The Cookhouse, Egypt, Christmas 1914. Courtesy Horsham Museum
Exhibition: First World War in Black and White, Hurst Room, Horsham Museum, Horsham, until July 4 2009
A poignant photographic exhibition has opened at Horsham Museum, offering a fascinating insight into the service and experience of ordinary soldiers of the First World War.
To many the First World War is summed up by trench warfare on the European battlefields – the mud, bomb-blast craters and miles of barbed wire. Yet as these recently donated photographs show, the War to End Wars also took place in the desert, where dust storms, pyramids and a hot blazing sun formed the backdrop to important military campaigns.
Bringing an officer's horse ashore. Picture courtesy Horsham Museum
The exhibition, combining 17 formal and informal images, has been taken from two photograph albums donated to the Museum. As with most amateur photography it is not the technical skill which makes the images special, but the eye of the photographer capturing that moment.
"Today, thanks to television documentaries, we have got used to seeing the war in motion," explained Horsham Museum curator Jeremy Knight. "The early black and white silent films revealed the horror and bravery of the front to audiences back home, but still photographs allow for the image to be studied in depth, revealing the unintentional that was captured by the lens."
Officer's Servants, 1914. Picture courtesy Horsham Museum
"The view of a horse being hoisted off a ship in a harness was taken because it appealed to the soldier, but the Major's monkey sitting on the shoulder in the group photograph of officers servants was probably unintentional."
Unfortunately the name of the soldier who took many of the photos and took up flying in the latter part of the war isn't known, but that does not detract from this very personal view of the war.
