Featured
All of these images can be purchased as a range of Wall Art and Photo Gifts including Framed Prints, Posters, Canvas Prints, Jigsaw Puzzles and other Photo Gifts. Our products are hand made to order in professional photo labs and delivered to your door quickly and securely
![Ouvrage de Thiaumont - Verdun battlefield](/t/621/ouvrage-thiaumont-verdun-battlefield-9796879.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>Ouvrage de Thiaumont - Verdun battlefield</figcaption></b><br>Destroyed observation post at the Ouvrage de Thiaumont is witness to the sheer fury of German artillery fire - the cupola was 10" thick and weighed 7 tons before it was blown apart.<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")
![French observation post at Col de Chapelotte](/t/621/french-observation-post-col-chapelotte-9796993.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>French observation post at Col de Chapelotte</figcaption></b><br>French observation post at Col de Chapelotte: this position was known as "La Croix Charpentier". At a height of 500m it had an excellent view across the valley to the German positions and was also tyhe site for MG & 37 rapid firing cannon poistions. Saint Die des Vosges<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")
![2014 - Fields of Battle - Cambrai](/t/621/2014-fields-battle-cambrai-9796973.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>2014 - Fields of Battle - Cambrai</figcaption></b><br>Flesquieres. Battle of Cambrai Nov 20th 1917 was the first major tank battle with over 400 tanks taking part. At first the attack was succesful but the German coun ter-attack reduced the initial gains to almost nil, This shot is looking from a German bunker on the Flequieres Ridge towards the woods of Havrincourt. The 51st [ Highland ] Division attacked up this sunken road supported by tanks. Five of those tanks were knocked out in this approximate area by a single German ant-tank gunner but others including D54 "Deborah" managed to enter the village at the top of this lane. "Deborah" is now preserved in the vallage thanks to the efforts of Phillipe Gorczyinski<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")
![Morhange - Battle of Frontiers 1914](/t/621/morhange-battle-frontiers-1914-9796977.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>Morhange - Battle of Frontiers 1914</figcaption></b><br>Looking east from Morhange across the rolling plain of the Seille valley where on August 20th-22nd De Castelnau's 2nd Army attacked with unfurled flags, beating drums and sounding bugles. German MG's on the hills on either flank, tofgether with heavy artillery slaughtered the French. De Castelnau's son was amongst those killed: on receiving the news he fell silent for a moment, then simply said "Gentlemen, we will continue".<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")
!['Point Zero' - The end of the Western Front.](/t/621/point-zero-end-western-9796991.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>"Point Zero" - The end of the Western Front.</figcaption></b><br>"Point Zero" - This trench is the last German trench on the Western Front - the clear area visible through the trees is Switzerland. Vosges Sundgau.<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")
![German swimming pool](/t/621/german-swimming-pool-9796997.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>German swimming pool</figcaption></b><br>German swimming pool on the Cote d' Echery overlooking the Vallee du Liepvre. Built by the Brigade Ersatz Bataillon 58 in 1915 this "waschanstalt" is still in use during the summer months.<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")
![Mt Pasubio - Strada del Galleria](/t/621/mt-pasubio-strada-del-galleria-9796999.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>Mt Pasubio - Strada del Galleria</figcaption></b><br>The "Strada del Galleria" with its 52 tunnels leads to the Refugio Papa on Mt Pasubio and was constructed in 1917. 5th Engineering Regiment built the next core section of the trail, called "Strada delle Gallerie" (road of tunnels) under enormous time pressure in only 11 months. This section includes fifty-two tunnels providing cover or leading to the North face of the Italian position. The Strada drops downward in this zone of galleries to about 1200m. The 52 galleries in the aggregate total 2280 meters in length.<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")
![The London Irish Rifles 'Loos Football'](/t/621/london-irish-rifles-loos-football-9762597.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>The London Irish Rifles "Loos Football"</figcaption></b><br>London Irish Rifles - The Loos Football This is the football wich the LIR kicked across No Mans Land on Sept 25th 1915 as they attacked the German positions in the town of Loos. The following description was written by Patrick Macgill who achieved fame after the war as a poet and writer and who was a stretcher bearer during the battle. I peered over the top. The air blazed with star-shells, and Loos in front stood out like a splendid dawn. A row of impassive faces, sleep-heavy they looked, lined our parapet; bayonets, silver-spired, stood up over the sandbags; the dark bays, the recessed dug-outs with their khaki-clad occupants dimly defined in the light of little candles took on fantastic shapes. From the North Sea to the Alps stretched a line of men who could, if they so desired, clasp, one another's hands all the way along. A joke which makes men laugh at Ypres at dawn may