Hanging on the wire: dead Russian soldiers entangled in barbed wire. Attacking infantry found it nearly impossible to overcome the combination of barbed wire and machine guns. Many died trying, some left hanging in the grip of the wire.
"— Over the last eighteen months the war has cost Europe 3,000 human lives every day, and an average of 350,000,000 francs. Nobody worries any longer about these astounding figures.— Despite the savage expectations of our patriotic madmen, soldiers still exchange friendly conversation between the trenches. Thus, one night, a German outpost asked a French sentry : 'Tell me, now, how does one go about it to establish a republic?'"
January 18, 1916 entries from the diary of Michel Corday, a senior civil servant in the French government who was repeatedly appalled by the savage attitudes of his fellow citizens, particularly those on the home front.
The Paris Front: an Unpublished Diary: 1914-1918 by Michel Corday, page 134, copyright © 1934, by E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publisher: E.P. Dutton & Co., Inc., publication date: 1934
1916-01-18, 1916, January, death, casualty, casualties, cost, lives, money
