First World War composite photos bring history to life

British machine gunners wearing their gas helmets along a road near Orvillers, in the Somme departement

Serbian soldiers marching past the Royal Corts of Justice, London, in the Lord Mayor's show on 9 November 1918, two days before the Armistice

The 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders marching to the trenches along the road between Becordel and Fricourt during the Battle of the Somme

The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Brebieres in the town of Albert, Somme, in 1916. The Virgin Mary statue on top of its spire was knocked almost horizontal by a shell in 1915, earning it the nickname 'the Leaning Virgin' from troops

Allied troops with tanks moving through the village of Aveluy in the Somme area of the Western Front in 1917

Wounded soldiers playing football outside Blenheim Palace, one of many stately homes to become a temporary convalescent hospital

A German soldier walking down the ruined main road through Peronne in November 2016. The town's chateau now houses France's Great War Museum 

German prisoners of war marching through Southend-on-Sea under the eyes of the local populace 

Ammunition limber taking ammunition forward along a muddy, shell-churned road outside Flers, during the Battle of the Somme in November 1916

The Grote Markt square in the Belgium town of Ypres, the site of three major battles during the First World War, severely damaged by artillery in 1915