Friday, March 21, 2008
This Day in the History of Too Little, Too Late
On this day in 1918, the Germans begin the Second Battle of the Somme, their last big push of the Great War, fueled with the veteran troops released from the Eastern Front due to Russia's withdrawal from the war. They do well, but can't reach Paris.
This is an aerial photo of the trench systems near the Somme months earlier. You can see why it was so hard to get past the front-- there were second and third trenches and then reserve trenches past that. The crenelation in the trenches themselves are so the area through which the steel splinters from a shell explosion could travel was limited.
Labels: WWI history
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 9:53 AM 
