German troops trying to rescue a French soldier from sinking in a mud hole, 1916
German troops trying to rescue a French soldier from sinking in a mud hole, 1916 The picture was taken during the Battle of Verdun, one of the deadliest battles of the Great War. The concentration of so much fighting in such a small area devastated the land, resulting in miserable conditions for troops on both sides. The shells turned up the earth and left gigantic craters that would then fill with water in the unbelievably heavy rains. Many parts of the western front essentially became mud holes, where you could often have 6-10 ft (2-3 m) of thick mud before hitting dry earth. Falling in some of these places would be equatable to slower, thicker, stickier quicksand. Once soldiers were trapped in it often it was impossible to extract them. Soldiers would beg their friends to shoot them and spare them the agony of slowly drowning in the mud. At a basic level, Verdun was intended to bleed France’s armies. Falkenhayn, the commanding German officer, hoped to capture a number of F