North-African Soldiers cooking their meal in a village in Oise, France, 1917(Autochrome color picture by Jean-Baptiste Tournassoud)

Senegalese soldiers have found billets in a shack.Picture made in Saint-Ulrich, near the frontline, June 1917.

North-African soldiers near the Western FrontIn total the French colonies donated 587,000 soldiers to the warfare.

Almost 520,000 of them fought on European soil.

More North African soldiers: Algerians, serving in the French armyAmerican picture, made by photographers of the Underwood & Underwood Agency.

The caption reads that these soldiers are nicknamed Terrible Turcos

Operating On A Horse The courtyard of a smithy serves as operating room for this French army horse. Picture by Jean-Baptiste Tournassoud.

The Black Watch, the Highlanders of Scotland American picture. The original byline reads: These are the men who are

said in the present war to have repeated the famous charge made by their ancestors at Waterloo a century ago.

A War Cemetery in the Belgian village of WoestenThe village is just behind the frontline, not far from

Ypres in Flanders. Picture made in 1917.

Belgian soldier standing by a wounded comrade

A scene at reveille

Alim Khan, Emir of Bukhara Digichromatography picture made by the

Russian photographer Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, 1917.

Gefangene Schottländer is the original caption with this German war picture. The Scottisch Prisoners-Of-War are having their soup.

Thirsty German prisoners in their barbed wire cage. Official British war photograph

German soldiers in a destroyed village near the Somme

No Mans Land Seen From A French Observation Post Autochrome color picture, made on June 16, 1917

The towers of the cathedral in Reims. Picture made in 1917

Reims was one of the most beautiful cities of France, until it was hit by bombardment after bombardment.

The picture, made in 1917, shows the University District. In the background stands the old cathedral, heavily

damaged.

A Soldier's Lunch at the Place Royal in the city of Reims, France

Group of French soldiers in front of the entry of a shelter. Picture made near the village of Hirtzbach on the frontline in Northern France, 1917.

Senegalese French soldiers.Picture made near the village of Baschwiller, North-Eastern France, 1917

Western Front, Belgian and French soldiers in a trench Picture made in 1917.

Shirts and towels drying in the sun

Entry of an Observation Post. In front of the entry, there is a panel indicating "Bowels of César". Picture made near the village of Hirtzbach, 1917

French observator in a trench of the first line.Picture made in June 1917, near the village of Hirtzbach, Northern France

Looking out from Observation Station 26. Picture made on the frontline near the village of Eglingen in Northern France. Picture made in 1917.

Three French soldiers in observation behind sand bags. Picture made near Hirtzbach, 1917.

Girl playing with her doll. Reims, 1917.German guns repeatedly shelled the medieval city of Reims. The famous cathedral and many buildings were destroyed,

Group of Russian soldiers resting between the ruines of Reims,FranceThe Russians were here to fight with the French against the Germans. Picture made in 1917

Australian soldiers, posing in front of a fortressPicture made near Bergues, in Northern France, on 2 September 1917

A French 320mm siege gun. Soldiers busy with camouflage nets. Picture made near Noyon in the Oise department, France 1917.

A French soldier says goodbye to his wife and childPicture made in 1917

Wounded soldiers in St. Pauls Hospital, near Soissons, Northern France

Picture made in 1917

The cooks of the army hospital in Chateau de Vauxbuin preparing food outside in the sun. Vauxbuin Castle is near Soisson Picture made in 1917.

French poilu's cook their meal outside the barracks. Picture made in 1917, near Soisson in the Aisne department, Northern France.

French soldiers at a newspaper kiosk Picture made near Rexpoede, Northern France, 1917.

French soldiers use a mitralleur, machinegun, to aim at German aeroplanesPicture made near Soissons, Northern France, 1917.

Entrance to the Chauteau de Chaulnes. The castle is completely destroyed

Picture made in 1917.

Fireman try to extinguish the fire in a large building after a German bombardmentPicture made in Rosendael,

Northern France, September 1917.

French and British soldiers strolling through the old city of Bergues,

Northern France Picture made in 1917

A French 370 mm gun, camouflaged and mounted on a sort of bogiePicture made near Steenkerke, in Flanders (Belgium), 1917

A French soldier looking through a hole in the wall of a buildingNote the destroyed advertising for Michelin tyres.

