They were months of ghastly endurance to gunners when batteries sank
up to their axles as I saw them often while they fired almost
unceasingly for days and nights without sleep, and were living targets
of shells which burst about them. They were months of battle in which
our men advanced through slime into slime, under the slash of machine-
gun bullets, shrapnel, and high explosives, wet to the skin, chilled
to the bone, plastered up to the eyes in mud, with a dreadful way back
for walking wounded, and but little chance sometimes for wounded who
could not walk. The losses in many of these battles amounted almost to
annihilation to many battalions, and whole divisions lost as much as
50 per cent of their strength after a few days in action, before they
were "relieved." Those were dreadful losses. Napoleon said that no
body of men could lose more than 25 per cent of their fighting
strength in an action without being broken in spirit. Our men lost
double that, and more than double, but kept their courage, though in
some cases they lost their hope.
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