Firing a trench mortar, July 1915

Photograph, World War One, Gallipoli (1915).

A soldier prepares to load a trench mortar during fighting at Gallipoli. A mortar is essentially a short tube designed to fire a projectile at a steep angle so that it falls straight down on the enemy. Such weapons were ideally suited for trench warfare, especially where the lines of the combatants were very close together as at Gallipoli. Mortars could also be fired from the relative safety of the trench.

One of 49 photographs taken by Maj Renold Marx, Royal Field Artillery, Egypt and Gallipoli, 1914-1915.