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Front Lines - The Officer's Role

2008 8 min
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This short documentary made in 2008 looks at First World War officers. They often wrote reports and updates to headquarters. With all the devastation that they would see, they still needed to encourage their troops to not give up hope. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 2008, 90 years will have passed since the signing of the Armistice ending the Great War in Europe. More than 600,000 men and women crossed the Atlantic with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and more than 60,000 of them never returned. Front Lines features veterans' letters …

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Front Lines - The Officer's Role

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This short documentary made in 2008 looks at First World War officers. They often wrote reports and updates to headquarters. With all the devastation that they would see, they still needed to encourage their troops to not give up hope. On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 2008, 90 years will have passed since the signing of the Armistice ending the Great War in Europe. More than 600,000 men and women crossed the Atlantic with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, and more than 60,000 of them never returned. Front Lines features veterans' letters to their families and images from the NFB archives, the Canadian War Museum and Library and Archives Canada.

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Education

Ages 14 to 17
School subjects
Discuss the ways in which the role of officers was different from that of the regular soldier. Identify the duties of an officer at war. Comment on the content of the letters from the officers in the trenches. How important were these letters to both the officers and their families?
Front Lines - The Officer's Role
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