Published: March 11, 2021 at 3:52 pm The western front occupies a fixed and unchanging position in our memory of the First World War. It is synonymous with trenches and bloody, futile combat; a place of barbed wire and poison gas, of massed artillery batteries and machine-guns, mud and blood. It was where the armies of Germany and France, the United Kingdom and America (alongside a host of minor powers and colonial possessions) placed the bulk of their military strength and where they suffered the majority of their casualties. This arena of combat left a legacy of commemoration and remembrance that continues to influence our attitudes to the war to this day.