Ralphadeus

WORLD WAR ONE IN COLOUR
I recently watched this series, narrated by Kenneth Branagh which was a follow up to WW2 in colour - though this time the pictures are 'colorized' in a strange way that makes it quite compelling viewing though probably for the wrong reasons - one of which is seeing them get it wrong. Well, in the preamble they do talk about painstaking research and that must have been pretty sketchy given the poor rendering of camouflage and of course the legendary red trousers worn by the French - I know they wore overalls but a lot of the footage was pre war. So to rectify this crime of poor coloration I thought I'd throw some links of some real colour - firstly of the French in WW1 at http://www.poiemadesign.com/wwi/ - very strange to see such beautiful images of such horror.
Even more impressive is this site ALBUM MILITAIRE SCÈNES DE LA VIE DU SOLDAT (see above pic) which shows the French army in the 1890s in a series of studies of military life http://pro.wanadoo.fr/images.collection/album_accueil.htm#12
Another excellent site on the French Army of the 2nd Empire and Belle Epoque is http://www.military-photos.com/ - a real treasure trove of photos of the French army.
To finish off this thread a link to an article about the French uniform of 1914 http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/utah/894/fruni14.htm from a site called before 1919.