Collier's Photographic History of the European War
1916 Collier's Photographic History of the European War, by P.F. Collier & Son. Large, coffee-table format (16½" x 12") containing 144 pages. This spectacular account of the Great War includes sketches and drawings made on the battle fields and photographs by the official photographers accompanying each army.
Pages 5 through 15 showcase the war's most important individuals. These include great leaders of many countries involved in the war: Czar of Russia Nicholas II; England's King George V; President Raymond Poincare of France; German Emperor and King of Prussia Wilhelm II; Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary Franz Josef I, and many more.
These first pages also include several of the war's great military leaders: Supreme Commander of the French Army General Joffre; Commander in Chief of the British Home Fleet Admiral Jellico; German Field Marshal Von Hindenberg; Bavarian General Prince Leopold; and many more. The remainder of the book's pages contain some of the most compelling and riveting photographs of World War I to ever have been taken.
Throngs of villagers fleeing the horrors of war, pulling everything they own in horse-drawn carts through the streets; many young soldiers laying dead in the fields or trenches, their final supreme act of allegiance to their homeland forever preserved on film; the weaponry of various countries; troop formations, units, and battalions from various countries in a variety of locations during the war; great ships such as the Sydney (Australian), the Emden (Germany), the Bulwark (England), and many, many more, including a full-page photo of the great British Cunard liner Lusitania, which sunk after being torpedoed by a German submarine and took 1150 non-combatant lives (114 of them American), an act which outraged American citizens and eventually helped to draw the United States into the war.
There are trench warfare photos; submarine photos; zeppelin and aeroplane photos; photos of the total destruction of once-thriving cities and towns caught in the path of war's relentless march; actual battle photos; photos of survivors of sunken ships, afloat in the sea just before rescue; a photo of the execution of accused spies; young foot soldiers who were killed as they became entangled in barbed wire and died standing upright, supported by the wire that had entrapped them; medics and nurses tending the wounded; photos from the battles at Gallipoli, Verdun, etc.; troops laying underground mines in tunnels beneath the enemy lines; Russian troops marching through wintry landscapes; etc.
Each photograph is a stark documentation of what war really means - graphic scenes which, these days, seem all too real.