It’s a fine thing that all veterans are remembered and honored
for their service today, but I find myself focusing on World War
I—a war most people know very little about. The place names
where horrific battles took place—Ypres, Verdun, Passchendaele,
the Somme, Loos—resonate far less now than they once did. It’s
impossible to encapsulate all that the First World War was and
what it meant in one little blog post, but here are some facts,
some quotes from the book Back To The Front by Stephen O’Shea,
and some art of World War I. “In Northern France, from October
25, 1914, to March 10, 1915, there were only eighteen days
without rain. The misery of millions of men, standing in cold
and muddy ditches on end, can only be imagined.” (page 62) “In
the summer and fall of 1914, France lost as many men on the
battlefield as the American army would in all of the twentieth
century.” (page 27) “The [Ypres] Salient’s defining moment was
the week of July 25 to July 31, 1917, when the British army
fired off 4,283, 550 shell