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This guide brings together essential collections of military history for World War I (The Great War). These include library resources, links to official military history from governments, and websites that act as portals to gather related materials.
Pick a research topic
- Read your assignment instructions carefully
- Pick a topic that interests you and meets the criteria of the assignment
- Identify key concepts of your research topic
- Need extra help? Click on Choosing an essay topic
- Do some background reading on your topic using Wikipedia
- Using Wikipedia wisely (video)
Use dictionaries, atlases or handbooks to find overviews of your topic
Begin with:
Searching for primary sources
Search your topic (or historical person of interest) using Omni, the library's main search box to find primary sources (or reproductions) in our collection. Keyword searches that include the following terms will identify primary materials most of the time.
- Search string example: nurses AND war AND diar*
Other words to use when building search strings: Diar* (for diary or diaries), Correspondence, Letter*, Memoir, Personal narratives, Recollections, Reminiscences, Journal, Sources
Search tips:
- Use bibliographies and footnotes of secondary sources on your topic to help identify primary source material.
- Useful e-book: History Beyond the Text : A Student's Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources
- Original documents can also be found by searching our archival collections or by contacting the Archives and Research Collections (ASC) staff for help.
Historical Newspaper Databases
Primary Sources on the web
- Archives and Primary Sources Databases
- Archives of Ontario
- Digital Public Library of America
- Internet Archive
- Hathi Trust Digital Library
- Library and Archives Canada
- Library of Congress Digital Collections
- National Archives (UK)
- New York Public Library Digital Collections
- Center for Research Libraries (CRL) - Carleton University Library is a member of the CRL consortium which regularly acquires and preserves newspapers, journals, documents, archives, etc. Access is through your RACER account.
Documents
- 20th Century documents 1900-1999
- EuroDocs: online sources for European history
- Internet history sourcebook: World War I
Military Records
- British Army nurses' service records 1914-1918
- Courts Martial of the First World War (Canadian Expeditionary Force)
- Prisoner of war interview reports 1914-1918 (UK)
- Service Files of the First World War, 1914-1918 – Canadian Expeditionary Force database search
War Diaries
Canada
- Online Exhibitions
- Canadian military journal
- Directorate of History and Heritage
- Official histories
- History... The First World War
- Canada and the First World War
Europe
France
Germany
United Kingdom
- BBC History World War I
- BBC News: "The Great War 80 years On"
- British Library - World War One
- Imperial War Museum - First World War
- National Archives: Britain 1906-1918
United States
Maps/Atlases/GIS
- British Army WW1 Trench Maps - includes excellent overview of structure and how to read the maps
- British First World War Trench Maps, 1915-1918
- The Great War: 100 Year Legacy of World War I
Images:
- Bibliothèque Numérique de la Bibliothèque Nationale de France has over 27,000 images and maps
- Canadian War Museum - Objects and Photos of the First World War
- Imperial War Museum (UK) has an extensive collection of over 45,000 images from the World War I period
- Photos of the Great War
- Story Galleries - A Brief History of Vimy (Veterans Affairs Canada)
- World War I in Photos (10-part series from The Atlantic that draws from archives of many nations)
Music:
- Popular Songs of World War I
- World War One Music and Songs includes lyrics and, in some cases, audio recordings
Writing Guides
- Essaying the past; how to read, write and think about history
- Writing History: a guide for students (print only)
Citation Guides
- Citing your sources
- Citing primary sources: archive and non-archive
- OWL Purdue Online Writing Lab (recommended)
