalion pages.

• Add to the lists of personal diaries, letters, memoirs already online

Project task list

If you see a task you can help with, please just dive in and make a start!

• Populate list of military units to form the basis for the collecting process:
  • Australian battalions in World War I (additional units could be added from the list at https://www.awm.gov.au/units/ww1/)
  • British battalions and regiments in World War I (includes Irish units; most regiments should be added but the huge task of adding the battalions for each remains)
  • Canadian battalions in World War I (done?)
  • Indian battalions in World War I
  • Italian battalions in World War I
  • New Zealand battalions in World War I (started)
• Collate lists of personal diaries, letters, memoirs that can be linked to units through their authors
• Collate lists of official unit diaries and histories
• Collate resources on researching World War One records to help researchers know where to start
• Create a sample battalion page as a demonstrator to show how personal accounts can be linked (e.g. 153rd (Wellington) Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF))
• Collate information about private letters, diaries and memoirs
• Technical work including:
  • upgrade MediaWiki instance to get InfoBoxes working
  • short URLs
  • set up 'preloaded pages' to pre-populate headings on new pages, probably using Extension:CreateBox
• Settle on workable version of page template for battalions, current version is Template:Battalion
• Settle on workable model for InfoBoxes for structured data about battalions/regiments, changes to military order/hierarchy and unit names over time: see discussion on Template:Infobox command structure and Template:Infobox military unit
• Update categories used to reference 'units' rather than 'battalions' for future flexibility

This project is part of a Transnational Research Fellowship with the CENDARI project at Trinity College Dublin's Long Room Hub. Further information is available on the 'about' page of this wiki.