[World War I - Middle Eastern Theatre]. [Collection of photographs].

€ 850.00

Private photo album compiled by a British family that saw several members drafted into the Middle Eastern Theatre of the Great War. Centred on the Royal Garrison and Royal Field Artillery, the album contains compelling images of the challenges which the Royal Army encountered on its campaigns in Mesopotamia and the Levant, such as hauling guns and entire batteries across difficult terrain, cleaning limbers, queuing for rations in intense heat, and salvaging dumped Turkish ammunition. Further snapshots capture a petrol fire in Baghdad, a downed Austrian aeroplane, Howitzer guns in action, and a strong naval presence off Istanbul, showing the French battleship Lorraine and HMS Iron Duke.

The civilian and urban dimension of this collection is also rich: street and bazaar scenes in Baghdad, Fallujah, and Ramadi; views of the Euphrates, the Gallipoli Peninsula, Constantinople, Galata, the Golden Horn, the Bosporus, and the Princes' Islands, besides fruit sellers at Suda Bay, and locals towing a "maheylah" river craft. Juxtaposed with these front-line and city images are calm domestic scenes far from the front, recording middle-class family life in Harrogate, Greenwood Cottage, Lyndhurst, Tunbridge Wells, Mariemont, Windsor, and Stoke Poges - tennis and croquet on lawns, deckchairs, and quiet conversation.