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As a result, each side tried to outflank the other and so parallel lines
of rapidly escalating and elongating trenches became the static frontline of
the war along the Eastern Front (1,200 km from the Baltic Sea to St. Petersburg)
and the Western Front (from Switzerland to the north of Belgium). Sometimes the
opposing trenches were only a few hundred metres apart, |
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sometimes wider. The space between them was called "No
Man's Land" a deadly and often muddy hell of shell holes, corpses, explosions,
shrapnel and carnage. As we'll see, much of the Great War was spent fighting
over scraps of water-sodden charnel fields, often with little or no strategic
value.
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Infantry
Batallion advancing over "No Man's Land"
Infantry
that advanced through the "No Man's Land" between trenches faced mortal
danger from shelling, machine gun fire, mortars and, if the timing wasn't right,
even from the 'friendly fire' of its own artillery. |
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