James had posted some links to French color photographies from World War I last week. I had found some of the many of the same photos even before that, but couldn’t find the index page, which seems to be different from that James had posted Anyway, even without the index page , a lot of pictures can be found by playing with these URLs:
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/image/memoire/0084/sap01_cvl00001_p.jpg (up to sap01_cvl00159_p.jpg)
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/image/memoire/0083/sap01_ca000002_p.jpg (up to sap01_ca000616_p.jpg).
(There are some gaps in between, though).
WWI era or not, what interests me most are the buildings, so I have put up those two images:
I had to reduce the resolution to get their sizes down to 40 kb each, the original images can be found
here and here.
I have linked here to some more images that I found interesting, in no particular order:
Graves with American flags:
Here and here.
(Update: That’s Lafayette’s tomb)
Proximity of the boche tends to loosen one’s bladder
A group of soldiers
Some soldiers in dress uniform
Picture with steeple and weir
Village square
Quay and bridge in a village
(‘Quay’ may not be the correct term for this; does somebody know a better one?)
Town gate
Keep over town square
Keep from another angle
Ornate town gate
Same gate from the side, with a view on the town wall and houses
Nurses and military surgeon, with officers
Unpaved village street
Village street with cobblestone
Brick houses at bend in the road
Soldiers with carts before brick houses
Soldiers in front of a shop
The same shop from another angle, with quay
Canadian soldiers (?)
Military truck
Firebrigade spraying ruined houses
Military smithy at city wall
Same smithy at different angle
Military police (?)
(Grab your ankles!)
Soldiers’ graves
Some city streets (obviously far from the front, the obelisk in the third picture hints at Paris)
Street 1
Street 2
Street 3
A palace
Probably the seat of some ministry.
The same palace with ceremonial guard houses
The same from another angle
Guard house up close
Tent of regimental (judging from the size) staff
Soldier in trench
Soldiers at ruined house
Black soldiers
Here and here.
Some farm houses.
Another farm house.
Half-timbered; we call this style ‘Fachwerk’ in Germany. There are lots of these in my hometown.
Soldiers in village road.
Ruined church with graveyard
Artillery rounds
Fire brigade
Park with statue
Pretty shop
(Even if some perfidious Germans shot out a window)
Cardinal and bishop with some Generals
The same Generals up close
The interior of a church
A quite handsome altar, somewhat damaged
Postman at city corner
Officer in dress uniform
Stricken village
Ralf, Thanks. Do you know what the buildings are?
I just found out that the upper picture is the Hôtel de Ville, Paris’ city hall:
Hôtel de Ville
The church looks like Notre Dame, but I’m not quitre sure.
I guess they hadn’t invented pressure washers by then.
Thanks. Fascinating pictures. Especially if that is Notre Dame, it is amazing how bucolic Paris was in 1900.
Fantastic. Thanks Ralf
Not Notre Dame… if it were, the Seine would be running through the middle of the picture, between the cathedral and the camera. And even in 1900, there would have been buildings all over those hills— Paris was way more build up than this.
It’s in a small town, someplace.. Chartres is pretty dinky, as I remember. Albert?– that was close to the front….
What we really need here is a scholar of medival architecture.
Exquisite. I admire your taste.