be told on sentry-go at Souchez by dusk, and the laugh which accompanies it ripples through the long, deep trenches... until it breaks itself like a summer wave against the traverse where England ends and France begins. Many of our men were asleep, and maybe dreaming. What were their dreamsja . . . I could hear faint, indescribable rustlings as the winds loitered across the levels in front; a light shrapnel shell burst, and its smoke quivered in the radiant light of the star-shells. Showers and sparks fell from high up and died away as they fell. Like lives of men, I thought, and again that feeling of proximity to the enemy surged through me. A boy came along the trench carrying a football under his arm. "What are you going to do with thatja" I asked. "It's some idea, this," he said with a laugh. "We're going to kick it across into the German trench." "It is some idea," I said. "What are our chances of victory in the gameja" "The playing will tell," he answered. It was now grey day, hazy and moist, and the thick clouds of pale yellow smoke curled high in space and curtained the dawn off from the scene of war. The word was passed along. "London Irish lead on to assembly trench." The assembly trench was in front, and there the scaling ladders were placed against the parapet, ready steps to death, as someone remarked. I had a view of the men swarming up the ladders when I got there, their bayonets held in steady hands, and at a little distance off a football swinging by its whang from a bayonet standard. Ahead the clouds of smoke, sluggish low-lying fog, and fumes of bursting shells, thick in volume, receded towards the German trenches, and formed a striking background for the soldiers who were marching up a low slope towards the enemy's parapet, which the smoke still hid from view. There was no haste in the forward move, every step was taken with regimental precision, and twice on the way across the Irish boys halted for a moment to correct their alignment. Only at a point on the right there was some confusion and a little irregularity. Were the men waveringja No fear! The boys on the right were dribbling the elusive football towards the German trench. By the German barbed wire entanglements were the shambles of war. Here our men were seen by the enemy for the first time that e and roving that makes up the life of a soldier gone for ever. Here, too, I saw, bullet-riddled, against one morning. Up till then the foe had fired erratically through the oncoming curtain of smoke; but when the cloud cleared away, the attackers were seen advancing, picking their way through the wires which had been cut to little pieces by our bombardment. The Irish were now met with harrying rifle fire, deadly petrol bombs and hand grenades. Here I came across dead, dying and sorely wounded; lives maimed and finished, and all the romancof the spider webs known as chevaux de frise, a limp lump of pliable leather, the football which the boys had kicked across the field.<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")
![Ancre Marshes](/t/621/somme-marshes-ancre-near-authuille-9762513.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>Ancre Marshes</figcaption></b><br>The marshes of the Ancre near Authuille. It has been suggested that these marshes gave J R R Tolkien the scene of the "Dead Marshes" in Lord of the Rings. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien Born 1892 South Africa. His father died in 1896 and his mother in 1904 - he and his brother looked after by a local priest. Tolkien graduated from Oxford in June 1915. June 1916 Tolkien went to France and was posted to the 11th Battalion, The Lancashire Fusiliers as Batallion Signaling Officer. July - in northern sector of the Somme in Beaumont-Hamel, Serre and the Leipzig Salient. 14th failed attack on Ovillers - heavy losses. One of his closest freinds, Rob Gilson, was killed. 28 September: successful raid at Popea<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")
![Quatre Goulots - St Mihiel Salient](/t/621/quatre-goulots-st-mihiel-salient-9762507.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>Quatre Goulots - St Mihiel Salient</figcaption></b><br>The von Ordmann Quelle, known as the "Quatre Goulots" Situated near Vilcey sur Trey in the woods north of the Bois le Pretre this is one of a number of springs which were ornamneted by the Germans.<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")
![Le Linge](/t/621/le-linge-vosges-9762491.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>Le Linge</figcaption></b><br>Le Linge - this rocky spur, about 500m long and 1000m high with three sides sloping down steeply into the Weiss valley below was heavily fortified by the Germans and attacked furiously by the French in 1915. Today the German tranches are remarkably well preserved. The battle lasted for five months - furious French assaults against well entrenched German position and no gains were made by either side for the probable loss of 30,000 [ the exact figures are unknown ]. And described at the time, along with HWK as "some points of friction which are now settled".<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")
![Iron Harvest](/t/621/iron-harvest-somme-battlefield-9762431.jpg.webp "<b class=qtipBold><figcaption>Iron Harvest</figcaption></b><br>Unexploded shells uncovered by ploughing near Munich Trench Cemetery awaiting collection by the Bomb Squad. "Saki"was killed just to the west of here.<br><em>© Mike St. Maur Sheil / westernfrontphotography.com</em>")