Trench art cigarette light made by someone serving with the French Armee d'Orient. || This is a French trench art cigarette lighter. On one side is engraved '1917 Armee d'Orient 1918' and the other side bears the stylised initials of 'JB'. The Armee d'Orient was a French Army that was based in the Balkans during the First World War. || || Other || Français

This is a 3 piece set of Serbian trench art made of aluminium and consists of a matchbox holder, a cigarette case, and a small cup. One side of the matchbox holder has the Serbian text 'СОЛУН-БИТОЉ, 1918', which transliterates to 'SOLUN - BITOLJ, 1918', and correspond, respectively to the towns of Salonika in Greece and Bitola in Macedonia, which was a province of Serbia at the time; on the spine of the matchbox holder is the Serbian text 'СПОМЕН', which transliterates to 'SPOMEN', which means 'souvenir' in English; on the other face of the matchbox holder are the inter-twined Serbian Cyrillic initials of 'Ф' and 'J', which stand for 'F' and 'J' respectively and which may have been the initials of the original owner. The front of the cigarette case has a banner with, above it, the Serbian Cyrillic text 'МОНАСТИР 1914 1918', which transliterates to 'MONASTIR 1914 1918', and Monastir was the former name of the afore-mentioned town of Bitola. Beneath the banner is the Serbian text 'ЖИВЕЛА ЈУГОСЛАВИЈА', which transliterates to 'ZIVELA JUGOSLAVIJA' and translates into English as 'LONG LIVE YUGOSLAVIA'. The cup features a Serbian heraldic bi-cephalic eagle with the year '1914' to the left and '1918' to the right with, above the eagle, the Latinised word 'SRBIJA' and, on the back, the name of the town of Monastir. Of note is that the two words on this cup are Latin Serbian rather than Cyrillic Serbian text. || Trench art matchbox holder, cigarette case, and small cup.

This trench art item is a spent 37MM shell, marked at the base with '37-85' signifying the calibre (37MM) and original year of deployment for this type of munition (1885); 'PDPs' the manufacturer, who was 'Pinchart Denys Paris'; '180' - the production batch number, being '180' in this case; '2 16' the date of manufacture, with '2 16' indicating 'February 1916'. The design on the side of the shell shows an ornate Serbian eagle - the heraldic, national symbol - with the French word 'Serbie' and '1918'. || Soldiers at the front would sometimes occupy themselves with making trench art. Commonly, trench art would involve the use of everyday objects, in this case a 37MM shell, and the soldier would spend his personal time transforming them with some artistic adornment.