Lieutenant Pimple and the Stolen Submarine
- Twickenham
- 1914
Scots soldiers are drilled in trench warfare techniques in leafy English countryside.
At the outbreak of WWI the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry regiment began an intensive year-long training period to prepare them for the Front. This arresting newsreel footage shows the 'Fifes', mounted and armed with machine guns, performing tactical exercises in the otherwise peaceful countryside - possibly around Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire, where they spent two months training in the autumn of 1914.
The outbreak of war in July 1914 came as a shock to most. But from our privileged position today, we can find among the films produced in the early 1910s scattered hints of the looming conflict that would split Europe in two.
One ominous sign was the proliferation of stories of international espionage and intrigue (played as drama or comedy), while newsreels offer evidence of the prominence of the armed forces in British society. Even so, the overwhelming majority of films of the period point to a nation blissfully unaware of the horrors to come.