World War I American Soldier's Photo Album Depicting POWs, Trenches, and Artillery

World War I, Photo Album

Photo Album

[WORLD WAR I]. Soldier's album and additional photographs, Approximately 130 photographs affixed to black album pages, disbound. Largest approx. 7 x 5 in. 56 leaves. Album was bound with iron ring bindings that have mostly separated from black album leaves. Images include pictures from the front, trenches, battleships, artillery, planes, local populations, and occasional European tourist sites. Many photos of the devastation wrought by World War One, which was the first fully mechanized war, and one that shocked the world with its speed and scale of the destruction. One remarkable photo captioned "prisoners" shows a group of about 100 captured men, some of whom have "PW" emblazoned on their jackets. These were likely soldiers that fought for the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire), and wear a variety of military uniforms and headwear. These men seem to be detained in a POW camp. Another photo depicts the early construction of the frame of a zeppelin, which were used to scout enemy positions and direct bombardment in the war. Several photos of logistics centers that kept the military operations flowing in the war, including train yards and a depot full of motor parts in Verneuil, France. One shot of an artillery cannon from the rear show a crew firing into a forest clearing and another shows a German 280 mm cannon captured by the 4th British Army in August 1918. These 280 mm cannons are better known as the "railway guns", which were massive and fearsome artillery so large they had to be mounted on rails for movement. In one photo we can see an "armored" trench, which had an iron observation turret ("cupola"), an innovation of this war. The soldiers look grimly at the camera, biding their time between the carnage, with their rifles leaned up against the turret. Seven additional photographs and pieces of ephemera related to World War I, including an outdoor panoramic photo (9.25" x 3.5" inches) of Ottoman mounted cavalry near Mosul, Iraq, armed with swords and lances with banners affixed. This photo has a typed press release pasted on recto and verso and was likely taken shortly before the Ottoman loss of Iraq and collapse as an empire. Two of the loose photos are dated 1930 and 1933, and one photo of American soldier "Roscoe Babcock" is framed in a keepsake card that has a tiny 1918 calendar affixed. Photos condition generally very good, occasional losses, wrinkling from original adhesion.

Item #17785

Price: $785.00