Signing up voluntarily in 1915, Albert Samama-Chikli became an operator for the army’s photographic section (SPA). Taken for documentary and image propaganda purposes, his shots — like those of all the operators in the section — were subject to strict official control. And yet the scenes he photographed reveal all the brutality of the war and the men’s submission to the elements.
The earth, omnipresent, constitutes a daily enemy. In the photograph where French soldiers and their personal belongings blend into the soil of a conquered trench, the earth appears to be as much part of the precarious environment of the combatants as the fighting. Near Verdun, the remains of a French soldier, abandoned near a stagnant waterhole, illustrate the harshness of the war and the toughening of the fighters, who look indifferent to the fate of their comrade fallen in battle. The censorship committee prohibited such
images from being circulated to avoid compromising the morale and the support of the nation. Samama-Chikli made several images around the corpse, showing that the photograph was not taken secretly and illustrating the complexity of controlling the shots taken on the ground. However, the photographer’s eye also knew how to capture lighter moments, such as the group of Portuguese soldiers apparently in a joyfully chaotic hurry to leave the boat that has brought them to Brest under the eye of a marine rifleman indifferent to their excitement.
Photo credits : @ ECPAD / Albert Samama-Chikli
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