Members of the Australian 11th Battalion 3rd Brigade Sitting on the Great Pyramid of Khufu, January 1915

It is one of the most memorable Anzac photos of World War I, depicting about 700 soldiers of Western Australia’s 11 Battalion on the Cheops Pyramid at Giza, in Egypt in January 1915.

Group portrait of the original officers and men of the 11th Battalion, 3rd Brigade AIF (Australian Infantry Division). The group of over 685 soldiers are spread over the side of the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) near Mena camp (taken January 10, 1915) (Image: Australian War Memorial).

Captain Charles A Barnes, one of the officers in the photograph, made a note in his diary of the event, which is quoted by the Australian War Memorial.

“After Church this morning the whole Battalion was marched up to the Pyramid (Old Cheops) and we had a photo took or at least several of them,” he wrote.

Amidst the training undertaken by the men, there was time on Sundays, days off and evenings when leave was granted to visit local sites of interest such as the pyramids, the Citadel and the many mosques in Cairo. The trams struggled to keep up with the demand and local transport such as carriages were heavily used.

Mournful Fate of Mata Hari, and 14 Stunning Photos of This Dutch Exotic Dancer, Courtesan and Notorious WWI Spy

The name “Mata Hari” has become virtually synonymous with “espionage”. But despite her fame, it is not at all clear that the World War One exotic dancer was ever actually a spy for anyone.

As an exotic dancer and performer (and a courtesan to much of Europe’s wealthy elite), Mata Hari gave out so many embellished tales of her life that today it is virtually impossible to sort them all out. It is known that her real name was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, and she was born in 1876 in Holland as the daughter of an oil investor. When Zelle was just 13, her father lost his fortune, and two years later her mother died. She was separated from her three younger brothers and was sent to live with her godfather. While attending a private school that trained girls to become teachers, the 16-year old had a sexual relationship with the school headmaster. Although it is not clear who seduced who, the incident seemed to teach young Zelle the power she could have over men.

After being expelled from the school, Zelle lived briefly with her uncle in The Hague. In 1895, she answered a “lonely hearts” advertisement in the newspaper from Captain Rudolph McLeod, a Dutch Army officer who had been stationed in the East Indies for the past 16 years and was now on leave in Holland. The attraction between the 18-year old Zelle and the 39-year old McLeod was instant; they were engaged after just six days and were married in July 1895, after which they both moved to the Dutch colony of Indonesia. Because McLeod was the well-off son of a minor nobleman, Zelle adopted the title of “Lady McLeod”.

Things quickly went sour, however. McLeod was a drunkard with a roving eye, and his nubile young wife also enjoyed the attention she got from other young Dutch Army officers. Both accused the other of infidelity. Things fell apart when the couple’s two-year old son died and their younger daughter became severely sick. (By some accounts, the children were poisoned by a housekeeper who had a grudge against McLeod; by other versions, the children had caught congenital syphilis from their philandering father.) Shortly after returning to Holland upon McLeod’s discharge in 1902, the marriage broke up, they divorced in 1906, and Zelle was left to fend for herself in The Hague.

Zelle had no education and no skills, but she soon made a living by using the one thing she did have–her dark-featured exotic good looks. Moving to Paris, the 27-year old first worked the streets as an ordinary prostitute. But she soon invented a new and more lucrative persona for herself, based on the European fascination with the far-off exotic Indonesian islands. She took the name “Mata Hari” (from a Malayan expression “Eye of The Day”, referring to the sun), and spun tales of being the daughter of an Indian Hindu temple dancer who had grown up in Indonesia. She claimed to be a priestess, and would perform scandalous “sacred dances” in Paris nightclubs, which were essentially stripteases. The effect was electric. The dark-eyed beauty had one string of paramours after another, who kept her supplied with money and luxuries.

In May 1914, Mata Hari began a six-month engagement at the Metrepol Club in Berlin. But when the First World War broke out in August, she found herself in a difficult position. Though Holland was officially neutral in the war, Mata Hari was viewed with suspicion, and her costumes and furs were confiscated by the German authorities. Fearing that she might be arrested or detained, she escaped back to The Hague with a wealthy Dutch businessman, who set her up in a lavish chateau.

