The First World War witnessed a rapid advance in new technologies, notably aircraft. Nowhere was this more evident than in the field of aerial photography. By 1917, all the belligerents had developed sophisticated systems for taking, processing and interpreting aerial imagery. Because of their well-established pre-war photographic industry and high-quality optical glass, the German Air Service was one of the most advanced in this field, employing high-resolution cameras. German aerial photographers were present on all fronts, from Finland to as far south as Cairo, creating over 1.5 million individual images, the bulk of these covering areas that had never previously been photographed.
One of the remote regions where German photographers were active was the Armenian Highlands in the Ottoman Eastern Provinces, where the Ottoman and Russian armies had been fighting since the first months of the war. Flying fragile biplanes, at a height of several thousand metres, German and Ottoman airmen used hand-held glass plate cameras to photograph the villages and towns in an effort to locate Russian Army positions.
Thirteen sepia prints from some of these images were recently found in France. How they reached France from the Armenian Highlands is unknown. What we do know is they represent the first known aerial photos of the region and, just as importantly, offer new evidence of the destruction that followed the forced deportations of 1915-16 when the Ottoman authorities sent the Armenian population to concentration camps in the Syrian desert.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Issue 110 من History of War.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة Issue 110 من History of War.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
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