1470
action. Louis Heller shot images of prisoners which were
used, however, for the cover of Frank Leslie’s Illustrated
Newspaper, July 12, 1873. Eadweard Muybridge pro-
duced some dramatic images of the battle between the
Modac Indians and the American Cavalry on the border
of Oregon and California in 1872–1873. Muybridge
frames individual proud Native Americans as they fi ght
to keep their land; in truth, most of the tribe would be
hung when this battle was lost. Bismark’s war against
Schleswig-Holstein was photographed by a handful of
artists showing mostly views of the destruction of the
landscape and corpses. Only negligible photos survive
from the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1888).
While James Burke photographed many struggles
in Afghanistan, the best are of the Second Afghan War
of 1879 in which the British were fi ghting in the area
of Kabul. In one of the most successful battles in Brit-
ish military history, their troops numbering only 5000
fought off an attack by over 100,000 Afghans. Although
he did not shoot the actual battle, Burke’s photos of the
confi dent British troops a day before the attack were
published as engravings in London Graphic. Burke
is known for his sweeping views of troop formations
placed against the exotic Afghan backdrop.
Few noteworthy photographs survived from the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870; however, photography
played a crucial role in the siege of Paris. First, bal-
loons marked “Daguerre” and “Niépce” were used to
drop communications into the surrounded city. Later,
photographically reduced text was hidden in small
containers tied to the tails of homing pigeons enabling
those under siege within the city to communicate with
French offi cials outside. Once they realized the French’s
secret weapon, the Prussians used falcons to attack the
pigeons.
The Paris Commune ended with Bloody Week (May
21–May 28, 1871), a period in which 25,000 Parisians
were killed by the French government. Various Parisians
took some particularly intriguing photos of the Com-
munards posed prior to and after removing the Vendôme
Column, an action that symbolized the removal of Napo-
leonic military barbarism. Bruno Braquehais published
109 photographs, which he personally photographed,
in a bound album titled Paris During the Commune.
Unfortunately, these photographs were later used to
identify rebels who were then punished or murdered by
the French government. Charles Soulier photographed
the city in ruins after the end of the Commune. Eugène
Appert fabricated photographs in which he hired actors
to stage various scenes from the time of the Commune,
and then he would paste in heads of the Communards
and reshoot the pasted photo. This handful of contrived
images, designed from the perspective of the govern-
ment, was compiled into a book called Crimes of the
Commune.
1890s
The Spanish-American War (April 25–August 12, 1898)
is the fi rst war in which photographs of war scenes were
quickly disseminated to the public through publication in
newspapers. Due to the images in papers owned by Hearst
and Pulitzer, Americans saw the atrocities of the Spanish
occupation, although often inaccurately reported, and
support increased for the Cuban rebel forces. The sinking
of the U.S. battleship Maine, on February 15, 1898, in the
Cuban harbor of Havana was blamed on the Spanish and
fueled the decision by the United States to enter the war on
April 25. “Remember the Maine” became a rallying cry
as numerous photography fi rms marketed stereographs
of the event; Keystone View Company in particular made
a profi t from the selling of such images.
Despite the American public interest in this confl ict,
few photographers were hired to document the battles.
However, Jimmy Hare began a career in which he would
become known as the paramount photographer of war.
Working for Collin’s Magazine and later Collier’s and
Leslie’s Weekly, Hare worked in the fi eld during nu-
merous twentieth-century wars including World War I.
While few of his surviving photographs from this period
are remarkable, later he would be credited with being
the fi rst modern war photojournalist for his courageous
efforts in documenting times of war.
International public opinion on the Second Boer War
(1899–1902) was also greatly swayed by photographs
of the battles and conditions in South Africa. Much of
Europe and the United States supported the seemingly
simple people of the Boer republic initially in their battle
against Britain. Once realizing the power of the medium,
the Boers began taking numerous photos of every as-
pect of the war. The Boers encouraged photos of their
weaponry, trenches fi lled with dead British soldiers,
and their prisoners including then war correspondent
Winston Churchill.
Through manipulation of these and other photo-
graphic images, the British used the media to try and
persuade the national and international public to sup-
port their troops. Horace Nicholls can be credited with
shooting some of the most sentimental images during
this period, which engendered sympathy for British
troops. Nicholls described his desire to shoot and com-
pose “photographs which would appeal to the artist
sense of the most fastidious, knowing that they must as
photographs have the enhanced value of being truthful.”
Numerous other photographers were sent to shoot this
war, Reinholt Thiele and H.C. Shelley for example, but
many scenes were shot by British soldiers and volunteers
who brought their own Kodaks to South Africa. The
deplorable conditions of British concentration camps,
in which 40,000 women and children died of disease
and starvation, were undeniable due to the many photo-
graphs taken within the camps of the victims.