Yerres Historical Society
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Société d’Histoire d’Yerres
Yerres Historical Society |
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| The weather |
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The weather remained dry in July and early August, but from mid-August onwards the weather deteriorated in Picardy and Artois, to the point where it was an essential factor in the launching of the offensives. Almost continuous rainfall turned the ground, which had been shattered by shells, into lakes of mud and the trenches into channels in which the men could no longer fight. The evacuation of the wounded became difficult and the logistics could not keep up. Wagons and cars got bogged down; only the small trains on the tracks of 60 could still circulate. From mid-October onwards, the weather became downright dreadful; the ground was nothing more than a huge quagmire in which everything disappeared. The snow, which appeared very early in the winter, began to fall on November 18, and from then on operations could no longer proceed normally. |