Research Guides: First World War: Primary Sources

Primary Sources for the First World War

Times Digital Archive (1785-1985)
The Times from London.
Sunday Times Digital Archive (1822-2006)
Times Literary Supplement Historical Archive (1902 - 2007)
Economist Historical Archive, 1842-2012
Illustrated London News, 1842-2003
The Guardian (1821-2003) and the Observer (1791-2003)
Irish Times (1859-2011) and the Weekly Irish Times (1876-1958)
Punch Historical Archive (1841-1992)
A British illustrated weekly comic periodical known for its satire.
Periodicals Archive Online
To focus on primary sources, use the Publication Date menu to limit your search to publications contemporary with your topic of interest.
New York Times, Historical (1851-2013)
American perspective on events in Europe.
Punch
These are the older print volumes which are reproduced in the digital version above..
The Wipers Times
. . . a complete facsimile of the famous World War One trench newspaper, incorporating the New Church Times, the Kemmel Times, the Somme Times, the B.E.F. Times, and the Better Times.

World War, 1914-1918 -- Sources
"sources" is a subject subheading for bound collections of primary sources
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
"Personal narratives" is another subject subheading that covers a specific kind of primary source: personal accounts of a historic event
World War, 1914-1918 -- Correspondence
primarily used under names of individual persons and families, classes of persons, and ethnic groups for individual or collections of correspondence to or from those persons, this subheading is also used for collections of correspondence around a historical event
World War, 1914-1918 -- Manuscripts
Strictly speaking, a work of any kind written entirely by hand, this subheading also refers to the handwritten or typescript copy of an author's work prior to publication and printing.
World War, 1914-1918 -- Maps
Any two-dimensional graphic representation of the physical features (natural or man-made) of all or a portion of the surface of the earth or another celestial body, the heavens, or an imaginary geographic area, normally done to scale on a flat medium using a specified projection, with an indication of orientation, but increasingly in digital form.
World War, 1914-1918 -- Literary collections.
topical headings for collections including one or more literary forms. Literary forms are characterized by elements of internal structure, rather than by content, for example, drama, poetry, fiction, essay, etc.
World War, 1914-1918 -- Biography
A carefully researched, relatively full narrative account of the life of a specific person or closely related group of people, written by another.

Government-related documents

Paris Peace Conference. Deliberations of the Council of Four (March 24-June 28, 1919), 2 vols. Trans. and ed. by Arthur S. Link. Princeton, 1992.

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Peace -- Sources

World War, 1914-1918 -- Diplomatic history -- Sources

Robertson, William Robert. Military correspondence of Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, December 1915- February 1918. Edited by David R. Woodward. London: Bodley Head for the Army Records Society, 1989.

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Campaigns -- Sources.

Great Britain. Foreign Office. British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898-1914, 11 vols. Edited by

G.P. Gooch and Harold Temperley. London: H.M.S.O., 1926-1938. (Olin Level 3: D505 G68)

Documents and statements relating to peace proposals & war aims (December 1916-November 1918). Introduction by G. Lowes Dickinson. London: G. Allen & Unwin; New York: Macmillan, 1919. (Electronic version)

Humphries, Mark Osborne, ed. Germany’s Western Front: 1914: Translations From the German Official History of the Great War (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2013) part 1 and part 2

Miscellaneous documentary collections

War, Peace and Social Change -- Europe c.1900-c.1955: documents. [vol. 1: 1900-1929] Edited by Arthur Marwick and Wendy Simpson. Open University Press, 1990.

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Causes -- Sources

World War, 1914-1918 -- Influence -- Sources

Europe -- Social conditions -- 20th century -- Sources

Cardinal, Agnès, Goldman, Dorothy and Hattaway, Judith, eds. Women's Writing on the First World War (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Women -- Literary collections.

Shevin-Coetzee, Marilyn and Coetzee, Frans, eds. Empires, Soldiers, and Citizens: a World War I sourcebook 2nd ed. (Chichester, West Sussex, UK ; Malden, MA : Wiley-Blackwell, 2013)

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Social aspects -- Sources.

Lutz, Ralph Haswell, ed. Fall of the German Empire, 1914-1918, 2 vols. (Stanford University, 1932).

Related subject headings:

Germany -- History -- William II, 1888-1918 -- Sources.

