PICTORIAL HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAR NO 12 [Main Title]

II. US film of their own Army of Occupation in Germany during the Armistice, December 1918.

I. US film of their own forces, chiefly 26th Division, on the Western Front, 18th October 1918.

III. US film of their own forces in France, probably soon after the Armistice, November 1918.

Contains footage of corpses and performers in "blackface". The commander of 26th (Yankee) Division, Major-General Clarence R Edwards, stands with Lieutenant-Colonel C M Dowell before their dugout entrance at Bras. Nearby horses of 101st Field Artillery of the same division are watered. Divisional sappers have built a new wooden bridge over the Meuse Canal. At Charny a limber of 323rd Field Artillery, 83rd (Ohio) Division (? see note) pulls dead horses off the road. Members of 101st Field Artillery, 26th Division, groom their horses. Men of the Supply Column, 322nd Field Artillery, 83rd Division, round their fire.

A Mobile Veterinary Section has constructed a temporary plunge bath for horses. At Molsberg American sentries challenge a lady to show her pass. Ordnance officers inspect an unexploded shell which they explode with an electric charge.

German prisoners help move stores at the US depot at Verneuil. The Minstrel Troop of First Army Tank Corps, based at 302nd Tank Center, Saint Mihiel, gives a performance for the camera including a 'cake walk' dance. The ruins of the church at Lucy. German dead in the open in the area of Château-Thierry. The first train arrives back in Amiens station and refugees return to their homes. An American divisional headquarters in an old German position on the Freya Line, possibly 2nd Division ('the racehorse brigades'). A captured dugout used as a dressing station. A premature German mine explosion in the retreat from the Freya Line has caused much damage. Mark V tanks knocked out near Ronssoy on the Cambrai Road by running into an anti-tank minefield of spherical mines. The term "minstrel" described traditional musicians and performers in the middle ages, but since the nineteenth century it tends to be used in reference to a “blackface” performer. In 1828, Thomas Dartmouth Rice introduced the song ‘Jim Crow’, which he performed pretending to be an exaggerated, stereotypical Black man. Rice was one of the first performers to wear “blackface” makeup, using burnt cork. Rice's success with the song spurred other performers to impersonate and mock Black people on stage. At first the minstrel show was a uniquely American type of performance, most popular between 1845 and 1870. In the UK, The BBC’s Black and White Minstrel Show was a popular light entertainment show that was broadcast from 1958 until 1978 and also featured performers in “blackface”.

35mm