Tangier Archive

In 1999, a set of small wooden boxes found in a flea market in Tangier was opened to reveal a stunning historical find: a treasure trove of more than five hundred glass stereoscopic negatives, along with handwritten notes, taken by an anonymous French officer between 1916 and 1918. This book presents a number of these previously unseen images, which were taken across the Western Front and capture all aspects of war, from the quotidian and banal to the cruel and brutal. It includes images from the 1917 Nivelle Offensive and from the 1918 German Spring Offensive, and the subsequent allied counterattack; it also offers views of Ypres and Arras, the Somme and the Marne, and presents images of soldiers not just from the French army, but from the British and German armies as well.

A truly unprecedented historical document, Tangier Archiveoffers the seemingly impossible: a chance to see World War I through fresh eyes, a century on."