Pigeons and masks: the other side of the First world

28 July 1914 began one of the most widespread armed conflict in human history — the First world war, although to call her that began after the Second world war. In that period the war was called the great or Large. The countries involved in the conflict had killed more than 10 million soldiers and about 12 million civilians, about 55 million were wounded.

In 2014, for the centenary of the outbreak of the First world war, Reuters introduced a selection of previously unpublished photographs from the private collection during the war. The pictures reveal an unexpected perspective on the contrasts of the war years, when high-tech artillery combined with mobile pigeon lofts, and the officers, much fun at their homes, — with the grim reality of life and death in the trenches.

1. Women work at a munitions factory, 1916.

2. A party of German officers 280-aircraft units in the house near the Western front, 1918.

3. Officer German air force posing with a stuffed wild boar near the house where he stayed, his unit, Western front, 1918.

4. American soldiers in gas masks, used in different countries, in the Laboratory of chemical-technological research in Philadelphia, 1919.

5. German military diver, 1917.

6. Morning exercises on the German ship, 1917.

7. German officers at the observation balloon near the Western front, 1915.

8. German prisoners of war on the field in Longo, Western front, August 1, 1916.

9. Shot down a German seaplane, 1916.

10. A horse in a flannel respirator in the Laboratory of chemical-technological research in Philadelphia, 1919.

11. Officers of the Imperial air force of Germany carry out athletic competition at a meeting of the squadron near the Western front, 1917.

12. German submarine sinks the merchant ship of the allies in the Atlantic ocean, 1915.

13. Officers of the German air force at a picnic with friends, 1918.

14. German seaplane "Friedrichshafen", fell on a building in Germany, 1918.

15. French anti-aircraft self-propelled gun, 1918.

16. The German dovecote on the Western front, 1916.

17. German observation post on the front line on the river Icer, Belgium, 1917.

18. A British soldier carries pigeons to the front line, Western front, 1916.

19. Consequences of the bombing on the Western front. The picture was taken from a British aircraft, February 16, 1918.

20. German camp behind the front line, 1916.