List of Plates
Lord Kitchener of Khartoum recruiting his New Armies in 1914.
British troops conducting naively amateurish training in Scotland, 1914.
Too many French attacks in 1914 were defeated with heavy casualties when they failed to co-ordinate artillery support for their massed infantry.
A light German field gun being manhandled into action, 1914.
The famous French ‘soixante quinze’ 75mm quick-firing field gun, which had revolutionized artillery in 1900 but was already too light for the needs of 1914.
Three British officers dining in their snug dugout.
Indian troops at Fauquissart Post, Ypres area. Two Indian divisions were consumed on the Western Front in the winter of 1914–15, and not replaced.
Gurkhas with their fearsome kukris (fighting knives) near Neuve Chapelle in March 1915.
Soldiers with some of the new technology of trench warfare in the muzzles of their rifles, in the form of rifle grenades and wire cutters.
Chinese labourers at work on the British lines of communication: a vital but unsung resource.
French troops in the steep, stony and snowy terrain of the high Vosges.
Dragging up a big gun by hand, illustrating the poor mobility of artillery on the muddy battlefields of 1916.
Walking wounded British and German soldiers on the Somme, 1916.
‘La Voie Sacrée’ at Verdun in 1916: the vital road along which an endless column of motor lorries kept the garrison supplied.
The heroism of the trenches, 1916: this man was credited with rescuing twenty of his wounded comrades.
The small comforts of trench life, 1916: the ‘Café Royal’ canteen.
An infantry patrol crawling through wire and chevaux de frise around Beaumont Hamel, 1916.
President Poincaré and Marshal Joffre visit officers' quarters on the Somme, 1916.
Mining at Messines in 1916, in preparation for the battle in 1917. By this time the mine had been perfected as a technology for static warfare.
Training model of terrain at Messines, before the battle of June 1917. Careful briefing was a vital part of the ‘rehearsal’ phase in any battle.
A British advance in 1917, leaving typically shallow trenches.
A typical trench scene in 1917: British troops sleeping in mud holes.
A classic view of the tortured moonscape of the Western Front, showing how clearly the trenches could be mapped from the air.
A forlorn plea to conserve ammunition, at a time when the British alone were firing off around a million shells per week.
Vickers machine gun engaged in long-range ‘barrage’ fire at Arras, 1917. This was an innovative technique for supplementing an artillery barrage.
Ancient meets modern: airpower shares the battlefield with French cavalry whose sabres are drawn but whose carbines are slung.
Canadians with a captured pillbox at Ypres, 1917. The Germans were at least a year ahead of the allies in the use of concrete for fortification.
German troops in tactical pose at La Vacquerie, 1917.
US cemetery at Belleau Wood, where American troops halted the German Aisne offensive in June 1918.
US infantry at bayonet drill: an atavistic practice that was often mocked in this war of high explosives and advanced machinery.
General ‘Black Jack’ Pershing awarding congressional medals of honor at Chaumont, 1918.
3,000 of America's three million troops in France, 1918. This major new infusion of manpower would have been decisive if the war had continued into 1919.
A German machine gun team in the front line, 1918.
One of the very few German-built tanks, in September 1918. It was a mechanically execrable design.
A British Whippet (light and relatively fast) tank, during a muddy phase of the ‘Hundred Days’ in late 1918.
French 320mm railway guns in action, 1918. France was two years behind the central powers in the production of super-heavy artillery, but she caught up in the end.
The ‘Strassenkampf’, or civil war on the streets, in Berlin, late 1918.
Field Marshal Haig leading the British Empire troops in the Paris Victory March, 14 July 1919.