What happened after that is still a matter of controversy amongst historians. According to the version later presented by the French prosecutors (and confirmed in 1970 by documents released from the German archives), Mata Hari was approached in 1914 by the German consul in Holland and offered a large sum of money to wheedle military information out of her many army officer lovers and pass it on to the embassy. Hari’s story at her trial was that she took the money from the Germans because she needed it (the war having wrecked her dancing career), but she never intended to pass on any information. British intelligence soon compiled their own dossier on her, noting that she spoke several languages, had many French, English and German military officers as companions, and, as a neutral Dutch citizen, was in a position to travel freely and pass secret information to the Germans. Two undercover security officers were assigned to keep an eye on her. By most accounts, the investigation produced abundant evidence of a long string of lovers (one of whom, amazingly, was a high official in the intelligence service), but found no definite proof that Mata Hari was passing secrets to the Germans.

Then in 1916, Hari was briefly detained for questioning by the British while passing through London. She now claimed that she had been approached by the French intelligence service, who asked her to feed the Germans false information and to pass German secrets on to the French. The British didn’t believe her, but had no hard evidence against her, and let her go.

After this, Hari was, she claimed at her trial, sent by the French to Belgium, where she was to seduce the German military governor in an attempt to obtain secrets. Instead, she ended up in Spain with a German intelligence officer named Kalle. According to Hari, she was extracting information from him and passing it to the French: according to the French, she was passing Entente secrets on to Kalle. She returned to Paris, where the authorities decided to test her. Through one of her paramours, the French intelligence service allowed her to learn the identity of a spy who they suspected was a double agent, passing information on to both sides. Shortly later, the agent turned up dead. The French concluded that he had been killed by the Germans as a result of the information given to them by Mata Hari, and, in February 1917, the military police arrested her, melodramatically charging her with espionage that had resulted in over 50,000 battlefield deaths.

The trial took place before a military tribunal, in secret. It lasted only two days. According to some accounts, the defense was not allowed to question any of the witnesses. The official French intelligence file on Mata Hari was sealed for 100 years, and won’t be released until 2017. According to some who have claimed to have seen it, there is no hard evidence cited in the dossier to establish that the dancer actually passed any military secrets to the Germans.

Mata Hari was executed by a French firing squad on the morning of October 15, 1917.

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36 Rare and Beautiful Studio Portrait Photos of Nurses in World War I

When war broke out in 1914, nurses were needed to staff the medical units. Senior officers were more inclined to have trained male soldiers to female nurses. Director of medical services has been quoted as saying that "the female nurse did little towards the actual saving of life in the war although a nurse might have prompted a more rapid and complete recovery."

The women worked in hospitals, on hospital ships and trains, or in casualty clearing stations closer to the front line. They served in locations from Britain to India, taking in France and Belgium, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. Many of them were decorated, with eight receiving the Military Medal for bravery. Twenty-five died during their service.

By war's end, having faced the dangers and demands of wartime nursing and taken on new responsibilities and practices, nurses had proved to be essential to military medical service.

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With Copper, Foil and Paint, a Little-Known American Sculptor Saved Scores of World War I Soldiers From a Faceless Future

Born in Philadelphia in 1878, Anna Coleman Ladd was a classically trained sculptress who in 1917 founded the American Red Cross Studio for Portrait Masks in Paris.

Anna was inspired to offer her talent as an artist to help soldiers in France after reading an article about Francis Derwent Wood and his "Tin Noses Shop" in England (where Wood was creating masks for disfigured soldiers).

Anna's husband, Dr. Maynard Ladd, was already in France organizing pediatric hospitals. Anna prevailed upon his Red Cross connections to help her establish the Studio for Portrait Masks for Mutilated Soldiers in Paris.

By November of 1917 Anna had found prospective clients from the front-line hospitals. Shortly after that, with the help of Diana Blair (from the Harvard Medical unit), Jane Poupelet (a French sculptor) and two English sculptors (Louise Brent and Robert Vlerick), she was ready to open the studio.

Anna didn't want to just hide the soldier's disfigurement. She wanted to restore his sense of self - "his personality, his hopes and ambitions." To do this she created a homelike environment where the men would feel at ease. The studio was filled with light and laughter.

Anna and her assistants took time to talk with the men, to get to know them. She often interviewed friends and family members and pored over pictures of the man before the war.

The first step, in the actual process of restoring a mutilé's face, was to make a plaster cast of his damaged face. Then, using the information garnered from her interviews and photographs, Anna would build-up the missing or ruined features on the plaster cast until the soldier said, "C'est moi!" (It's me!).

