The epigraph of this book states its thesis. “In fact,” the great photographer Edward Steichen wrote in 1903, “every photograph is a fake from start to finish.” Carla-Jean Stokes’s study of the First World War photographs of William Ivor Castle largely proves the point.
Born in 1877 in Bristol, England, Castle had his first photograph published in the Illustrated London News in 1897. His career took off, and in 1904 he was hired by the Daily Mirror. From there, he travelled extensively, and his photos were often on the front pages, not least during the Balkan Wars of 1912–13. The outbreak of war with Germany in August 1914 saw Castle covering the invasion of Belgium, but British censors tried to stop pictures that showed the fighting. The public wanted to see what was happening, however, and soon official photographers were authorized so long as their work was subject to censorship.
In charge of Canadian publicity in Britain was the...
J.L. Granatstein writes on Canadian political and military history. His many books include Canada’s Army: Waging War and Keeping the Peace.
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