Germany -- History -- Revolution, 1918 -- Sources.

Germany -- Politics and government -- 1888-1918.

The Third International, the Russian Revolution, and the new Soviet government

Bunyan, James. The Bolshevik revolution, 1917-1918: documents and materials. Compiled by James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher. Stanford University, 1934.

Related subject headings:

Soviet Union -- History -- Revolution, 1917-1921 -- Sources

Gankin, Olga Hess, and Fisher, H. H. The Bolsheviks and the World War; The origin of the Third International (Stanford University, CA: Stanford University Press; London: H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1940) or the 1960 reprint with a few corrections

Golder, Frank Alfred, ed. Documents of Russian History, 1914-1917 (New York & London: Century, 1927). [Note: "The material for this book is taken from various places, but largely from two newspapers, Das Reich and the Izvestiia."—Pref.]

Related subject headings:

Soviet Union -- Politics and government -- 1917-1936 – Sources

Personal Narratives

Cooper, Matthew. We Who Knew: the journal of a subaltern during the Great War. Edited by A.M. Cooper. Sussex, England: The Book Guild, 1994.

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, British.

Dungan, Myles. Irish Voices from the Great War. Irish Academic Press, 1995. [Note: “Drawing on the diaries, letters, literary works and oral accounts of soldiers, it tells some of the personal stories of what Irishmen, unionist and nationalist, went through during the Great War . . ."—from book jacket] [Electronic version]

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, Irish

Housman, Laurence, ed. War Letters of Fallen Englishmen (Philadelphia, PA: Pine St. Books, 2002).

Related subject headings:

Soldiers' writings, English.

Haig, Douglas. Douglas Haig: war diaries and letters, 1914-1918. Edited by Gary Sheffield and John Bourne. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005.

Brown, Malcolm, ed. The Imperial War Museum Book of the First World War: a great conflict recalled in previously unpublished letters, diaries, documents and memoirs (University of Oklahoma Press, 1993).

Indian Voices of the Great War: solders' letters, 1914-18 (Macmillan, 1999).

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, Indian.

Witkop, Philipp, 1880-1942, ed. German Students' War Letters. Wedd, A. F., trans. (London: Methuen, 1929).

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, German.

Lee, Janet. War Girls: the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry in the First World War (Manchester University Press, 2005)

Related subject headings:

Nurses -- Great Britain -- Personal Narratives.

Ölçen, Mehmet Arif. Vetluga Memoir: a Turkish prisoner of war in Russia, 1916-1918 (University Press of Florida, 1995) [Electronic version]

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, Turkish

Rommel, Erwin. Infantry Attacks. Intro. by Manfred Rommel. London: Greenhill Books, 1990.

Ross, Ishobel. The Little Grey Partridge: First World War diary of Ishobel Ross who served with the Scottish Women's Hospital Unit in Serbia (Aberdeen University, 1988)

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, Scottish

Stark, Rudolf. Wings of War: A German airman's diary of the last year of the Great War. Claud W. Sykes, transl. (London: Greenhill, 1988).

Related subject headings:

Air pilots -- Germany -- Diaries

Stephen, Rosamond. An Englishwoman in Belfast: Rosamond Stephen's Record of the Great War. Walsh, Oonagh, ed. (Cork University Press, 2000).

Triska, Jan F. The Great War's forgotten Front: a soldier's diary and a son's reflections (University Press, 1998)

Related subject headings:

World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, Czech.

Microfilm Collections

Women's Suffrage and Government Control, 1906-1922: Papers from the Cabinet, Home Office and Metropolitan Police Files in the Public Record Office (CAB 41, HO 45, HO 144, MEPO 2 and MEPO 3) [Collection Guide]

Knox, Alfred William Fortescue. With the Russian army, 1914-1917, being chiefly extracts from the diary of a military attaché (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1921).

MEMOIRS, MANIFESTOS, LETTERS, FICTION, ETC.

