Tuesday, August 04, 2009

World War I - in Black-and-White


Because color printing was still in its infancy, a number of excellent artists observed and worked the first great World War in black-and-white for newspapers and magazines. Here are several views done by soldier and journalism artists, giving us a glimpse of the horrors experienced in the trenches, in the air, and on the sea. This was, incidentally, the war that ended the role of cavalry horses in warfare, thanks to heavily defended entrenched positions and the utter destructiveness of the modern machine gun. But the cavalry still serves us in this video, with Franz von Suppé's flamboyant "Light Cavalry Overture" acting as background music.

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