David Stevenson, The Observer
The long and dismal annals of European military history had seen nothing comparable with the western front. British troops likened it to a "great sausage machine", consuming lives in the hundreds of thousands while remaining stubbornly in place. From autumn 1914 two opposing lines of trenches stretched some 475 miles from Switzerland to the Channel coast. Offensives staged by both sides saw maximum advances of just six miles up until Spring 1918. These events still fall - just - within the memory of human beings now living. How could they have happened?It was not meant to be like...
The long and dismal annals of European military history had seen nothing comparable with the western front. British troops likened it to a "great sausage machine", consuming lives in the hundreds of thousands while remaining stubbornly in place. From autumn 1914 two opposing lines of trenches stretched some 475 miles from Switzerland to the Channel coast. Offensives staged by both sides saw maximum advances of just six miles up until Spring 1918. These events still fall - just - within the memory of human beings now living. How could they have happened?It was not meant to be like...
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