Photographers > John Warwick Brooke
(105) D.1294 - Back for a rest after the heavy fighting at Monchy
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| First World War 'Official Photographs' > Photographers > John Warwick Brooke > (105) D.1294 - Back for a rest after the heavy fighting at Monchy |
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| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/74548098 |
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| Description | With their machine-guns and rifles at ease, this image shows a group of British soldiers going back to their billets for a rest after the fighting at Monchy. Although the thick barrel of the machine gun in this photograph makes it look more like a trench mortar, it is probably a Lewis or Vickers machine gun. The Vickers machine gun became the standard issue machine gun of the British army, and earned itself the reverential nickname of the 'Queen of the battlefield'. In the early 1900s, the British army was dismissive of the machine-gun’s potential. In contrast, the Germans immediately realised the potential of this lethal invention, and started mass-producing the gun at a factory in Spandau. When war broke out in 1914, the German army had 12,500 machine guns, while the British and French only had several hundred. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHS TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT. Back for a rest after the heavy fighting at Monchy.'] |
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| Description | John Warwick Brooke, of the Topical Press Agency, was the second British official war photographer to go to the Western Front in 1916. The demands placed on he and his colleague, Ernest Brooks, were heavy. They had to take as many photographs as possible, with as much variety as possible, a difficult task for two men covering an army of over two million. Despite this, Warwick Brooke managed to take what would become some of the most memorable images of World War I. As an officially appointed photographer, Warwick Brooke was assigned to the Western Front to follow the progress of the British Army. During his time there, between 1916 and 1918, Warwick Brooke is estimated to have taken over 4,000 photographs. |
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| Description | Photographs by named photographers. |
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| Description | Black-and-white photographs mainly of the Western Front during the First World War. Official British war photographers took many of them for propaganda purposes. Unless otherwise stated, titles are the photographs' original captions. From the papers of Field Marshal (Earl) Haig (1861-1928). The Haig Papers also contain Douglas Haig’s diaries. |
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| Shelfmark | Acc.3155 |
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