World War I in color: 25 colorized photographs of the early 20th century

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

A hundred years ago, in November 1918, the First World War ended. It affected the entire civilized world and changed the lives of millions of people. There are no more witnesses of that war, but black and white photographs of the brave people of those years have survived. But with the help of modern technology, ordinary people got the opportunity to see the life of those times in color.

France

By the beginning of the First World War, France had the largest army in the world, almost 900 thousand people. The soldiers of the metropolis were joined by the arrows of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal, the famous Zouaves, and the spagi cavalrymen.

The active maneuvers of 1914 were later replaced by the so-called "trench war". In the most difficult conditions, the French and their overseas counterparts repelled the attacks of the Germans. On the Western Front, once again, the soldiers of the Foreign Legion were heroic. More than 8 million people became soldiers, most of them ended up in the trenches of the Western Front, often acting as cannon fodder.

Among them were people from all over the world, from the most distant colonies of France: Somalia, Madagascar, Indochina, from the tiny islands of the Pacific Ocean. For them, the slogan Vive la France was not an empty phrase.

United Kingdom

During the Great War, almost 9 million subjects of King George V became soldiers. The British Expeditionary Force fought bravely in France and Belgium, losing 673,000 killed and 1.6 million wounded. In addition to the Western Front, the British fought the Germans in Africa, the Turks in the Middle East, and the Bulgarians in the Balkans.

In the ranks of the British there were many Indians, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, South Africans and soldiers from other colonies.

Germany

Kaiser's Germany is considered to be the culprit for inciting the First World War, since it was in Berlin that the match was brought to the powder keg on which all of Europe sat in 1914.

Nobody in Germany counted on a long war. According to the General Staff's plan, the hostilities were to end by Christmas, especially since Wilhelm II himself said: "We will have lunch in Paris, and dinner in St. Petersburg."

The Germans did not yet know that they were waiting for 4 years of bloody battles and 2 million dead on the Western and Eastern fronts, on the Balkan Peninsula and in Africa.

Austro-hungary

Austria-Hungary at the beginning of the twentieth century was an empire made of many "scraps". Relations between Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Poles, Croats, Serbs, Romanians were very difficult, which is clearly described in the famous "Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik". Throughout the war, Austria-Hungary fought with varying degrees of success with Russia and Serbia. And the hostilities in Italy became the site of bloody battles literally for a few meters of land in the Alps.

Russia

It would not be an exaggeration to say that without the participation of Russia, the Entente countries would have lost the Great War back in 1914. On the Eastern Front, the Russian Empire successfully fought against the Germans and Austrians, in the Caucasus, our corps crushed the Turks. Moreover, in 1916, one expeditionary force was sent to France, and the second fought in Macedonia.

Unfortunately, the massive heroism of our soldiers was forgotten due to the events of the 1917 revolution, the collapse of the country and the civil war.

Not many probably know about "Attack of the dead", when 60 dying Russian soldiers defeated 7000 Germans.