In November 1917, Canadian soldiers carried trench mats to the front line at the Battle of Passchendaele on the Western Front of World War I. In the background, Canadian soldiers were deporting German soldiers who had been taken prisoner and transporting the wounded to field hospitals.

  In November 1917, Canadian soldiers carried trench mats (wooden walkways and bridges) to the front line at the Battle of Passchendaele on the Western Front of World War I. The reason for this was that Canadian soldiers were deporting German soldiers who had been taken prisoner and transporting the wounded to field hospitals. The Canadian soldiers moved the trench mats so that their feet would not get stuck in the mud. The mild weather in the area around Ypres in the western part of Belgium came to an end, and the terrain became impassable due to the continuous rain. The terrain became large puddles of mud, and thousands of corpses floated in them, but the offensive was not called off.

   At the Battle of Passchendaele, the British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian armies dealt the German army its greatest blow. The French army suffered a major defeat in the Battle of the Chemin des Dames, and an uprising broke out within the army. It began on July 31st 1917 and ended on December 1st with the fall of the village of Panzhendl. The total number of casualties from the Battle of Passchendaele was estimated at 340,000 for the British and 250,000 for the Germans. Despite the overwhelming number of casualties, the front line itself only advanced 8km to the north and 2km to the south, and the battle became a futile conflict.

   The Battle of Passchendaele was a tragic month in August 1917, with 75,000 Allied and 50,000 German troops killed. On September 22, the Allied and German lost around 20,000 men on the eastern ridge of Ypres. On September 26, around 17,000 men were lost in the Forest of the Polygon. On October 4, around 26,000 men were lost at Broodzande. 9, the Australian army lost around 13,000 men at Tainkote. On October 12, the German army lost around 13,000 men to machine gun fire from the Allied forces, who were ordered to attack in bad weather.With rain falling day after day, they were knee-deep in mud, attacked from both sides in a hopeless situation, and exhausted, resulting in many casualties.