The Great War in color

[xemitg]

Interestingly enough, color photography was invented before World War I. Here are a collection of color photographs from the war. It blew my minds to see the French had blue uniforms. To me these photographs brought alive this conflict in a new and chilling way. They almost add another dimension to the entire conflict. What do you guys think?


http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/

[Kagemusha]

xemitg,thanks for the link! I think you are right the colour photos make everything feel more alive.

[Pannonian]

Interestingly enough, color photography was invented before World War I. Here are a collection of color photographs from the war. It blew my minds to see the French had blue uniforms. To me these photographs brought alive this conflict in a new and chilling way. They almost add another dimension to the entire conflict. What do you guys think?


http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/

There was a TV documentary series featuring colour footage from WW1. The most vivid image was the French soldiers in blue uniforms and red (yes, red!) trousers. The tricolour is a classic design, but not one on which to base field uniforms. The British khaki was much admired and envied by all sides.

Edit: Down the page is a picture of the 1st battle of the Marne. The picture is titled "1870 or 1914"

LA 1ère BATAILLE DE LA MARNE : 5 - 12 septembre 1914

[Watchman]

The Brits were about the only ones with an uniform that didn't make the poor soldiers glaringly obvious targets from a mile off. The French blue-crimson one was one of the worst offenders (although not a few gave them a run for their money - let's not even go to Austrian cavalry and their "Attila" jackets...), but the Germans also did a fine job nullifying any unobtrusiviness their relatively dark uniform had with the damn Pickelhaübe - you know, that shiny black stiff leather helmet with all those shiny brass parts and a really phallic spike on top...

There being a limit to bloody stupidity even in WW1, subdued earthern (ie. dirt) colours and decent steel helmets were the international fashion by the end of the first year.

[lars573]

Yeah, also in 1914 the French cuirassiers still marched to battle with metal breast plates and plumed helmets.

You can see them here. Top row second from right.

[Watchman]

At least they had cloth covers for them. Not that there were many of them around anyway, although one occasionally does read of them fighting in the trenches dismounted (on the defense) so I'd guess there were a few decent units' worth.

[Csargo]

Interestingly enough, color photography was invented before World War I. Here are a collection of color photographs from the war. It blew my minds to see the French had blue uniforms. To me these photographs brought alive this conflict in a new and chilling way. They almost add another dimension to the entire conflict. What do you guys think?


http://www.worldwaronecolorphotos.com/

There is a series on the History Channel called The Great War in color or World War I in color. It's video footage from the war. It really is chilling to watch.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Great site!

I love this picture. To think this is just a few hundred metres away from the front, from the airplanes and machine guns...

It reminds me of what the great historian Fernand Braudel once said. He was born in 1902, so he grew up in a surrounding like this. He said that the world he was born in, the rural surroundings from his youth, were for the most part the same as it had been for centuries, for a millenium. Most people lived the same way their ancestors had since time immemorial. More was going to change in the twentieth century for them than in the nineteen centuries preceding it.

Civilization and the twentieth century hit upon these people like a tempest. Welcome electricity, medicine, sewers, telephones. Welcome too tanks, airplanes, poison gas, modernism, totalitarianism.

Too quote Shakespeare's the Tempest,
"O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beautious mankind is!
O brave new world,
That has such people in't!"

[CountArach]

Wow! That site is really interesting. It really brings it to life.

[xemitg]

I shudder to think what actual combat color photographs would look like from that era. Pictures of the rear areas are bad enough. Has anybody else found old color photographs like these?
The other one I found when I searched was http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/empire/ which was of the old pre-WWI Russian Empire.

[Avicenna]

The blue-red uniform is quite the distinctive one

The first colour war footage (ie video), I think, was during the Russo-Japanese war in 1904.