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Clip description
A line of soldiers marching forward from Ypres, along the Menin Road. Motorised traffic returns to the town through the centre of the road, horse-drawn limbers on the right. The soldiers have exchanged their slouch hats for the relatively new British steel helmets used in the forward areas. These men also carry their bedrolls on their shoulders and gas masks in the bags on their chests. The city has been devastated by three years of war, most of its buildings destroyed. A line of Australians pick a way carefully to a makeshift dugout in the ruins, as German shells continue to fall. The battle begins with an artillery barrage for several days. The Germans respond with their own artillery, taking a terrible toll on the men and beasts using the Menin Road.
Curator’s notes
A photograph on the Australian War Memorial website (E04605) identifies the day on which Hurley made the shot of the men clambering over the wreckage to their underground billet as 4 September 1917. His diary says that he filmed on the ramparts of the city after lunch, then returned ‘through laneways heaped with fallen walls and debris, over places where houses once stood, through gaping walls, till we came to the Post Office,’ which remained standing, all five storeys, despite extensive damage. ‘Climbing to the topmost storey through torn floors and shot-away walls, we had a transcending view of the ruined city. Not a building stands intact; most are just brick heaps and unrecognisable dumps of debris. Behind us, one of our 12-inch guns fired with such a boom that it seemed the building must give way under the concussion. Over there, the clouds of dust and brick fill the air; the bursting of German shells. It is a weird, awful and terrible sight, yet somehow wildly beautiful. For my part, Ypres as it now is, has a curious fascination and aesthetically is far more interesting than the Ypres that was.’
This tells us something about Hurley’s approach to life, as well as photography. There is a sense of detachment that’s common among conflict photographers, and a slightly self-aggrandising awareness that he was at the centre of something big. He sees beauty in the destruction and prefers it, because it makes a better picture. He appears to have seen this trend in himself, as the first part of his diary entry for that day recounts his concern at becoming inured to things so quickly (see clip one). It might just as easily be said that this was necessary for a man to keep working, especially a photographer. The soldiers often felt the same way.
The scenes later in these clips are from around 20 September, when the British unleashed one of the greatest barrages of the war – 3.5 million shells in a couple of days. The dead horses and upturned wagons by the road show us the German response. The scenes of shell smoke, amid the scenes of artillery guns blasting, are likely to be the German shells coming in, trying to hit the British guns. The fact that they are very close to where Hurley is filming tells us how strong was his nerve. Watching these as silent clips reduces their impact, as do the limitations of the cine lenses of the time, but such shots were extremely rare in First World War photography, and extremely dangerous to obtain.
