The rifle, machine gun and heavy artillery created a type of battlefield that has become popularly synonymous with the First World War.
![](http://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2014/02/Wildlife_in_the_Trenches.jpg)
ARCHIVE ARTICLES
![](http://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2014/02/TRENCHES_1915_12_25.jpg)
![](http://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2014/02/TRENCHES_1915_12_18_2.jpg)
![](http://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2014/02/TRENCHES_1916_02_12.jpg)
Two views of unidentified battlefields published in the magazine. The top image is a view through a sniper’s loophole, overlooking German trenches. It appears in a 1915 article that offers a bizarre combination of reportage on warfare and wildlife. The position was reached at considerable hazard, through a farmyard full of dead and rotting animals. Between periods of action, there are lyrical descriptions of birds. A golden oriole nest, for example, is spotted in the trees to the left. The bottom landscape by ‘an erstwhile subaltern’, was published as part of a letter in February 1916, with helpful annotations, such as ‘Boche trenches’, showing the enemy positions.
![](http://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2014/02/TRENCHES_1916_06_10.jpg)
‘Knife Rests’ by Edward Handley-Read, a painting by moonlight of wire protecting a British trench, from a 1916 exhibition review.
![](http://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2014/02/TRENCHES_France.jpg)
‘French infantry hunting out Huns from ruins on the Somme’, published in 1916.
![](http://keyassets.timeincuk.net/inspirewp/live/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2014/02/TRENCHES_1917_12_22.jpg)
A French and British band improvise in a rest area in 1917. Note the biscuit tin drum.