The Great War Society

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The Great War Society

Our members dress in period uniforms and equipment, learn the drill, and undertake the training and everyday activities of the time.

We are a living-history society, not a battle re-enactment group. The Great War Society is a non-profit making organisation based in the UK. Founded in 1984, we provide an opportunity for practical research into the uniforms, weaponry, equipment, training and everyday tasks of the Great War soldier, of both the British and German infantry.

Our members dress in period uniforms and equipment, le

arn the drill, and undertake the training and everyday activities of the time. We are a living-history society, not a battle re-enactment group, believing that it is simply neither possible - nor desirable - to attempt to portray combat in front of the public. Rather, our activities are focused upon authentic demonstrations of the many and varied skills which a soldier would have had to acquire to enable him to do his job "in the field".

As we now find ourselves a Century distant from the Great War, with all of those who served having been called to higher service, our activities are, as ever, aimed at helping current generations - both the young and old alike - to view the conflict of 1914-1918 as more than just another dusty history lesson.

We exist purely to educate the public, to further the knowledge of our membership, and to perpetuate the memory and the sacrifices of the personnel who fought and served in "the war to end all wars" - sacrifices of life, of limb and of mind, which helped to secure the lives and liberties which we enjoy to this very day.

Disclaimer: The Great War Society is a non-political organisation.

19/04/2026

16/02/2026

On the 20th February, the society will be at the brilliant Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum. Come say hello and see, hold and hear about the equipment British soldiers used during The First World War.

11/11/2025

In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

02/07/2025

The Society had a fantastic event last weekend, taking part in TANKFEST 2025. We were working with The Wiltshires in the Great War to bring a section of trench to life.

25/06/2025

The society will be at TANKFEST this year and teaming up with Wiltshires at war. Come say hello !

19/05/2025

The Society has enjoyed a training weekend in the sunny Shropshire hills. We have been busy practising trench clearing and the basics of how to assault a trench according to the 1917 manual

24/04/2025

The society will be at the International Living History Festival at Avoncroft Museum this weekend, demonstrating German and British infantry in 1915. If you're attending, please come say hi!

22/04/2025

Today marks the 110th anniversary of the first use of gas during the First World War. At 17:00 on the 22nd April 1915, the German army released approximately 171 tons of chlorine gas upon a four-mile stretch of the Allied front at Ypres. Private Alfred Bromfield of the Lancashire Regiment recalled of the day

" By that time the gas had reached us and we had no protection at all beyond our own inventiveness – there were no such things as gas-masks or pads in those days. We’d been tipped off that the only way to protect ourselves was by urinating on either our handkerchiefs or soft caps and covering our mouths with them. So we did that for long enough to get a good deep breath, then continued firing. That’s how it went on while all the time the gas was still pouring over the top of the trench.

Personally, I wasn’t satisfied with those measures, I didn’t think it sufficient protection. So I went into one of the trench latrines, which was just a bucket stuck in a hole, and put my head in the bucket. I stopped down long enough until I couldn’t hold my breath anymore, then came up, took a good breath of air and went down again".

By the start of 1916 respirators had become so effective that gas became another daily horror of trench warfare that troops were expected to endure. Lest we forget

15/04/2025

The Society had the honour of being invited to the annual Army-led Dinner at RAF Shawbury earlier this month. Our members had the privilege to share their knowledge of the conflict and to pay their respects to the Unknown Warrior, which was the chosen topic of the dinner. We will remember them.

17/03/2025

The society has had a fantastic weekend in Fort Amherst, with displays of a Vickers machine gun, munitions production and the kit of officers from both British and German.

11/03/2025

The Great War Society will be at Fort Amherst this weekend (15th/16th), Doing a show-and-tell about the lives of the soldiers who trained and lived at the fort in 1915. Come say hello !

Address

Wareham
BH20 6JG

Website

https://www.thegreatwarsociety.website/

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