Henri Barbusse, Under Fire - eBook or print

Louise Barthas, Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal L.B., Barrelmaker - eBook

Maria Bochkareva, Yashka: My Life as Peasant, Officer, and Exile - eBook or print

Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth - 1933 or 1957 print editions

Lady Randolph Churchill, Women's War Work - print

Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That - MOBIUS

Martha Hanna, Your Death Would Be Mine: Paul and Marie Pireaud in the Great War - eBook or print

C. W. Hutt, The Future of the Disabled Soldier - Hathi Trust

Ernst Jünger, The Storm of Steel (MOBIUS) or Copse 125 (MOBIUS)

J. H. Morgan, German Atrocities: An Official Investigation - MOBIUS print or Hathi Trust eBook

Erwin Rommel, Attacks - print

Siegfried Sassoon, Memoirs of George Sherston or Memoirs of an Infantry Officer - print

Helen Zenna Smith, Not So Quiet: Stepdaughters of War - MOBIUS

E. E. Southard, Shell-Shock and Other Neuropsychiatric Problems - print or Hathi Trust ebook

Rudolf Stark, Wings of War: A German Airman's Diary of the Last Year of the War - print

Richard Stumpf, War, Mutiny and Revolution in the German Navy - print

Helena Swanwick, The War In Its Effect Upon Women - MOBIUS

Rebecca West, Return of the Soldier - print

First World War
Primary source material from personal narratives, printed books, military files, propaganda pamphlets, and visual documents; complemented by secondary material, including scholarly essays, case studies and interactive maps.
U. K. Parliamentary Papers (ProQuest)
Great resource for the British government's involvement in domestic and world affairs, which covers just about everything. For example, you will find a 1922 report entitled, "Report from the Select Committee on Training and Employment of Disabled Ex-Service Men."
Women, War, and Society, 1914-1918 (Archives Unbound)
Materials from the Imperial War Museum include such documents as charity and international relief reports, pamphlets, photographs, press cuttings, magazines, posters, correspondence, minutes, records, diaries, memoranda, statistics, circulars, regulations and invitations.
Gerritsen Collection - Women's History Online, 1543-1945
A collection of publications related to women's history. One example of a WWI related publication is Helen Fraser's 1918 book "Women and war work".
Commercial and Trade Relations Between Tsarist Russia/Soviet Union and the U.S.,1910-1963
U.S. State Department Central Classified Files relates to commercial and trade relations beginning in the Tsarist Russia period and extending through Khrushchev period in Soviet history. It contains a wide range of materials from U.S. diplomats including materials on treaties, general conditions affecting trade, imports and exports, laws and regulations, customs administration, tariffs, and ports of entry activities.
World War I and Revolution in Russia, 1914-1918 (Archives Unbound)
Covers the Russian entrance into World War I through the Revolution in Russia in 1917 and 1918. Documents consist primarily of correspondence between the British Foreign Office, various British missions and consulates in the Russian Empire and the Tsarist government and later the Provisional Government.
Military Leaders of World War I : Official and Private Papers of Generaloberst Hans von Seeckt (Archives Unbound)
The materials reproduced in this collection consist of letters and other papers of Generaloberst Hans von Seeckt, prominent German military strategist of World War I. At various times he served on military missions to Turkey and China. After World War I, as military head of the Reichswehr, he was considered the organizer and "father" of the army of the German Republic.
Making of Modern Law (1800-1926)
Covers legal development during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a collection of Anglo-American legal treatises from the period.
C19: The Nineteenth Century Index
Some of the sources indexed in this database extend to 1931.
Industrial Mobilization in Britain and the Ministry of Munitions, 1915-1918 (Archives Unbound)
The standard reference source on the unprecedented industrial mobilization of an entire economy to fight the war of 1914-1918, this 12 volume set has previously only been available in a few select libraries with which the British government deposited copies. It is essential for anyone who wants to study the economics behind World War I, the career of David Lloyd George and the process of state intervention in industry.
European Colonialism in the Early 20th Century
These six collections comprise correspondence, studies and reports, cables, maps, and other kinds of documents related to U.S. consular activities U.S. Consulates were intelligence-gathering posts reporting on the activities of the Portuguese, Dutch, French, Italian, and German colonial governments and the activities of the native peoples.
Empire Online
Manuscripts and printed material related to the British Empire, 1492-1962.
Dublin Castle Records 1798-1926
The Dublin Castle administration in Ireland was the government of Ireland under English and later British rule, from the twelfth century until 1922, based at Dublin Castle. Dublin Castle Records, 1798-1926 contains records of the British administration in Ireland prior to 1922, a crucial period which saw the rise of Parnell and the Land War in 1880 through to the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1921.
British Campaign in Mesopotamia, 1914-1918
telegrams, correspondence, minutes, memoranda and confidential prints gathered together in the India Office Military Department on Mesopotamia.
India, Raj and Empire
Sourced from the Manuscript Collections of the National Library of Scotland, and documenting the history British colonialism in South Asia from the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 to the granting of independence for India and Pakistan in 1947.
Indian Army and Colonial Warfare on the Frontiers of India, 1914-1920
contains army lists, orders, instructions, regulations, acts, manuals, strength returns, orders of battle, administration summaries, organization, commissions, committees, reports, maneuvers; departments of the Indian Army, and regimental narratives.
Middle East 1916-2001: A Documentary Record
documents in law, history and diplomacy at the Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library.
Middle East Online: Iraq, 1914-1974
offers the widest range of original source material from the Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers from the Anglo-Indian landing in Basra in 1914 to the rise of Saddam Hussein in 1974.
Middle East Online: Arab-Israeli Relations, 1917-1970
offers the widest range of original source material from the British Foreign Office, Colonial Office, War Office and Cabinet Papers from the 1917 Balfour Declaration through to the Black September war of 1970-1.
Political Relations Between China, the U.S. and Other Countries, 1910-1929
U.S. State Department records for 1910-1929 relating to the political relations between the United States and China and relations between China and other states. The collection includes instructions to and dispatches from diplomatic and consular officials; the dispatches are often accompanied with enclosures. Also included in these records are the correspondence, reports, and journals of the commissions concerned with extraterritoriality in China, as well as notes between the State Department and foreign diplomatic representatives in the United States, memoranda prepared by officials of the State Department, and correspondence with officials of other government departments and with private firms and individuals.
Shanghai Municipal Council: The Municipal Gazette, 1908-1940
The Municipal Gazette provides a unique window into the workings of the Shanghai International Settlement during the period of revolution, the Republic, internationalization of Shanghai, national uprising, and world war.
Governing Africa
includes 13 collections in the form of reports to the British government by their governors in the African colonies.

