The Great War in Stereoviews

Private Stereoviews

Furnes Field Hospital, Belgium, 1914. A British volunteer ambulance worker took several stereographs of medical operations during the Battles of the Yser and First Ypres in Fall 1914. The ambulances were associated with the Furnes Field Hospital, which was only in operation for a few months in 1914, moving to Dunkirk as a result of heavy German shelling in the second week of January 1915. Published memoirs by a doctor, a nurse, and a war correspondent assigned to Furnes, all of whom were no doubt known to the photographer, afford these paper stereoviews an unusually complete context despite sparse titles.
German Army Camp in Wishnew, Eastern Front, 1915-16. A German officer took a series of stereoviews while his unit was stationed in Wishnew on the Eastern Front. Wishnew, now a Belarusian city called Visnevo, has gone by several Lithuanian, Russian, and Yiddish names including Wiszniew, Vishnev, Vishnevo, and Vishnive. Germans and Russians fought over the town in 1915 and 1916, after which the Germans occupied the area.
Belgian Army Operations in Deutsch Ostafrika, 1916. Lt M. F. Joris, a Belgian officer of the 3e Regt. De Chasseurs à Pied seconded to colonial troops in the Belgian Congo, participated in the British-Belgian thrust into the German colony that is now Tanzania. Despite the amateur quality of his camera and shot composition, his stereoviews are a valuable historical record showing the main towns taken by the Belgians, the stark beauty of the countryside, and the training of the native troops (askaris). Ralph Reiley used these images to write an article for Stereo World, the magazine of the National Stereoscopic Association, Inc., which is included on this site with the NSA's permission.