Otters and Science News: WORLD WAR I IN COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS - Images of French soldiers and civilians on the Western Front - Scenes of normal life, war, and destruction

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Rare colour photos capture what life was like for soldiers away from the fighting on the Western Front

Remarkable set of pictures was taken in France in 1917, the fourth year of fighting in the First World War

A French soldier has lunch in front of a damaged library in a square in Reims, in north-eastern France on 1 April 1917

See additional images in color

French soldiers in front of a grocery store, with signs advertising liquor and wine in the windows, in the market square in Reims in 1917

A French observation post with three soldiers in a trench reinforced with wooden beams and sand bags close to the German lines, taken at Hirtzbach, Department Haut-Rhin, Region Alsace, on 16 June 1917

A little girl is seen holding her doll as she sits next to two guns and a military knapsack on a street in Reims, northern France, in 1917

Two French soldiers assigned to a telephone station wash their laundry in a trough of a fountain, in Largitzen, France on 18 June 1917

A French section of machine gunners takes position in the ruins during the battle of the Aisne, on the Western Front in 1917

French fire fighters, military and civilians try to prevent fires from spreading after the bombings of September 2 and 3 in Dunkirk

A woman with a cart filled with milk cans and a man with another cart in Rue de Talleyrand, Reims, France on 3 March 1917

The towers of the Cathedral Notre-Dame de Reims can be seen through the damaged windows of a building in the city in 3 April 1917

A horse cart is loaded with furniture and personal belongings in front of a leather goods shop on 4 May 1917 as residents prepared to to leave Reims during the Second Battle of the Aisne which ended in defeat for the French forces

Uniformed doctors and nurses stand in front of field hospital 55 in Bourbourg, northern France on 1 September 1917

French soldiers dressed in their blue military uniforms camouflage a 370 mm railway gun in Noyon, Region Oise, on 5 September 1917

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

French soldiers of the 370th Infantry Regiment are eating soup during the battle of the Aisne, on the Western Front in 1917

Damaged buildings after the bombings of September 10 and 11 in the town of RosendaÎl, near Dunkirk, on 11 September 1917

A group of Swiss border guards behind a fence between Switzerland and France, in the Department Haut-Rhin, on 19 June 1917

Three Swiss border guards, left, stand opposite a French guard at the border between the two countries in Beurnevesin on 19 June 1917

Two ambulance vehicles in front of a building near the village of Boezinge, north of the city of Ypres, that was devastated by artillery fire

This dramatic photograph shows soldiers standing on a ridge above a crater 45m deep created by mines placed by British forces underneath German positions near Messines in West Flanders on 7 June 1917.
Some 10,000 soldiers died in the blast

French military doctors and nurses are photographed in front of Saint-Paul Hospital in Soissons, Aisne, in northern France

A French officer inspects the barbed wire around French positions in Soissons, which was heavily damaged by artillery fire during the war

Five French soldiers are clearing the rubble in the ruins of Reims, which was almost 60 per cent destroyed by German artillery and air raids

Four French guards and Swiss guards at the border between Switzerland and France in Pfetterhouse, Region Alsace on 19 June 1917

Two French soldiers at a narrow railroad track near the French near the village of Boezinge, north of the city of Ypres on 10 September 1917

A group of Senegalese soldiers serving in the French Army as infantryman have lunch in Saint-Ulrich, Region Alsace on 16 June 1917

Two French soldiers are taking care of their laundry using boards set up on the trough of a fountain near a farm house in the town of Gildwiller, Department Haut-Rhin, Region Alsace on 21 June 1917