amazing photos of wwi that you may have not seen before (bonus

7/29/2019 Amazing Photos of WWI That You May Have Not Seen Before (Bonus

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Government

Jan. 29, 2013 11:40am Becket Adams

Mr. Philip Gibbs, in his vivid account of the final capture of the mill by the British, says that again

and again the old windmill beyond the village changed hands. Eight times the Germans who had

dislodged our men were cut to pieces or thrust out, and then our men finally held it. (Courtesy The

War Illustrated, 7th July, 1917. Philip Gibbs was een Britse oorlogsjournalist).

Millions of Europes best men marched off to the Great War in 1914 ready to be home by Christmas but four years later their graves would make World War I one

the most savage and brutal conflicts known to mankind.

A deadly combination of advanced weaponry (i.e. the machine gun, chemical weapons, field artillery, etc.) and antiquated battlefield tactics resulted in the wholesale

slaughter of an entire generation of men in Europe.

Consider the Battle of the Somme: Nobody remembers or cares about the six miles of ground won by allied forces. No, the Somme Offensive, which began on July 1,

1916 and ended on November 18, 1916, is remembered primarily for its death toll: 420,000 British, 200,000 French, and 500,000 German soldiers.

Thats 1,120,000casualties over a 141 day period all for six miles of land.

But perhaps the greatest tragedy of World War I is the fact that many who fought had no idea what they were fighting for. Unlike its sequel, World War II, the war to en

war had no tyrant threatening the rights and liberties of the free peoples of Europe. Rather, World War I was sparked by the assassination of a relatively obscure

archduke and his wife. International treaties had to be honored and alliances needed to be observed.

The average soldier did not understand this. All he knew was that his county called and he answered.

Dulce et decorum est and all that.

Without any further introduction, we thought wed share with you some rare photos (some in color!) of people whose lives were touched by The Great War.

ly Amazing Photos of WWI That You May Have Not Seen Before ... http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/01/29/simply-amazing-ph

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C. S. Lewis in 1917, left, with friend Earnest Moore during World War I.

Moore would later be killed, as were many of Lewis friends.

(wilsonstation.com)

Although Lewis rarely spoke of his war experiences, he did touch on the subject in his 1955 partial autobiography Surprised by Joy:

Through the winter, weariness and water were our chief enemies. I have gone to sleep marching and woken again and found myself marching still. One walked in the

trenches in thigh gum boots with water above the knee; one remembers the icy stream welling up inside the boot when you punctured it on concealed barbed wire.

Familiarity both with the very old and the very recent dead confirmed that view of corpses which had been formed the moment I saw my dead mother.

I came to know and pity and reverence the ordinary man: particularly dear Sergeant Ayres, who was (I suppose) killed by the same shell that wounded me. I was a futil

officer (they gave commissions too easily then), a puppet moved about by him, and he turned this ridiculous and painful relation into something beautiful, became to m

almost like a father.

But for the rest, the war the frights, the cold, the smell of H. E. (high explosives), the horribly smashed men still moving like half-crushed beetles, the sitting or standing

corpses, the landscape of sheer earth without a blade of grass, the boots worn day and night till they seemed to grow to your feet all this shows rarely and faintly in

memory. It is too cut off from the rest of my experience and often seems to have happened to someone else.

And heres a collection of rare photos taken during the last two years of the war by the French army. Using Gallica, bibliothque numrique de la Bibliothque nationale

France as its primary photo source, this site has done an excellent job of collecting and cataloging colored photos from the French National Archives.

Although color photography was around prior to 1903, the Lumire brothers, Auguste and Louis, patented the process in 1903 and developed the first color film in 190

the site notes, explaining the colored photos.

The French army was the primary source of color photos during the course of World War One, the site adds.

French National Archives (culture.gouv.fr)


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And heres some rare aerial footage taken by a French pilot that shows the type of destruction WWI wreaked on the European countryside:

Lastly, because we think its cool, heres American poet and playwright T.S. Eliots draft registration card:


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Click to enlarge. (Courtesy geni.com).

As the card shows, Eliot wrote that his wife was solely dependent on his support, which, of course, exempted him from the draft.

Have you thought about following Becket Adams(@BecketAdams) on Twitter today?

(H/T: Peter Jesserer Smith). Featured image courtesy worldwaronecolorphotos.com.

This post has been updated

All information 2013 TheBlaze LLC


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