It was a lesson hard-learned in the mud and blood of Flanders: How thousands of lives can be thrown away for nothing. But now, more than 100 years later, horror scenes that echo one of the First World War’s bloodiest battles are once again playing out on European soil.
Vladimir Putin is pouring Russian troops into the maw of Ukrainian machine-guns in the town of Bakhmut, with troops charging across a muddy hell-scape pock-marked with shell holes and strewn with the corpses of their own comrades, under the wail of artillery fire and into Kyiv‘s trenches.
It is hauntingly reminiscent of The Battle of Passchendaele, when in 1917 Allied troops were forced to fight the Germans in mud sometimes chest deep, slogging uphill for four months under withering fire at a loss of almost 300,000 men, only to cede it back the following year without firing a shot.
For many, that battle symbolises more than any other the futility of the First World War – and so it may prove in Bakhmut, as analysts argue the strategic value of the city is already far outweighed by the number of lives Russia has spent trying to take it.
Here, MailOnline take a look at both battlefields and what history can teach us about the horrifying conditions that soldiers are facing today…
Ukrainian soldiers hold the frontline in a partially-flooded trench near the town of Bakhmut, in the east of the country, amid splintered pieces of tree that have been destroyed by Russian artillery fire
British soldiers bearing a wounded man on a stretcher make their way through sucking mud during the Battle of Passchendaele, more than 100 years before similar scenes would return to Europe
A Ukrainian solider wounded by shell fire is treated in a hospital near the frontlines in Bakhmut. Some of the heaviest losses on both sides are being sustained around Bakhmut, many of them from artillery guns as both sides bombard the other heavily an an attritional battle for control of the area
A wounded German soldier is seen during the First World War, which pioneered the use of massed artillery barrages as a means to weaken and break enemy defensive lines before an attack – and left soldiers living with the horrifying wounds that pieces of shrapnel can cause
Bakhmut has seen heavy fighting since the summer, when it became the frontline of defence against Russian forces that had recently captured the nearby cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk – now soil churned up by months of artillery fire, tank tracks and soldiers’ boots has turned to a slurry
The Battle of Passchendaele was the third major battle fought near the Belgian city of Ypres, with the preceding years of warfare having churned up soil which then turned to a quagmire with the arrival of late summer and early autumn rains
What was once a forest in Bakhmut is pictured as little more than a collection of sticks after months of heavy bombardment shredded the trees – leaving attacking and defending soldiers with precious little natural cover – and making movement outside of trenches and shell-holes particularly deadly
As Passchendaele began, Allied forces used some 3,000 guns to hurl 4.5million shells at German defences – aiming to learn the lessons of the Somme when the preliminary barrage proved too soft to break the enemy lines. The result was scenes like this, which are now being echoed in Ukraine more than a century later
Ukrainian soldiers load a wounded comrade on to a stretcher near Bakhmut. While exact losses in the battle are not being disclosed by either side, both acknowledge they have been ‘heavy’. It is thought they could be losing upwards of 100 soldiers each per day
Passchendaele was not the First World War’s bloodiest battle – that distinction goes to The Somme – but it still involved a huge amount of casualties: Roughly 270,000 for the Allies and 225,000 for the Germans, which ultimately proved in vain when all ground gained during the offensive was given up the following year without a shot being fired
Troops from the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic – a Russian proxy in Ukraine’s east – load a self-propelled howitzer somewhere near the frontlines in Bakhmut, the main focus of the fighting. America estimates that Russia is firing some 20,000 artillery shells per day at the moment – faster than it can produce its standard 152mm rounds
Howitzer gun stuck in the mud near Passchendaele, October, 1917: Passchendaele saw heavy use of artillery by both sides, with British success eventually coming when generals changed tactics to have troops advance entirely under cover of the guns – in much the same way that Russia advanced across Donbas in the summer to reach Bakhmut
New graves are seen at a cemetery near Bakhmut: Experts and analysts believe the battle for this city has become totemic for Russia – the propaganda value of capturing it far outweighs the already-considerable human cost the Kremlin’s commanders have expended in the effort
Graves on Passchendaele ridge, Belgium: The battle came to epitomise the futility of the First World War. It took four months of arduous fighting and almost half a million lives to take the ridge, but the following year it was ceded back to Germany without a fight to shorten the defensive line
Volodymyr Zelensky visits Ukrainian troops fighting close to the frontlines in Bakhmut to award medals for bravery, and has said the battle for the city is among the most-intense fighting of the war
King George V awards a Victoria Cross – the Empire’s highest award for bravery – to Private Wilfred Edwards for his actions during the Battle of Passchendaele. More Victoria Crosses were awarded for actions on the opening day of the Battle of Passchendaele than for actions on any other single day of combat in World War I
Passchendaele was ruined in the Allied assault, as British and French troops aimed to capture the ridge on which it sat and paid scant attention to the village itself (left). Meanwhile Bakhmut – which had a pre-war population of about 70,000 – is today down to around 7,000 and has been left largely a ruin (right)
