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Along five hundred miles of front such scenes took place week after
week, month after month, from Artois to the Argonne, not always with
inflammatory liquid, but with hand grenades, bombs, stink-shells, fire
balls, smoke balls, and a storm of shrapnel. The deadly monotony of
the life in wet trenches, where men crouched in mud, cold, often
hungry, in the abyss of misery, unable to put their heads above
ground for a single second without risk of instant death, was broken
only by the attacks and counter-attacks when the order was given to
leave the trench and make one of those wild rushes for a hundred
yards or so in which the risks of death were at heavy odds against the
chances of life. Let a French soldier describe the scene:
"Two sections of infantry have crouched since morning on the edge
of a wood, waiting for the order which hurls them to the assault of that
stupid and formidable position which is made up of barbed wire in
front of the advanced trenches. Since midday the guns thunder
without cessation, sweeping the ground. The Germans answer with
great smashing blows, and it is the artillery duel which precedes
heroic work. Every one knows that when the guns are silent the brief
order which will ring out above the huddled men will hold their
promise of death.
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