​This photograph is part of a collection of photos from World War I in Palestine. The picture shows Ottoman soldiers ready to fight from trenches, which were very rare in Ottoman Palestine. The soldiers are positioned along the trench with their guns pointing towards a target out of the range of the photo. They are wearing uniforms and have been equipped with supplies that are attached to their belts.

There is no record of where the photo was taken, but the flat land and desert area implies that it was somewhere near Be’er Sheva. 

Trenches were very common throughout Europe at the time, and much of World War I was fought this way throughout France and Belgium.The photograph shows that this military tactic was replicated across the various fronts, whether or not it was suited to the terrain.

The Palestine front received little coverage, since it was only a minor campaign. Many photos from this time focus on Jerusalem, thus presenting a somewhat distorted view of the conflict which actually took place elsewhere in Palestine, as evident in this photograph. The photos from Jerusalem show the British army entering the city without any fighting, whereas the actual events of the battle were rather different. At the start of 1917, British forces succeeded in capturing the Sinai Peninsula, and in October of the same year, they finally overcame the Ottoman defences which ran from Gaza to Beer Sheba. The final armistice agreement wasn’t signed until October 1918, with battles taking place to capture Meggido, Nazareth, Jenin, Tiberias, amongst many others.