First World War in Photographs

1914: the first year of the 'war to end all wars', documented through old photographs. In 1914, after more than a decade of sabre-rattling, arms races and localised wars, mainland Europe erupted into the greatest war man had ever seen. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand saw the beginning of a conflict that was, according to some, going to be over by Christmas but which, in reality, lasted over five years. With battles on all fronts, from Russia to the Falklands, West Africa to China and the Middle East, at sea, on land and by the fledgling air forces of the world, 1914's war culminated in the famous football match on the Western Front on Christmas Day, but also saw the invasion of neutral Belgium, the Battle of the Marne and the sinking of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. The photographs tell the story of the world at war in a graphic and telling way. The First World War changed the art of war forever, and not in a nice way. John Christopher and Campbell McCutcheon document the horrors of war in the photographs of those times.

1915, the second year of the Great War, was to see the failure of the Dardanelles landings and the sinking of the Lusitania, shown below, with the loss of 1,198 people, as well as the first bombing of mainland Britain by Zeppelin and the entry of Italy into the war. Huge battles would be fought at sea and on land, while the fledgling air forces of the fighting powers clashed in the clouds. 1915 will be remembered not just for the Lusitania but also for that most inhumane and indiscriminate weapon, poison gas, its first use being against the Russians on the Eastern Front. The Western Front was in stalemate, with the troops entrenched and little in the way of advance or retreat to counter the thousands of lives being lost on a daily basis. War in the east and in Mesopotamia was more fluid, with the armies of Germany, Turkey, Russia and Austria-Hungary moving over huge swathes of Central Europe and the Middle East. John Christopher and Campbell McCutcheon tell the story of 1915 at war using many rare and often unpublished images, showing the full horror of the conflict, as well as its impact on the everyday person.