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in photos

Casualties of the Great War: Final images of loved ones lost

The ultimate cost of war.
5.30pm, 2 Aug 2014
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EXACT FIGURES ARE still disputed but the Great War got its name as the fight in Europe became “unusually and comparatively large”, to use a dictionary reference of ‘great’.

About 9 million men died, up to 70,000 of them Irish.

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the bloodshed, which dragged on for more than four years and involved countries across the globe.

These images, collected by Press Association Images to mark the centenary, highlight the terrible – and ultimate – cost of the war.

Casualties of the Great War: Final images of loved ones lost
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  • World War One

    Civilians and soldiers of the Royal Army Medical Corps distributing refreshments to British wounded in France.Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    A British casualty being brought down the gangway from a steamer by Indian Army orderlies at Falariyeh, Mesopotamia. The Indian Expeditionary Force, consisting of both British and Indian units, advanced along the Tigris towards Baghdad in Summer 1915.Source: PA

  • World War One

    Convalescent British soldiers and their nurses enjoy the gardens at Longleat, Wiltshire, the country seat of the Marquis of Bath, while it was being used as a Relief Hospital during the First World War.Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    A Japanese soldier attempts in vain to rouse his dead comrade.Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    Italian troops in a hospital during the First World War.Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    Wagon loads of German dead being removed in Verdun, France.Source: Topham Picturepoint/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    First Battle of Passchendaele. Two guardsmen bringing in a wounded comrade on a stretcher, near Langemarck, October 1917.Source: Topham Picturepoint/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    A French Aid Station in 1914. An injured soldier is tended to by French Army medical orderlies. The motorcycle by the wall is a British-made 1914 Rudge Multi.Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    Burial of Canadian nurses killed in German air raid in an undated photo. (AP Photo)Source: AP/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    A trumpet player in a funeral for an American casualty in the Argonne in November 1918.Source: Topham Picturepoint/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    Nurses saying goodbye to soldiers leaving a London hospital during the First World War.Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    An American cemetery near Verdun, France.Source: AP/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    Wounded German soldiers captured in a British attack. These men are Baden troops in Morlancourt, near Albert, France in July 1916. (AP Photo)Source: AP/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    The Galleries Nationales, a large department store in Brussels, which was taken over as a Red Cross hospital.Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    The grave of Major Willie Redmond in a convent garden at Locre, Belgium. Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    Convalescencing soldiers admire a waterfall in the grounds of Longleat House.Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    Convalescencing soldiers in the grounds of Longleat House, the seat of the Marquis of Bath, which was used as a war relief hospital.Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

  • World War One

    Sir Alfred Pierce Gould KCVO, in charge of the surgical division at the 3rd London General Hospital at Wandsworth on 1 January 1916.Source: PA Archive/Press Association Images

Ever hear of the Irish Jesuit priest who volunteered for WW1 and took these amazing pictures?

Column: ‘Hell is Coming’ – fragments of horror from World War One

Remembering the 1,000 Limerick soldiers who died during World War I

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