Next a gutta percha (a type of latex) mask was made of the area that need to be restored. Some masks covered the whole face but most were partial masks, covering a chin and one cheek, or a nose and an eye, whatever had been damaged.

The gutta percha mask was suspended in a copper bath for two days until a thin film of copper was deposited on it, resulting in a light weight copper mask that could be painted. Anna painted the mask while it was on the man's face to better match his skin tones.

Eyes were painted on if needed but eyelashes, eyebrows and even mustaches were created with fine copper wire that looked natural and would withstand the occasional mustachio twirling so popular with Frenchmen. Most masks were held in place with spectacles but, if a soldier didn't want glasses, Anna found alternative methods, like thin wire or ribbon, to secure the mask.

To further create a natural effect, a small hole was left between the new lips so a man could smoke a cigarette while wearing his mask. A video of Anna at her studio still exists in which you can see Anna and her assistants creating and fitting masks on soldiers.

The average cost of the masks was only $18 due, in large part, to the fact that Anna's services were donated.

Reports vary as to the number of masks that Anna and her team created. Some say 60, others say over 100. But the impact on the lives of the soldiers they helped—and their families—is immeasurable.

Anna Ladd returned to the United States in December of 1918 where she resumed her career as a sculptor. Sometime in the late 1930s she and her husband moved to California where she remained active as an artist.

Anna died in Montecito, California on June 4, 1939. She was survived by her husband and two daughters.

Sculptors and artists designed lifelike masks for gravely wounded soldiers. (Anna Coleman Ladd papers, Archives of American Art, S.I.)

Life in the trenches, wrote the British poet Siegfried Sassoon, "is audacious and invincible, until it is whirled away in enigmatic helplessness and ruin." Enemies popped up from the earth to shoot at each other, producing a bumper crop of head wounds. (Anna Coleman Ladd papers, Archives of American Art, S.I.)

Sculptor Anna Coleman Ladd (above right) perfected mask-making in her Paris studio. "We give the soldiers a warm welcome," Ladd wrote. (Anna Coleman Ladd papers, Archives of American Art, S.I.)

With an unidentified assistant, Ladd fits a French soldier with a paper-thin metal mask, secured by ear-pieces from spectacles and plated from a plaster mold of the man's face. Ladd made a point of befriending "those brave faceless ones." (Anna Coleman Ladd papers, Archives of American Art, S.I.)

Sculptor Anna Coleman Ladd adapted Francis Derwent Wood's methods at her Studio for Portrait Masks in Paris. (Anna Coleman Ladd papers, Archives of American Art, S.I.)

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WWI Australian Soldiers – 58 Vintage Photos of New South Wales Servicemen Portraits in 1918

Here is a vintage photo collection of New South Wales servicemen portraits from the First World War. They were born before 1900 and enlisted in 1918.

These photos are from "Crown Studios' New South Wales officers and men of the Australian Imperial Force (A.I.F.) and the Australian Naval Forces".

Albert Edward Hawkins, born 1898

Albert Stephen Furness, born 1899

Alfred Andrew Hamilton, born 1899

Angus Ralph Anderson, born 1899

Archibald Strahan, born 1899

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19 Beautiful Colorized French Pictorial Postcards From World War I

By the time of the Great War, photography was entering a robust seventy-fifth year. The cumbersome equipment and demanding processes of earlier battlefields had been replaced by the comparatively effortless Speed Graphic and Kodak Brownie cameras, collodion dry plate and gelatin roll film.

Perhaps more importantly, technological innovations such as chromolithography and rotogravure had made possible the mass-production of images that brought the apparent immediacy and inclusivity of the photograph to the offices, parlors and breakfast tables of millions in a quantity that presaged the deluge of pictures we experience today. Postcards, stereoviews, the picture press and the ubiquitous snapshot album carried news and sentiment to and from the front and the domestic sphere.

These brightly colored postcards, sent by French families and soldiers during World War I, are part of a set of similar cards available on Flickr from the George Eastman House. Because sending postcards to soldiers was postage-free during the conflict, the cards were mass-produced in great quantity and variety. Imagery offered solace and urged staunch resolve.

