WORLD WAR I.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

A large collection of press photographs of the First World War in two albums. Two large albums containing a fine selection of double-size double-weight prints of press photographs, attractively laid out, and with a well-organized chronology. A remarkable overview of the First World War, documenting seven European theatres between 1914 and 1918.The images are press photographs distributed through the Vertriebsstelle deutscher Zeitungen, the Zurich-based German wartime office that circulated press and pictorial propaganda in neutral Switzerland. Many of the images are doubtless by official photographers - the portraits of officers, group portraits and the like all suggest so - but others show Germans troops in distress and do not shy away from the hardships and horrors of war. The striking large format images are rare and unusual for this period.The photographs are organized geographically with each section marked by a corresponding laid in map of the region. Images of aerial reconnaissance, large-scale battle scenes, downed aircraft (both English and German), tanks, bridges, bombings, and obliterated landscapes, sit beside more intimate and amusing shots of recreational and ceremonial activities including dancing, musicians, and what might be half (the winning half?) of a "tug-o-war". Furthermore we gain insight to the experience of troops on the ground. There are shots of soldiers fighting, marching, in trenches, an Italian POW camp, a paratrooper caught in a tree, wounded so

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