Mar 7, 2018
World War I trenches, Walter Koessler 1914-1918
seen from Türkiye
seen from Germany
seen from Netherlands
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from France
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from Japan
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Brazil
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from Türkiye
seen from Israel
seen from United States
seen from Germany
World War I trenches, Walter Koessler 1914-1918
Page 26 of 105
Building something. There's a lot of concrete mixing and string winding going on here. Walter labeled the back of one of these photos as "Frapelle 1915", so it must be near Frapelle, France.
Today is the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. I'm going to try to be more regular with the blog here, please harass me on Twitter if I start to fall behind!
Pages 24 and 25
Walter's dog gets a two page spread. There's an old family story that at one point Walter's group was sent on a train somewhere and they were unable to take the dog with them. They said goodbye to the dog and left it at the train station. Sometime after they set up camp- as much as a hundred miles away -the dog reappeared, paws bloody from running on its journey.
This spread shows how much they loved this dog. It's easy to forget the process involved with taking and printing these photos because Walter took so many of them, but here's a couple dozen devoted just to the dog. The soldiers loved playing with him too, and he appears several times throughout the album. I love the shot with the captain's hat and someone shaking his paw.
Page 23 of 105
More babies and family on leave. This house in the bottom right appears several times throughout the album. Pretty interesting to see people doing their washing in the stream.
Page 22 of 105
Walter and company continue their leave in Mulhouse. Here they serenade a woman outside her window, play with the local children and catch up with family members.
Page 20 of 105
High-ranking officials visit Walter's regiment while they are on leave. They've got thick, handsome coats and shiny boots. You can see the special attention they've put for the visit: laying out a table cloth for lunch and setting up big lawn chairs.
Page 18 of 105
Barbed wire tangles (Walter calls them "jumbles" in his report), keeping a lookout in the trenches, working on artillery and mending clothes.
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