26 Rare Autochrome Photos of World War I

The Autochrome photography is an early color photography process invented by the Lumière brothers in France in 1903. Thanks to Autochrome Lumière, we have these incredible images of the First World War in color.

Firefighters attempt to extinguish a fire started by the German bombing of Dunkirk, France, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

A girl holds a doll next to soldiers’ equipment in Reims, France, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

A French soldier peers out from a position on the Western Front in Alsace, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

A French soldier eats a loaf of bread in Reims, France, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

Soldiers look at the 45-meter-deep crater left by the detonation by the British of 21 tons of explosives underneath German positions near Messines in West Flanders. One of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history, the blast killed 10,000 soldiers and was heard as far away as Dublin (1917)

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

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French soldiers in Hirtzbach, Alsace, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

A French outpost near the front in Hirtzbach, Alsace, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

A French officer inspects the barbed wire around French positions in Soissons, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

A news vendor in Reims, France, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

A camp in Egypt of workers from the British Chinese Labour Corps recruited to participate in the Middle East campaign, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

An Algerian guard on a bridge in Pommiers, France, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

French soldiers and horses in the cloister of the Abbey de Saint-Jean-des-Vignes in Soissons, which was heavily damaged by artillery fire, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

Doctors, nurses and medical personnel in front of field hospital 55 in Bourbourg, France, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

French machine gunners set up a position amid ruins during the battle of the Aisne in France, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

French soldiers camouflage a 370mm railway gun near the Western Front, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

French soldiers stand on a narrow-gauge railroad in an artillery-ravaged battleground in West Flanders, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

French soldiers read newspapers at a kiosk in Rexpoede, Calais, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

French soldiers from Africa prepare a meal on the Western Front, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

Wounded soldiers from the battlefield near Laffaux at Saint-Paul Hospital in Soissons, France, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

French soldiers dig through the rubble of a destroyed building in Reims, France, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

Senegalese Bambara soldiers serving with the French Army in Balschwiller, Alsace, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

French soldiers of the 370th Infantry Regiment eat soup during the battle of the Aisne, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

Senegalese soldiers serving in the French Army rest near the Western Front in Alsace, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

A group of Swiss border guards behind a fence between Switzerland and France, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

A worker from Indochina in Soissons, France, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES

A French military cemetery on a hillside in the town of Moosch, Alsace, 1917

IMAGES: PAUL CASTELNAU/GALERIE BILDERWELT/GETTY IMAGES