A soldier photographer during the Great War in Amiens
Soldiers from the Maghreb, in Saleux, near Amiens, France.
Photo taken in 1915 by Raoul Berthelé.
© Lise Verbeke / RFI
Text by: Lise Verbeke
5 mins
A history professor unearthed more than 400 photos taken by a French officer in 1915 in Amiens.
These shots are an exceptional testimony to what life was like behind the front lines in the Picardy capital.
He made a book and an exhibition of it.
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“
It's the story of a Sunday morning that turned into a book
,” smiles Louis Teyssedou.
The history teacher in a technological high school in Amiens never tires of recounting his discovery.
This famous Sunday of 2020, he strums on his computer.
The teacher has embarked on long-term work with his students, on the Cosserat factory, a velvet factory in Amiens, with two hundred years of history.
“
I was looking for archive photos in vain.
I went up the Google pages, up to 7, 8, 9, 10 and suddenly I came across a photo of female factory workers
”.
The photo is captioned, with a date, 1915. “
I was struck by the intensity of the shot, you can see the weight of war on the faces
”.
The teacher continues to
search the Internet
", and discover other photos of workers.
He goes up the thread and, by the URL address, discovers that these photos are kept in the Toulouse archives.
"
I realize that behind these few photos of the Cosserat factory, there is Raoul Berthelé, a soldier, who in fact made 4,000 photos of the Great War, including 500 in Amiens, which had never been shown
".
The 29-year-old 16th Army Corps ambulance health service officer spent six months in the Picardy capital.
“
He was in charge of the administration,
explains Louis Teyssedou,
hence the fact that he had time to take photos while strolling around the city
”.
The photos testify to life behind the front, “
almost ethnographic
” shots, for this Montpellier resident who is discovering Picardy, “
he certainly had a culture shock
!
".
We see workers posing in front of their factories or in front of their houses, with their children, gardeners in their large boats in the hortillonnages of Amiens (water gardens), soldiers learning to swim...
The history teacher, Louis Teyssedou, in front of the photo of soldier friends of Raoul Berthelé, seated with charcoal burners from Amiens.
© Lise Verbeke / RFI
Accurately captioned photos
But there are also photos "
worthy of a photo-reporter
", adds Louis Teyssedou, because "
for example, on April 16, 1915, four streets were bombed, he took the step of criss-crossing Amiens to show the consequences of these bombs
".
He also takes a German tank, “
which may seem trivial, but the Germans in 14-18 only had 20 tanks.
This tank is the only one left on earth today, in a museum in Australia, all the others have been dismantled.
And that's what's crazy, the photos are of incredible quality
.
Raoul Berthelé, a chemist by profession, was equipped with a Verascope Richard, a device with two lenses, which makes it possible to take the photo a few seconds apart and to see it in 3D in the box.
"
He developed his photos in the evening,
explains the teacher,
on stereoscopic glass plates
”.
A treasure that is all the more precious as each shot is precisely captioned, with the place, the date, the names of the people.
Raoul Berthelé had the idea of making it a museum after the war, but he died of the Spanish flu in 1918. These legends therefore enabled the history teacher to make a book and an exhibition of it, mounted with His students.
“
It's better than a history lesson that you follow sitting on your chair in class,
explains Méline, 16 years old.
Thanks to the exhibition, we learned that war was not just about bombs, deaths, but also that life was trying to go on behind the scenes, with convivial and joyful moments
”.
The soldier's great-niece, moved during the inauguration
For the family of the soldier photographer, the exhibition was a "
great emotion
".
His little niece, Isabelle Chiavassa, who lives in Aix-en-Provence, wanted to be present at the inauguration in Amiens, and crossed France.
His grandmother, Raoul's little sister, had kept this treasure in her attic and gave it to the Toulouse archives in 1978, "
but we only learned of it in 2008
", specifies Isabelle Chiavassa.
Thanks to the work of the professor from Amiens, she immersed herself in the story of her great-uncle, "
we did not know that he had passed through Amiens, we also discovered that there had been a love affair, because there are photos of his girlfriend
”.
This exhibition and the book are "
a superb tribute
".
A photo particularly marked Isabelle Chiavassa, "
that of German prisoners, forced to cross Amiens on foot, in the middle of the crowd, they are haggard, because they walked 50 km, he managed to catch their eyes, it's a true work of a photojournalist
”.
►
The exhibition
La Guerre de Raoul Berthelé
takes place at the Léo Lagrange cultural center in Amiens until April 1st.
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Photography
First World War
France
Culture