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WWI German Soldiers Celebrate Christmas, 1916

A soldier to the right plays music on an old piano. He is accompanied by another soldier playing the violin. The soldiers are drinking dark beer and smoking cigars and cigarettes. The soldier on the left is holding a rag or perhaps it is an apron. It could be that he is the bartender for the group.

A huge, elaborately decorated Christmas tree looms in the corner, and the walls are festooned with evergreen branches. No doubt about it; it's a Christmas scene. These soldiers are lucky. While they are not with their families, at least they are gathered with comrades and friends around a warming stove and not freezing in the trenches.

The hand-lettered sign in the lower righthand corner of the photograph translates literally as “2nd War Christmas”. It is possible that “2te Kriegs=” is an abbreviation for “2te Kriegs-Nummer,” which might be German for “2nd Battalion.”

(via Sunny Brook)

22 Vintage Photographs of Unbelievably Dazzle Camouflage Ships in World War I and World War II

Dazzle camouflage, also known as razzle dazzle or dazzle painting, was a family of ship camouflage used extensively in World War I, and to a lesser extent in World War II and afterwards. Credited to the British marine artist Norman Wilkinson, though with a rejected prior claim by the zoologist John Graham Kerr, it consisted of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colors, interrupting and intersecting each other.

Unlike other forms of camouflage, the intention of dazzle is not to conceal but to make it difficult to estimate a target's range, speed, and heading. Norman Wilkinson explained in 1919 that he had intended dazzle more to mislead the enemy about a ship's course and so to take up a poor firing position, than actually to cause the enemy to miss his shot when firing.

Dazzle was adopted by the Admiralty in the UK, and then by the United States Navy, with little evaluation. Each ship's dazzle pattern was unique to avoid making classes of ships instantly recognizable to the enemy. The result was that a profusion of dazzle schemes was tried, and the evidence for their success was at best mixed. So many factors were involved that it was impossible to determine which were important, and whether any of the color schemes were effective.

Dazzle attracted the notice of artists such as Picasso, who claimed that Cubists like himself had invented it. Edward Wadsworth, who supervised the camouflaging of over 2,000 ships during the First World War, painted a series of canvases of dazzle ships after the war, based on his wartime work. Arthur Lismer similarly painted a series of dazzle ship canvases.

USS Mahomet (ID-3681) in port, circa November 1918. The ship has a "dazzle" camouflage scheme that distorts the appearance of her bow.

CSS Atlanta, 1901. The first Atlanta was an iron-hulled, schooner-rigged, screw steamer in the Confederate Navy, later captured and served in the United States Navy.

Narkeeta (Harbor Tug No.3) with an experimental "brickwork" camouflage scheme in 1917. Black stripes on the white background produced a soft gray effect at moderate distances. Larger black patches were applied to those areas which usually reflected light. Visibility of the ship was reduced when the light was behind the observer.

HMS ADVENTURE in dazzle camouflage during World War I.

Nebraska (BB14). Port bow, camouflaged, Norfolk, 04-20-1918.

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10 Important 'Firsts' of the First World War

The First World War was a war of innovation. Advances in weaponry and military technology provoked tactical changes as each side tried to gain an advantage over the other. Major innovations were made in manufacturing, chemistry and communications, while medical advances led to the improved treatment and evacuation of battlefield casualties.

Here are 10 important 'firsts' that happened during the First World War, the effects of which can still be felt today.

1. First war fought on air, land and sea

A British airman dropping a bomb.

The First World War was unprecedented in scale. It was the first war to be fought in three dimensions: on land, at sea and in the air.


2. First air attacks on British civilians

Bomb damage to Warrington Crescent in St John's Wood, London, following a German air raid the night of 7-8 March 1918.

Approximately 4,800 British civilians were killed or wounded as a result of German air raids during the First World War. The introduction of aircraft into combat left soldiers and civilians vulnerable to air attacks for the first time.

The first of these raids on British civilians occurred on 19 January 1915, when giant airships called Zeppelins dropped bombs on Great Yarmouth and Kings Lynn in Norfolk. Raids on London followed throughout 1915. These attacks caused panic and public outcry and led to a government-imposed black-out. In spring 1917, the Germans carried out their first large-scale daylight raids involving Gotha bombers. The most destructive of the Gotha raids took place on 13 June, when 162 people were killed in London.

Britain developed new air and civil defence measures to meet the threat of German bombers, many of which would be adapted as air attacks on civilians became a more common part of modern warfare.


