English: Louis Porche, a roofer drafted in 1914, August 1914, probably in Nevers. When the First World War broke out, the French Army still had in service their nineteenth century uniforms, known navy blue coats and red trousers and cap. The French cuirassiers cavalry soldiers still wore the same uniforms of the Napoleonic period, that had nearly unchanged in one hundred years. Adolphe Messimy, Minister of War, wisely claimed ‘This stupid blind attachment to the most visible of colours will have cruel consequences’. If the population and the High Staff had listened, the red pieces of cloth they would not have caused disasters in what from 1914 would be the revolution of modern war. Original picture: Europeana 1914-1918