British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig
British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, shown here with John Pershing, launched his assault in Flanders on June 7, 1917, to take German pressure off his French allies. For months, troops of the British Expeditionary Force fought a series of pointless battles in a nightmarish landscape of knee-deep shell holes filled with mud and blasted, skeletal trees. When the campaign finally ground to a halt on November 10, 1917, the BEF had suffered losses of 300,000 men and German losses were around 200,000–for a total gain of four miles.
Photo: Library of Congress
