Name/Title
StereographEntry/Object ID
2023.055.3.0146Description
A black and white stereograph. Image is of a large group of of soldiers standing and watching as another group of soldiers march past in the background. Above the image "W174 (Star)" is printed, below the image "V18867 French Reserves Watching Their Comrades Going Into "The Valley of the Shadow."" is printed, to the left of the image "Keystone View Company Copyrighted, Underwood & Underwood Inc. Manufacturers MADE IN U.S.A. Publishers" is printed, to the right of the image "Meadville, Pa., New York, N. Y., Chicago, Ill., London, England." is printed. On the reverse the following is printed:
V18867
FRENCH RESERVES WATCHING THEIR COMRADES GOING INTO "THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW."
Over the war-wasted fields we see the long line of men in single file moving forward into the front lines. They have left their all behind - careers, homes, families - many of them never to return.
France was compelled to put into the field the entire able-bodied manhood of the country. She mobilized 7,500,000 out of a population of 38,000,000. Had America brougth her forces up to proportionately the same level she would have mobilized over 22,000,000 men, or more than fourt times the number called out.
Eleven Allied nations including the United States, the British Emprie, France, Italy, Belgium, Russia, Japan, Rumania, Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Portuagal mobilized altogether nearly 40,000,000 men. The Central Powers rasied 19,500,000 making a grand total of nearly sixty million men. More than 50% of this number were casualties - their number being about 33,500,000. The material losses to civilizaiton as a result of the war were staggering, the human losses incalculable.
We are looking over a part of the 6,000 square miles of devastated France, a territroy which before the war was occupied by 2,000,000 peeople. The rehabilitation of this area will require decades and parts of it will probably not be reclaimed at all but left to nature for an indefinite period. The losses suffered by the people in thse regions were assumed by the country as a whole, the indvividual sufferers receving an allowance from the government sufficient to enable them to reestablish themselves either where they formerly resided or elsewhere.
Copyright by The Keystone View CompanyCollection
Photograph Collection