On the Western Front of World War I, before dawn on October 12, 1917, the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium became a muddy, horrific battlefield. Australian foot soldiers posthumously treated a fallen Allied soldier and spread a blanket over him.

  On the Western Front of World War I, the Battle of Passchendaele (Passchendaele) turned into a muddy, horrific battlefield before dawn on October 12, 1917. Around a blockhouse near the Belgian station of Sonnebeke, Australian infantrymen posthumously treated and blanketed Allied soldiers who had been killed in action. Not far from the town of Ypres, it was located on a ridge of hills separating the swampy Yser and Raie valleys. In the background, the sun was shining through the clouds, and on October 12, the re-attack, with even deeper objectives, ended with the attack force back at the starting point, except for a few troops who died in the mud.

　During World War I, the Battle of Passchendaele was known as the Battle of the Mud. It was the third and longest battle fought in Ypres, Belgium. In nearly three years of intense fighting, the drainage system was completely destroyed. The ground, churned up by millions of shells, turned into a sticky quagmire when wet with rain. The battle was fought on July 31, 1917, when the British broke through Flanders and bombarded the Belgian coast in an attempt to destroy the submarine cages. The Germans were fully prepared for this attack, and the Allies were unable to break through the German lines; rain began to fall in August 1917, the heaviest rainfall in nearly 30 years, turning Flanders into a swamp; in mid-October, the Canadian Corps was ordered by the British to the Passchendaele front. New roads and batteries were built, tramways were repaired, and hundreds of thousands of shells were brought to the front by horse and mule. At the top of Passchendaele Ridge, the Germans continuously shelled the area, killing and wounding hundreds of Canadian soldiers. The Canadian Corps occupied Passchendaele by November 10 with losses of 15,654 men.

　The Battle of Passchendaele epitomized the horrors and tremendous human cost of the First World War. There was mud in the trenches, in front of the trenches, and behind the trenches. Every shell hole was a sea of filthy oozing mud. Infantrymen sank into the muck and never came back to life. Every kill, every sacrifice was made in order to gain a distance of only about 20 meters. Fatigue in the mud was so severe that they could go no further, their feet caught in the mud. British casualties were about 275,000, Australian about 36,000, New Zealand about 3,500, and Canadian about 16,000. The Germans suffered about 220,000 casualties. Approximately 90,000 bodies were unaccounted for and about 42,000 were never recovered.