Canadian photojournalism during the first world war

Le Canada et la Grande Guerre : les nouvelles du front

“…À partir des premiers journaux de guerre recueillis auprès des unités canadiennes et de Durant la Première Guerre mondiale, la censure des photographies est très stricte. Dans la première division canadienne, un ordre opérationnel de mars 1915 proscrit l'usage d'appareils photographiques aux officiers et soldats de toutes les unités 41 . Plus tard, l'embauche du photographe et du cameraman canadiens sera autorisée par le War Office.…”

Documenting War and Forging Reputations: Sir Max Aitken and the Canadian War Records Office in the First World War

“…As Peter Robertson has noted, the Department of Militia and Defence had taken a 'curiously passive attitude' to documenting militia matters in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. 60 Having overlooked the potential for publicity or historical documentation, there was no of cial policy of photographing Canadian soldiers at the start of the war. Although there had been a handful of early images taken by soldiers with hand-held cameras for souvenir or commemorative purposes, a March 1915 order forbade the use of cameras in front lines for fear of turning over valuable intelligence to the enemy.…”

“…Aitken, for instance, ordered his of cial photographers to cover up the Canadian slain when they were photographed, but not to 'bother about the German dead!' 67 The CWRO's most famous series of photographs, entitled 'Over the Top', showed Canadian soldiers, bayonets at the ready, about to go 'over the bags' and close with the enemy. It was a stirring image; it was also a fake.…”