This is the artillery helmet worn by the famous poet Guillaume Apollinaire.
This is the artillery helmet worn by the famous poet Guillaume Apollinaire.
At the Bois des Buttes near the Chemin aux Dames, on March 17, 1916, while relaxing in his trench shelter reading a magazine, Apollinaire was hit in the head by shrapnel that pierced his helmet. He underwent successful surgery, but weakened by his wound, he died in Paris on November 9, 1918 of Spanish flu.
In 1915, he wrote to a friend: "The life of an infantryman at the front is the most mysterious thing in the world, the most desolate, and the most heroic. And I'll spare you that which is war itself, whose horror, mystery and savage beauty are indescribable."
The helmet is kept at the Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris.

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