It was still early in the morning when a rain of fire fell on the forts and trenches of Verdun. With 300 trainloads of ammunition, the Germans had been firing their artillery for hours on end. The thundering of cannons could be heard 150 kilometers (93 miles) away. The chief of the German General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, had given the order to attack the French.
Between minefields and barbed-wire fences, millions of soldiers faced each other in trenches along the Western Front, sometimes only some 30 meters apart. The combat zone stretched from the English Channel through Belgium and France to the Swiss border. As the war dragged on, soldiers huddled in their dugouts, where rats, lice, the cold and poor food wore them down, and death hung over them.
Grenades - a standard but often unglamorous part of modern infantry combat - have become indispensable in Ukraine's close-quarters and grueling fight against Russia's invasion. The war blends advanced technologies like drones and electronic warfare with grinding, World War I-style fighting, where soldiers sometimes battle at arm's length in muddy trenches and bunkers. In those confined spaces, Ukrainian and Russian troops alike rely heavily on grenades.
The trench warfare of the Western Front during the First World War (1914-18) involved soldiers living and dying in an awful mix of mud, filth, and barbed wire. Trench systems became more sophisticated in layout as the conflict dragged on but remained rudimentary holes in the ground as entire armies attempted to shelter from artillery, gas, machine-gun, and infantry attacks.
