World War 1

US to destroy last chemical weapons, closing a deadly chapter dating to WWI

At a sprawling military installation in the middle of the rolling green hills of eastern Kentucky, a milestone is about to be reached in the history of warfare dating back to World War I. Workers at the Blue Grass Army Depot are close to destroying rockets filled with GB nerve agent that are the last of the United States' declared chemical weapons and completing a decadeslong campaign to eliminate a stockpile that by the end of the Cold War totaled more than 30,000 tons. The weapons' destruction is a major watershed for Richmond, Kentucky and Pueblo, Colorado, where an Army depot destroyed the last of its chemical agents last month. It's also a defining moment for arms control efforts worldwide. The U.S. faces a Sept. 30 deadline to eliminate its remaining chemical weapons under the international Chemical Weapons Convention, which took effect in 1997 and was joined by 193 countries. The munitions being destroyed in Kentucky are the last of 51,000 M55 rockets with GB nerve agent a .

UK imposes export bar on painting of Indian soldiers during World War I

A portrait by Anglo-Hungarian painter Philip de Laszlo of two Indian soldiers who fought in World War I was placed under a temporary export bar by the British government to allow time for a UK institution to acquire the "wonderful and sensitive" work to prevent it leaving the country. The unfinished portrait, valued at around GBP 650,000, depicts cavalry officers Risaldar Jagat Singh and Risaldar Man Singh junior troop commanders in the British Indian Army's Expeditionary Force who served at the Battle of the Somme in France and presumed to have died in action. The painting is extremely rare in depicting active Indian participants in the First World War. This wonderful and sensitive portrait captures an important moment in our history as soldiers were drawn from across the globe to help fight in the trenches of the First World War, said Lord Stephen Parkinson, UK Arts and Heritage Minister. I hope this magnificent painting can remain in the UK to help tell the story of those brave

Idea of war: The battlefields are changing

Military is more an instrument of asserting political will. The ultimate objective of war may not always be about controlling territory or land, as Gen M M Naravane (retd) argues

'You are blind like us': WWI's dead have a message for us about trade wars

Armistice Day this Sunday marks 100 years since the end of the First World War on November 11, 1918

World War I: What happens in the Balkans doesn't stay in the Balkans

The enduring picture of World War I is of muddy trenches, barbed wire and bomb craters

World War I: How it sparked artistic movement transforming black America

Before World War I, African-American literature depicted stoic, but constrained, black protagonists

Film on Indian soldiers in World War 1 to be screened in capital

The film is a docu-fiction on Indian soldiers, who came to France & Belgium to fight in WW 1