3. First widespread recognition of shell shock

A shell shocked soldier in the trenches during World War One.

‘Shell shock’ was the term used to describe the psychological trauma suffered by servicemen during the First World War. This trauma is not unique to the First World War, but it was during this conflict that it first came to be recognised by medical professionals and the public.

It was difficult to understand what caused shell shock. Some believed it was caused by physical damage resulting from shell explosions, but others recognised the role of a whole range of complex psychological factors and experiences. For some psychological casualties, one traumatic experience could trigger their symptoms. For others, it might be the cumulative effects of sustained battlefield service. Symptoms varied in type and severity, and treatments developed slowly.

Shell shock has become an enduring symbol of the human cost of the First World War. Over the last century there has been a growing awareness of the psychological effects of combat. Today, mental health professionals form a specialised part of the armed forces’ medical services.


4. First large-scale use of triage by British forces

The operating theatre of an advanced dressing station.

Triage is the system of categorising casualties and prioritising their treatment. It was developed during the Napoleonic Wars and first applied systematically during the American Civil War, but it was not until the First World War that the British adopted it on a widespread basis.

A wounded soldier would be taken through a series of aid posts, dressing stations and hospitals where he received different levels of medical care. From the first aid posts onwards, casualties were assessed and decisions on treatment made based on the extent of their injuries and their likelihood of survival. Those casualties with injuries thought to be survivable, but requiring rapid emergency treatment, were given the highest priority. Others with more minor injuries were less pressing. Those considered to be unlikely to survive would be made as comfortable as possible but were not prioritised.

Medical staff often had to make difficult decisions very quickly, but triage allowed for the continuous movement of casualties away from the battlefield and helped ensure that as many casualties received medical treatment as quickly as possible. It remains a crucial component of front-line medicine.


5. First major use of poison gas

British troops advance through a cloud of poison gas on the opening day of the Battle of Loos, 25 September 1915.

Gas, a type of chemical weapon, was first used on a major scale by the Germans in 1915 during the Second Battle of Ypres. The British first used poison gas during the Battle of Loos (pictured here), but in some sectors the wind blew the cloud back into the British lines.

Death rates from gas were relatively low – about 3 per cent on the Western Front – but the physical effects could be excruciating and it remained a pervasive psychological weapon. Since the First World War, there have been many international laws and arms agreements intended to ban the use of chemical weapons, but they remain a controversial part of modern warfare.

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29 Incredible Colorized Photos Reveal What Life Was Like for French Soldiers During World War I

Artist Frederic Duirez has redefined World War One as we know it by Photoshopping colourless photos. Each snap has had different tones layered on top of the original photographs to bring new depth. They offer an alternative look at the conflict that ravaged the world between 1914 and 1918. The majority of Duirez’s photos focus on what life was like for the French soldiers on the front line.

Fort Vaux, November 22 , 1916

French and British soldiers standing around a German A7V tank captured at Villers-Brettoneux, May 1918

French cantonment with canteen near Verdun, March 1917

Chasseurs posing with guns

French lines on the right bank, Lorraine, 1918

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The Slesarev “Svyatogor” – See Pictures of the Giant Russian Empire Bomber Made of Wood from 1916

The Svyatogor was a large experimental Russian aircraft, constructed by Vasily Slesarev in 1916. The aircraft was named after the mythological hero Svyatogor.

The work on the Svyatogor began in 1913. It was a large wooden biplane, with wings and fuselage covered in fabric. The aircraft was propelled by two large propellers, 6 meters in diameter. Everything on the aircraft was oversized, the nose wheel was 1.5 meter in diameter and the four rear wheels were 2 meters in diameter. The engines were placed inside the fuselage to allow access during flight.

The aircraft awoke much interest, but failed to receive funding before World War I. In desperate need of aircraft, the project was given a 100,000 rubles funding by E.M. Malynsky and production started in December 1914.

As suitable engines were hard to come by, Slesarev tried to mount some that had been taken from a downed Zeppelin. He contacted the French when this did not work out, and received some Renault engines, which could produce 220 hp. These arrived in January 1916. Despite being without money, the construction of the revised design continued. The project stalled, however, with the transmission problems and the death of Slesarev in 1921.

Lovely Vintage Photos of Soldiers and Their Girls During World War I

Here is a lovely collection of vintage photos capturing soldiers with their girls during World War I.

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