Corrupt love during the war: rare photos of British soldiers found in French brothels during the First World War
These images were digitized from negatives that once belonged to Lieutenant William Noel Morgan (William Noel Morgan). His descendants accidentally found them 70 years after the First World War. As it turned out, the lieutenant photographed not only the innocent army life,but also the "strawberry". Do you want to know what love was like in wartime a hundred years ago?
William's family came across the photos quite by accident: his granddaughter Fran Gluck (Fran Gluck) discovered the photographic films hidden in an old cookie box. Fran's husband Joe became interested in the negatives, and later decided to digitize them. As expected, most of the photos were of William's army comrades.
In the photo — a half-naked French prostitute from a brothel.
In addition, the old pictures showed William's lost love – a young French woman, whom his family forbade him to marry. But dozens of other shots captured the lieutenant's colleagues in French brothels during the First World War.
Lieutenant Morgan himself. The fact that this frame was taken in a brothel is indicated by frivolous pictures on the walls.
Most likely, these are the only surviving photographs taken in a French brothel, which at that time was reserved for British officers.
In fact, the story of these women has never been made public. But it was they who gave the military the last spark of love and warmth before they went to die in the trenches of the First World War.
One corporal recalls that there was an incredible excitement in the brothels at that time, and the military literally lined up in queues. Many young soldiers lost their virginity due to corrupt love.
The queues at the brothel were not unusual. So, for example, shortly before the start of one of the major offensive operations at the front, a crowd of 300 soldiers gathered in front of one of the brothels.
According to one of the statistical reports, 171 thousand British soldiers visited a street in Le Havre, France, where brothels were located, in just one year.
The full-length film "Military whores" sheds light on the events of those times and tells the story of women who were called to support the morale of soldiers on the Western Front.
This kind of sexy postcards were very popular among British officers in 1916.
During the First World War, thousands of women worked in the field of corrupt love. Some of them worked illegally, and some - in numerous legal brothels in the north of France. The so-called maisons tolérées appeared in the middle of the XIX century, but they reached their heyday in the First World War.
Women in legal brothels regularly underwent medical examinations, but even despite this, venereal diseases were not uncommon here. In 1916, one of the five appeals of the British military to doctors was associated with sexually transmitted diseases. In total, more than 150 thousand Britons were infected with "bad diseases" in French brothels during the war. Some of the soldiers even hoped to catch venereal diseases in order to spend a month in the hospital, away from the horrors of war.
Lieutenant Morgan hid the negatives, because the officers were not allowed to advertise trips to the brothel. There is no evidence from the girls themselves, since most of them were illiterate.
Joe Glock, the husband of the lieutenant's granddaughter, commented on the publication of the pictures:
Keywords: Army | Britain | Prostitutes