Adding Color to WWI

I intend at some point to write some brief reviews of books I've read this summer, including the the title volume of Pat Barker's Regeneration trilogy, a series of historical novels that explore the psychic and physical traumas of WWI. Also, I hope to watch and review a documentary I just picked up, WWI in Color, a narrated look at WWI news footage to which color has been added.

Today's link is of a similar cast as that documentary--a look at images from a particular battle after color has been added. Why people feel that adding color to black and white is a cool or even necessary task escapes me. It's as if the viewer wouldn't get it unless they could see that, yes, gas masks are green and mud puddles are brown. In any event, these photos are pretty amazing, as most photos of the war are. More to come on this topic.

From The Daily Mail:

Never seen before, these astonishing photographs, lovingly hand-touched in colour to bring to life the nightmare of Passchendaele, were released this week to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the battle that, between July and November 1917, claimed a staggering 2,121 lives a day and in total some quarter of a million Allied soldiers.