The First World War was a break with many things. It ended the period of optimism that pervaded the Victorian and Edwardian eras, smashing panglossian notions of progress. Gone was the long century of relative peace, two dynasties in Russia and Austria-Hungary and at least two empires. Old regimes were swept aside, political boundaries redrawn and revolution swept through Russia and threatened to spill over into central Europe.

If you had asked futurists to predict the Year 2000 before and after this conflict, there is a very good chance that their visions of the future would be very different. For a start, technology was rapidly accelerated by World War 1 as nations scrambled to develop knock-out weapons that would end the stalemate in the trenches. Case in point - there was no such thing as a tank in 1913, but by 1919 it was clear that this vehicle would be strategically important in the future. More than technology though was the world view I alluded to earlier - an optimism that was emaciated by conflict, replaced by a gloom and shock.

In the late 19th Century, a group of artists that included Jean-Marc Cote created illustrations that were intended to be used as postcards and on the boxes of cigarettes and cigars. The theme of their drawings was - what would the world be like in the Year 2000? It is hard to know how seriously they took their assignment - was Jules Verne consulted, for example. So in that sense their work might be looked at in the same way as we do when we unwrap a Fantale and read the about the lives of stars.

Some of their predictions were quite reasonable, others way off beam. But they were whimsical and interesting and innocent in a way that the world after 1918 could never be again. As is always the case, the pictures reflect the preoccupations of the time. Airplanes were becoming the rage. Levers of various kinds seemed popular. And people in the Year 2000 were bound to dress the same as those a century earlier, it seems! I especially like the last image, which predicts the mobile phone and social media epidemic rather well. Finally, I would note the danger of using a hydrogen-filled airship in a war zone at any time.