The war fought on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918 has no precedent in history. It was a war between two stubborn enemies, each dug into the wet earth of Northern France and Belgium and facing each other across a merciless no-man's land. In a single day of trench warfare the British lost more men than their battle casualties of the Crimean and Boer wars combined, and far more than their worst losses for any day in World War II.