A particular recovery of a photographic plate and a container for liquid used to develop photographs testifies to how the 1914-1918 war was also the first war of images, the first photographic war.

The first, huge battle that took place on many different and distant fronts - the Western Front, the Eastern Front, the Italian Front, the war in the Caucasus, in Asia Minor and in the colonies of North Africa - and that on all these fronts was documented by photographic images that reached the newspapers and illustrated periodicals of Europe and America.

It was in the hell of ice or mud of the trenches - depending on the season - that a new figure was born, from then on present in all conflicts around the world and inextricably linked to journalism: the war photojournalist.
The new European conflict ushered in 'moving' photography made possible by more manageable cameras and faster exposure times.

Most of the images taken at the front in those years turn out to be very modern, foregrounding human behaviour, reactions, fears, heroism fixed by the photographer's lens. Some images are still indebted to 19th century pictorialism, with recourse to retouching to make the clouds more tragic or to make certain landscape details stand out more clearly. Others, instead, are closely linked to the great new technical possibilities (greater sensitivity of plates) offered by modern photography.