Photographers > Tom Aitken
(13) N.392 - Officers watching a wiring demonstration in France
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| First World War 'Official Photographs' > Photographers > Tom Aitken > (13) N.392 - Officers watching a wiring demonstration in France |
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| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/74549004 |
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| Description | Officers inspecting a barbed wire exercise, France, during World War I. This working party of soldiers is showing the assembled officers how they coil belts of barbed wire to build a defensive fence for the front line trenches. Note the thick padded gloves that the helmeted soldier to the far right of the image is wearing to protect his hands from the wire. As the two lines of defence became firmly entrenched, they stretched from the northern coast of France down to the Swiss border. Thus, millions of kilometres of barbed wire were laid by both sides, sometimes reaching a depth of up to 40 metres. As barbed wire fences could not be laid during daylight, working parties of soldiers were sent out into no-man’s land during the night to construct new fences and repair any damaged ones. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT IN FRANCE. Officers watching a wiring demonstration in France.'] |
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| Description | Tom Aitken was a newspaper photographer from Glasgow who was assigned in December 1917 as a war photographer along with David McLellan and Armando Consolé. McLellan's work also features in the National Library of Scotland’s Haig Papers. War photographers held a hybrid position during World War I, being part of yet not ultimately responsible to the military. |
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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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