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Description
Sergeant, French Infantry
French Army, Verdun, 1916
World War I

This soldier is one of the 8.7 million Frenchmen that would've been called up to fight by the end of World War I. Of those, 4.2 million would become casualties, and 1.3 million of these would die. That’s around 4.39% of the French population. However, in this picture the war is far from over.

This particular soldier is in the Battle of Verdun, one of the deadliest battles of the entire war. From 21 February to 18 December 1916, around 714,231 French and German soldiers would become casualties, of which nearly 300,000 would die.

Among this hell-scape is this French sergeant, wearing his horizon blue (yes, BLUE)
Uniform. Needles to say this didn't make particle good camouflage but I digress. The number on his collar is his regimental number and rank insignia is on the sleeve. The uniform is new and so is the Adrian helmet, which the French would continue to use well into World War II. The helmet is unique because it was based off of French firefighter helmets and was one of the first modern steel helmets to see service in WWI.

He is armed with the 8mm (0.315 in) Chauchat M1915 light machine gun. (Pronounced "Show-sha"). To put it lightly, this gun was a piece of crap. It was made of poor quality materials, its open sided half-moon magazine let in dirt and mud making it prone to jamming. The recoil was to violent, the sights where off so it shot to low and to the right, the fire rate was to slow, and it was awkward to load and fire. They built 262,000 of them.

Description
Sergeant, French Infantry
French Army, Verdun, 1916
World War I

This soldier is one of the 8.7 million Frenchmen that would've been called up to fight by the end of World War I. Of those, 4.2 million would become casualties, and 1.3 million of these would die. That’s around 4.39% of the French population. However, in this picture the war is far from over.

This particular soldier is in the Battle of Verdun, one of the deadliest battles of the entire war. From 21 February to 18 December 1916, around 714,231 French and German soldiers would become casualties, of which nearly 300,000 would die.

Among this hell-scape is this French sergeant, wearing his horizon blue (yes, BLUE)
Uniform. Needles to say this didn't make particle good camouflage but I digress. The number on his collar is his regimental number and rank insignia is on the sleeve. The uniform is new and so is the Adrian helmet, which the French would continue to use well into World War II. The helmet is unique because it was based off of French firefighter helmets and was one of the first modern steel helmets to see service in WWI.

He is armed with the 8mm (0.315 in) Chauchat M1915 light machine gun. (Pronounced "Show-sha"). To put it lightly, this gun was a piece of crap. It was made of poor quality materials, its open sided half-moon magazine let in dirt and mud making it prone to jamming. The recoil was to violent, the sights where off so it shot to low and to the right, the fire rate was to slow, and it was awkward to load and fire. They built 262,000 of them.