EuroDocs - Germany: World War I and Weimar Republic
From BYU.
Europeana.eu's First World War Collection
Europeana.eu is the EU digital platform for cultural heritage. More than 3,000 institutions across Europe have contributed to Europeana. These range from major international names like the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the British Library and the Louvre to regional archives and local museums from every member of the European Union. This collection mixes resources from libraries and archives across the globe with memories and memorabilia from European citizens. It includes diaries, official documents, letters, postcards, films, and photographs from the First World War.
UK National Archives - First World War collection
Many digitized collections from the UK National Archives, including war diaries. There may be fees to download.
German History in Documents and Images (GHDI) - Weimar Germany (1918/19-1933)
German History in Documents and Images (GHDI) - Wilhelmine Germany and the First World War (1890-1918)
Medicine in World War I
Collaborative online exhibit with links to items in the Medical Heritage Library
Voices of the Armistice
Recordings from The National Archives (UK).
World War I collection
From the University of Wisconsin.
World War I Document Archive
This archive of primary documents from World War One has been assembled by volunteers of the World War I Military History List (WWI-L). International in focus, the archive intends to present in one location primary documents concerning the Great War and resides on the server of the Brigham Young University Library. Includes links to a bevy of other WWI sites.
The National (USA) WWI Museum and Memorial
The National WWI Museum and Memorial is America's leading institution dedicated to remembering, interpreting and understanding the Great War and its enduring impact on the global community. The National WWI Museum and Memorial's online collections database allows you to search digital records of our global collection. The focus of the project has been on the Museum and Memorial’s photograph collection. Browse by keyword or using our advanced search functions. Review the “Help” section in the database or email spetersen@theworldwar.org with any questions.
International Encyclopedia of the First World War
This list of links contains a multitude of online resources for pictures, audio files, maps, and other multimedia elements related to WWI.

Miscellaneous

WWI sheet music
Sheet music held in WU's Gaylord Music Library. There is a mix of European and American themes in this collection.

WashU Libraries

First World War

Off campus access

Primary Sources for the First World War

Miscellaneous