Trench warfare

Trench warfare was a defining feature of ground combat during the First World War. The extensive defensive positions ran from Switzerland to the English Channel and required thousands of soldiers to maintain. Lieutenant Reginald Bateman of the 28th Infantry Battalion summed up trench life as “days of unendurable monotony and moments of indescribable fear.” Harry Woodburn Blaylock, deputy commissioner of the Canadian Red Cross, witnessed the horror of trench warfare firsthand: victims of gas attacks, men who had lost limbs, and others who were seriously wounded arrived at Red Cross posts by the hundreds and soon were occupying every available bed in Boulogne, France. Operations during the next 18 months would bring new contingents of suffering humanity. Blaylock was deeply affected by what he saw, to the point that he was overcome by fatigue and psychological shock.