Internet and history: The National Archives of the UK created web site with diaries of servicemen during the First World War

The National Archive of the UK created a web site where it posted digitized photographs of diaries of servicemen who described life on the front lines during the First World War (1914-1918). Until the end of the year, users will have access to about 1.5 million pages. The project is a part of a government program dedicated to the centenary since the beginning of this war.

In those years, every British military unit was required to keep a diary, where day after day telling about the events at the front. The record has descriptions of everyday life: the frontline life, dinners in memory of fallen comrades, said the BBC Corporation. The site has digitized documents of servicemen of three cavalry regiments and seven infantry divisions formed in the beginning of the war.

In 2012 representatives of the archive asked volunteers to help with the paperwork, so that more Britons were able to learn about their relatives who fought in the war. From January to December 2013 about 25 volunteers have scanned hundreds of military diaries from the open access of the National Archives of the UK.