World War I in colour:

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Rare photographs capture the lives of soldiers and civilians when all was quiet on the Western Front

The remarkable images, captured using the Lumière brothers' Autochrome colour process, were all taken in 1917, as soldiers entered the fourth year of the First World War. They document how members of the Allied Forces spent quieter moments, away from the fighting on the battlefield. In one photograph, Senegalese soldiers serving as infantrymen in the French Army are seen sitting in a room surrounded by weapons in Ribeauvillé, north-eastern France (centre). Another shows French soldiers chatting as they catch up on the latest news outside a kiosk in Rexpoede, less than 10 miles south of Dunkirk (right). The pictures also highlight how the war affected civilian life. In one, a little girl is seen holding her doll as she sits next to two guns and a military knapsack on a street in Reims, northern France (left).