Picture made in the Belgian village of Woesten, 1917

An Indo-Chinese soldier of

the French army

Ambulances with red crosses near the village of Boesinghe in Flanders (Belgium) Picture made in 1917

An official French army photographer looking for a place to install his apparatus Picture made in the ruins of Reims, Northern France, 1917

A French hospital camp on the banks of the river YserPicture made near the village of Roesbrugge, Northern France, 1917

French engineers contructing a bridgePicture made near the village of Boezinghe in Flanders (Belgium), 1917.

A French military postman made in the city of Reims, 1917

The utter desolation of the battlefield in Northern France.The remnants of a pillbox and at right a trench.

Picture made in 1917

The utter desolation of the battlefield in Northern France.The railway was used for transport of ammunition.

Picture made in 1917.

The utter desolation of the battlefield in Northern France.No more branches, no more leaves.

Picture made in 1917.

Safe shelter just behind the second line of defence. Picture made in Northern France, 1917.

French army chaplain.

French oriental soldiers cooking. Picture made in Northern France, 1917.

French soldier (on the right) with walking stick and a pipe photographed with Canadian sappers.

Picture made in Northern France, 1917.

French soldier filling his water bottle in a small town in Northern France.Picture made in 1917.

British boy / kid soldier in the Great War

The picture shows young German recruits. Because of a higher birthrate Germany had more boys at her disposal than other countries. That's why the Germans were able to increase their armies until the spring of 1918.

Two young soldiers posing outside a bell tent at their training campThey belong to the Kings Own (Royal Lancaster) Regiment

French corporal proudly posing for the camera.

Newspapers told the public that the boy had joined the army when he was 14 years old. He was wounded and he had won the French Cross of War.

The boy in the middle is '15 years old hero' Edouard Mina from Lyon, France. Edouard is an orphan. His 'adoption-parents' next to him call him Petite Bleu, little blue, because of his blue pants that every poilu (common soldier) wears.

Jack Cornwall, ship boy (16) on board of HMS Cheste During the Battle of Jutland in June 1916 his ship was hit and put afire by German shells. In the chaos one gun kept firing at the Germans. It was manned by 16 years old Boy Jack Cornwall. Jack was wounded but he kept on firing until he died. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

On April 5, 1915, the Belgian crownprince Leopold —  13 years old at that time — joined the Belgian Twelfth Line Regiment. King Albert introduced Leopold to his fellow-soldiers on the Northsea beach of De Panne. The king said he did not want any preferential treatment for his son. "Let hem work in the trenches. He has to know how it feels to have blisters on his hands." Obviously the main reason for the king to send the crownprince into the army was to stir up the national sense of duty. The largest part of Belgium was occupied by German forces and many Belgians collaborated.

Although every country had underage solders in their army, the propaganda used enemy boy soldiers to prove how weak the foe was. This picture of captured German soldiers was published in America (in Leslie's Weekly) with the following text: Boy Prisoners Taken By The French

German Prisoners-Of-War, captured by the French in the last phase of the war The picture was published in France with the following byline: Ces très jeunes Allemands prisonniers surprennent les soldats français. Translation: These very young German prisoners surprised the French soldiers

The surrender of a young German soldier. The boy climbs out of his shelter and gives himself up to a Scotch soldier.

Young disabled soldiers at the Fourth London General HospitalBritish nurse Eva Dobell served in many hospitals during the war.

She used to write poems about some of her patients. Here follows Pluck:

German mother smarts up her boy, who is ready to go war Picture taken from Krieg dem Kriege (1924), the book by Ernst Friedrich in which he addresses those responsible for inspiring and preparing children for murder.

Young German soldier standing at the grave of his comrade Many German boy soldiers are buried near Ypres, at the war cemetery at Langemark. For this reason the place is known as the Studentenfriedhof -the Students Cemetery. There are 44,292 German soldiers buried here. The cemetery also holds a mass grave, where roughly 25,000 soldiers lie.

WriterRudyard Kipling had encouraged John, his only son, to enlist at the age of 16, even though the boy suffered from very poor eyesight. His application was rejected on medical grounds. Determined, John decided to become a humble Private instead. His father then asked a highly placed officer to intervene. So the boy became a Second Lieutenant in the Second Battalion of the Irish Guards. John was still only 17 when he went overseas to France, where he fought at Loos. When Kipling received a telegram from the War office saying that John was wounded and missing in action, he and his wife made countless journeys to France, searching for news on him. Eventually, they realised their son must indeed be dead

Young and old together, on their way to the trenches

American Army chaplain helps a young German prisoner-of-war As Germany in 1918 ran out of cannon fodder, they had to commit very young soldiers to battle.