Ypres – Verdun – Somme, 1915–1916
They called it the Western Front,
but it was not a line—it was a graveyard without end.
From the North Sea to the Swiss border, soldiers dug into the Earth like frightened animals.
Trenches became homes.
Homes became tombs.
1915. Ypres, Belgium.
A strange yellow-green cloud rolled across the no man's land.
At first, soldiers stared in confusion.
Then came the burning. The choking. The screaming.
Chlorine gas.
Germany had unleashed a new terror.
Men clawed at their throats.
Some drowned in their own lungs.
Others tried to urinate on rags, hoping the ammonia would neutralize the poison.
Gas would evolve: phosgene... then mustard, which blistered the skin and blinded the eyes.
But the war did not pause for mercy.
1916. Verdun.
Germany launched Operation Gericht—"Judgment"—against France.
General Falkenhayn sought to "bleed France white."
For 300 days, hell reigned.
Tens of millions of shells fell like rain.
The forts of Douaumont and Vaux, long believed impregnable, were reduced to rubble.
French General Pétain whispered to his men,
"Ils ne passeront pas."
"They shall not pass."
They didn't.
But 700,000 men were lost for a few kilometers of mud.
Then came the Somme.
July 1, 1916.
The British launched their great offensive.
They believed their artillery had wiped out German defenses.
At 7:30 a.m., 120,000 men went over the top.
By nightfall, 57,000 were casualties.
The worst day in British military history.
One soldier wrote:
"We walked as if in a dream. The machine guns did not dream. They fed on us."