JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
April, 1918, Givenchy Road, France--this is an official war photograph of captured German soldiers. There are hundreds of smaller photographs composing the larger full photo of this mass scene of fear, relief, exhaustion, and boredom. Everywhere a portrait, and each portrait with a different story to tell.
- See this blog's continuing series on WWI photographs, here.
Also see an earlier post on this site, a similar photograph, the original of which is offered for sale on the blog's bookstore, here.
And stepped back a little:
And the full image;
From the National Library of Scotland website, on which this photograph was found:
"German prisoners of war waiting in the 'cage', France. The sheer mass of confined, bored humanity evident in this image is quite overwhelming. The evidence of blankets and mud here, suggests that conditions as a prisoner of war were no worse and no better than those of the average soldier in his trench. John Warwick Brooke is thought to have taken this rather bleak photograph. Lance-Corporal Thomas Owen was taken prisoner on the Givenchy Road in April 1918 and he describes the equivalent German experience, 'I left that charnel house [hospital] for the near-by prisoners' cage, where I was questioned and had my papers examined and my letters from home confiscated'. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT IN FRANCE. Some of our latest bag in prisoners.']"
--National Library of Scotland, http://digital.nls.uk/first-world-war-official-photographs/pageturner.cfm?id=74548260&mode=zoom
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