archiwalia arch

Construction work at Menin, Belgium, during World War I. In the distance the stripped landscape is visible. A large crater dominates the front of the photograph, filled with wet, churned mud. Teams of men work in a line in the centre carrying supplies with which to lay new road.THE HEROES of World War One have been brought into the twenty-first century thanks to a series of stunning colourised images to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the war. Striking pictures show men hauling a howitzer out of the mud at Beaucourt sur Ancre, four British soldiers using a fallen tree-trunk as a temporary bridge over the River Ancre and six soldiers looking out of a dugout on the Western Front. Other vivid colour photographs show soldiers digging a trench viewed between strands of barbed wire, officers showing a map to their men at the Somme in France and infantry waiting in a trench for their turn to advance. The original black and white photos were expertly colourised by electrician Royston Leonard (56) from Cardiff, Wales. Royston Leonard / mediadrumimages.com