Remembrance Day in Images and Colour

I usually like to write a few words and get all descriptive, but in the case of these images, I’ll let them do the talking. One or two are graphic, and show injured and dead soldiers, although they aren’t gratuitous, some members might prefer to look away.

The colour images aren’t photoshopped, they are originally b&w shots that were colourised at the time.

In less than a hundred years, it’s remarkable how far the technology of war has moved on. Some of these images are from 1915 – just 30 years before the first atom bomb tests and their use in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It’s tempting to see the Great War technology as a time of innocence and yet no matter the instruments of war…death is death.

An estimated 200 million people have died during wars in the 20th Century.

Across Europe, today is Remembrance Day and it recognises the end of the ‘War to End All Wars.’

I’ve tried to include as many nations as are represented on ATS.

British soldiers look on


Murmansk railway, 1915: Russians guarding the borders


German artillery on the move


Belgian War Dogs


Canadian 90th Winnipeg Rifles


French Horsemen: man down in 1914


The Scots Black Watch


Aussie Light Infantry
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US soldiers in France


Bullet-riddled train in France 1917
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Cossacks and horses


French airplane prototype
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Deserters or captives?
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British POWs search their dead as German guard looks on
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Body count




The photos are from The Heritage of the Great War.

The last British survivor of the Great War was Harry Patch. He recognised the futility of war and still offered a message of hope for the dead when he described coming across a dying German soldier who asked him to kill him to end the pain...

He was laying there in a pool of blood. As we got to him, he said, 'Shoot me.' He was beyond all human aid.

Before we would pull out the revolver to shoot him, he died. ... And when that fellah died, he just said one word: 'Mother.'

It wasn't a cry of despair. It was a cry or surprise and joy.

I think - although I wasn't allowed to see her - I am sure his mother was in the next world to welcome him. ...

And from that day until today - and now I'm nearly 106 years old - I shall always remember that cry and I shall always remember that death is not the end.

Harry Patch

Fantastic thread. Incredible pictures.

How care free and innocent some of those German soldiers look....

That quote at the end by Harry Patch. I first read that in 2003 in a book called Forgotten Voices of the Great War.

I have remembered his haunting words ever since....

reply to post by Kandinsky


I thought i would add to your thread,I hope you don't mind.
The article is called "words from ww1 trenches"

Sandy Clarke was killed today. Shot through head by sniper. The Germans sent over 10,000 shells in an hour and a half. So damn homesick I can hardly do any work. Just waiting for next leave. "22 kilometers march; we made it in less than 4 hours. One of the hardest marches I ever done ... there are thousands of (soldiers) carcasses lying up there yet.

cnews.canoe.ca...

Lest we forget.

reply to post by Kram09

That quote at the end by Harry Patch. I first read that in 2003 in a book called Forgotten Voices of the Great War.

I'll look for that book, thanks. I've seen an interview with him where he describes that encounter, but couldn't find it on YT. He doesn't glorify war or condemn it...

reply to post by DrumsRfun

I thought i would add to your thread,I hope you don't mind. The article is called "words from ww1 trenches"

Not a bit

I read a book by Dennis Winter and he related a story by a WW1 veteran. Two friends signed up and went to war at 17. They went 'over the top' and ran towards the enemy trenches. They'd grown up together and were that scared that they held hands. One died and one lived to tell the tale...