"Enormous masses of ammunition, such as the human mind had ever imagined before the war, were hurled upon the bodies of men who passed a miserable existence scattered about in mud-filled shell holes... it was no longer life at all; It was mere unspeakable suffering.
And through this world of mud, the attackers dragged themselves, slowly but steadily, and in dense masses.
Caught in the advance zone of our hail of fire they often collapsed, and the lonely man in the shell hole breathed again. Then the mass came on again. Rifles and machineguns jammed with mud. Man fought against man as the enemy charged like a wild bull against the iron wall.
Poor fellows! As they lay so young and innocent looking, frozen hard as boards, one thinks and ponders on the awfulness of this war. There is a little graveyard just by our aid post growing rapidly in size. Each morning finds a score or more laying beside the little cemetary waiting to be buried. A blanket or a piece of burlap is wrapped about them and they are buried in the cold ground.
The value of life out here seems practically nothing. - Diary entry of a German soldier during the Battle of Passchendaele, Belgium, Nov. 1917 #ww1 #reality #stayzero #zerofoxtrot