In April 2002, I walked into Kaya Books in Halifax and right away my eyes were drawn to a set of folio sized books sitting up on a top shelf. I asked the proprietor what they were and he told me what they were and that he had just acquired them. He got them down for me, not a small task, I took a quick look at them, a longer look at the price, but bought them anyway. I took them home to our new place in Hackett’s Cove and over the next few evenings, I went through them page by page. And as I went through, I jotted down what I thought were photographs, drawings, maps and artworks worth being able to find in a hurry down the road.
L'Illustration (1843–1944) was a French illustrated weekly newspaper published in Paris. It was founded by Édouard Charton with the first issue published on 4 March 1843, it became the first illustrated newspaper in France then, after 1906, the first international illustrated magazine; distributed in 150 countries.
This series of volumes is 99% dedicated to World War I. The coverage never wavered and covered all theaters of the conflict. It did not hesitate to include illustrations of the war dead – as long as they were not French.
The bevy of artists represented over the five years was impressive. Perhaps the most prolific was Georges Scott (1873 – 1943) whose work was fabulous. He also covered the Balkans War, the Spanish Civil War and the early years of World War II. Another famous artist, who contributed many works, was Georges Leroux (1877 – 1957). At the outbreak of the First World War, Leroux joined the French Army and served on the Western Front in France and Belgium. He later recalled how on one reconnaissance mission he saw “a group of French soldiers taking shelter in a great shell-hole full of water”. That evening he made sketches of what he had seen and later painted “L’Enfer (Hell).” One critic remarked that the Leroux had “produced a work which attempts to represent as accurately as possible the unreprehensible reality of war”. I’m sure this illustration would be somewhere in the 10 volumes but I’m going looking for it! My guess is there is over 10,000 illustrations in these volumes and I had to choose 12.
Throughout the was there was a series of colour portraits of senior military figures from all nations involved in the conflict, as well as uniforms, military gear and equipment.
But it wasn’t all serious stuff. The French do have a sense of humour! Here is a drawing of children playing at war, maybe this is serious after all, but the drawing of a village with the image on the left showing it under German occupation and on the right what it looked like when it was French is worth at least a smile.
But really most were not humorous, but many were very understanding of individuals caught up in the war.
In addition to the occasional ghastly illustrations of war dead and injured was the depiction of the terrifying/terrified Hun with skulls.
There was some coverage of Canadians and perhaps the best was the photo called “prise de la Crete de Vimy par les Canadiens”.
