The landscape of World War I was, in a word, hellish. It was a new kind of war, one that relied on planes, tanks, machine guns and poison gas. The battle between Axis and Allied dug deep wounds into the landscape, leaving scars both physical and psychic. The soldiers nicknamed the new machine gun "the Devil's paintbrush," which streaked waves of lead into advancing armies.
An example of the deadly scale of the fighting during World War I is the Battle of Verdun. At the outset of 1916, the Boche began a massive offensive to take the French city of Verdun, which was guarded by several forts. Over the course of the 10-month-long battle to hold the city, the French side lost half a million soldiers.
This #Throwback Thursday, watch this American Rifleman Television video segment: "Over There! Part 1: Stalemate, Death & The Devil's Paintbrush" to learn about the impact that trench warfare, artillery and machine guns had in battles like Verdun during World War 1.
