Les Fortifs Aux Lilas

Ernest Marie Herscher

This may be an image of the road leading out of Fort de Romainville, located just outside of Les Lilas, a commune in the north-eastern suburbs of Paris. Herscher was mobilized in 1914 as a lieutenant in the First World War and was stationed at a fort outside of Paris; it was likely Fort de Romainville, whose gates withstood both World Wars and can be visited today.

Herscher, a trained architect and commercial printmaker for nearly two decades before the onset of the war, was asked to contribute drawings of his experiences to a book titled “Some Images of War” in the year 1917. This may have come from that period of time. Herscher was at the Fort for a year before being sent to the front in 1915.