Something to Smile About in Northern France

By DAVID W. DUNLAPMAY 3, 2017

“These young French soldiers, residents of one of the French cities long under German rule and reoccupied after the recent retreat, have obtained leave to visit their families and friends. The joyful reunion under the tricolor is here pictured.” CreditAmerican Press Association/The New York Times Mid-Week Pictorial, May 3, 1917

Even in this stiffly staged picture, made decades before candid photography was possible, unfeigned joy comes through in the faces of the women we might assume to be Mère (center) and Grand-Mère (right). The devastation of this unnamed French town by three years of military occupation is equally evident. Neighboring houses have been reduced to rubble.

“‘Soldiers All: The men and the women who devote their thought and their energy to these things (productive work) will be serving the country and conducting the fight for peace and freedom just as truly and just as effectively as the men on the battlefield and in the trenches.’ — President Wilson. The photographs show (below) a member of the British ‘Women’s Land Army’; (above) the first British troops to cross the Somme, at Peronne.”CreditBritish Official Photo — Central News Service/The New York Times Mid-Week Pictorial, May 3, 1917

Elsewhere in The New York Times Mid-Week Pictorial this week was a two-page essay, “Petrograd During the Russian Revolution as Shown by First Photographs to Reach America.” (That would have been the February Revolution that overthrew the monarchy. The October Revolution was yet to come. Petrograd, or St. Petersburg, was then the capital.)

The photograph below, which looks like a moth specimen pinned to a cork board, must have astonished readers who were just getting accustomed to the idea of heavier-than-air flight. The vantage was higher in the sky even than the aircraft being pictured. And it was already clear that aviation, even in its infancy, would change the way war was waged.

“German Trenches Photographed From a Height of 3,000 Feet Showing Another British Air Scout Lower Down: Prior to the beginning of the British drive from Arras [France] it was announced that the air scouts of [Field Marshal Douglas] Haig’s army had thoroughly reconnoitered the German positions and that more than 1,700 negatives had been taken showing the enemy’s dispositions along the Hindenburg line. When the British struck it was with the knowledge gained from these photographs before them.”CreditCentral News/The New York Times Mid-Week Pictorial, May 3, 1917

Times Insider is offering glimpses of some of the most memorable wartime illustrations that appeared in The New York Times Mid-Week Pictorial, on the 100th anniversary of each issue: