Call to arms: The Imperial War Museum in London.Credit: Getty Images
The intimate stories in this London museum are the most telling.
A cathedral of warfare greets you when you step into London's revamped Imperial War Museum. Among the arsenal of weaponry in its towering new atrium are a Harrier, a Spitfire and a German V-1 doodlebug.
It's an arresting spectacle but surprisingly it's not the most powerful element of the museum's $70 million refurbishment.
What lingers are the personal stories in the new World War I Galleries: videos of shell-shocked soldiers diving under hospital beds; the handwritten love letters to husbands that never came home. These tales from the front line and the home front shed new light on an old story.
The museum reopened after a four-year refurbishment on July 19 to coincide with the centenary of World War I. As well as the impressive Foster + Partners-designed atrium, there are more than 1300 objects in the new galleries, many displayed for the first time.
The galleries are divided into 14 chapters which provide an account of why the war started, how it was fought, why it continued and how it changed the world.
The first chapter describes life in England at the turn of the 20th century, when the country ruled over a vast global empire. When war broke out in July 1914, one in four people on earth owed allegiance to the British Crown.
Both sides hoped for a quick, decisive victory but of the 7 million men who marched off to war in August 1914, 1 million lay dead by the end of the year. Between August and December 1914, an average of 2000 French soldiers were killed every day.
A montage of recruitment posters shows how important England's Empire was to the war effort. As well as the famous image of a moustachioed Lord Kitchener urging men to "Join your country's army", an Australian poster reads: "Australia has promised Britain 50,000 more men. Will you help us keep that promise?"
In total, 416,000 Australians voluntarily enlisted to fight, more than 10 per cent of the population.
Australian civilians also volunteered to work in factories and gifts poured in from the Commonwealth. A list records the donation of 1000 gallons of wine for hospitals from the state of Victoria and one ton of butter from a Mrs Hindon and family.
It shows the British-ness that was felt by many Australians and you can't help but wonder what the reaction would be if a comparable situation arose today.
Audio and video are used effectively throughout the museum - interactive video panels show archive footage, while shrapnel and gunfire ring out in the background.
There's also a refreshing lack of sugar-coating. The section on Gallipoli is entitled the "Disastrous Gallipoli campaign". Of the 1000 men in the 12th Battalion Australian Imperial Force that went ashore on April 25, 1915, more than half lay dead five days later. One soldier recalled the dead as "long, sad rows of eternally silent figures, their drenched and blood-stained khaki drying in the sun".
While the museum doesn't shy away from the horrors of war (apparently soldiers poisoned by phosgene gas threw up litres of yellow liquid in a drowning spasm that lasted 48 hours), it also does a good job of highlighting the social changes that it brought about.
In two years Britain went from a country with no welfare state and little government intervention to rationing and conscription. Women joined the workforce, many being seen in overalls and long pants for the first time.
By late 1914 the conflict had become deadlocked, with both sides camped out in a 400-kilometre network of trenches across mainland Europe. Visitors can walk through a recreated trench which uses light projections and sounds to simulate events such as gas attacks and thunderstorms.
Compared with today's conflicts, front-line reporting of WWI was sparse. There were only 16 official war photographers, with Australia represented by Frank Hurley of Shackleton expedition fame. His haunting black-and-white images of Australian troops at the Battle of Passchendaele show the desperate conditions in which many battles were fought.
Subsequent chapters of the gallery describe how technology moved warfare to the skies and how the United States was drawn into the conflict by Germany's sinking of the Lusitania.
The gallery's biggest triumph is that it manages to convey the uncertainty and despair people felt at the time - something notoriously difficult to do 100 years after the event.
It was surprising to learn that the Allies came perilously close to losing the war in its dying stages when Germany staged a huge offensive in 1918.
After years of suffering and strain, many Britons wanted to end the conflict through negotiation rather than prolong the fighting. Private Archie Surfleet summed up the feeling of despair: "God must think we are a pack of fools: surely he can't be on both sides."
The galleries culminate with details of Germany's eventual defeat, the armistice and the new world order that emerged. Again, it's the personal items that breathe life into this well-thumbed history - the picture of the welcome home reception for Sapper Arthur Dunbar in Adelaide in 1919; the soldiers undergoing plastic surgery to repair torn faces.
Of all the mind-numbing statistics, the most remarkable was that 88 per cent of British soldiers who went off to fight came home. Harry Patch was one of them. His quote emblazoned across a wall in the last gallery provides a fitting epitaph: "I've tried for 80 years to forget it. But I can't."
The writer travelled as a guest of British Airways.
FIVE MORE WWI CENTENARY EVENTS ART OF WAR
Truth and Memory: British Art of the First World War is the largest retrospective of British WWI art for almost 100 years and features over 110 paintings, sculptures and drawings. IWM London, until March 8, 2015, see iwm.org.uk.
CHARITY CERAMICS
Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red is a stunning installation of 888,246 ceramic poppies in the Tower of London's moat. Each poppy represents a British military fatality and they will be sold to raise money for service charities, until November 11, see poppies.hrp.org.uk.
SEA BATTLES
Forgotten Fighters: the First World War at Sea explores the personal stories of naval personnel in the war through photographs, medals and ship models. National Maritime Museum, Romney Road, Greenwich, until August 1, 2015, see rmg.co.uk.
WWI PHOTO EXHIBIT
The National Media Museum has published a selection of its WWI photography collection on its website together with a link to a Flickr account containing official Australian photographs, including many taken by Frank Hurley, see nationalmediamuseum.org.uk.
DIGITAL MEMORIAL
IWM is creating a digital memorial for the 8 million individuals who contributed to the war effort across Britain and the Commonwealth. The database contains official records from archives supplemented by pictures and stories uploaded by the public, see livesofthefirstworldwar.org.
For more events, see 1914.org.
TRIP NOTES
GETTING THERE
British Airways flies from Sydney and Melbourne to London via Singapore. Phone 1300767177, see britishairways.com.
SEE + DO
Imperial War Museums, Lambeth Road, London. Open daily, 10am - 6pm. Admission free, see iwm.org.uk.
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