« It was the end of the world and we really did not know where our lines were finishing nor the German lines were starting, both of layouts merging in a waterlogged meadow planted with young yellowing, sickly, shrivelled poplars and stretching to the marshes where the lines inevitably broken to begin again on the other side of the flooded valley and the meandering waters of the Somme river... » — Blaise Cendrard