Moving big guns up to the front by hand

Moving big guns up to the front by hand

Soldiers struggling to pull a big gun through mud. The gun has been placed on a track created for a light railway. The soldiers are pushing a device, attached to the gun, that possibly slots into the tracks. Some of the men are in a ditch that runs alongside the track, the rest are on the track itself. A makeshift caterpillar tread has been fitted to the wheels of the gun, in an attempt to aid its movement through the mud. The surrounding landscape is bleak and desolate, with only a few trucks visible in the distance. The mud and flooding at the Front not only created mobility problems for the men, it was also extremely hazardous, with men and animals often becoming trapped in the quagmire. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE WESTERN FRONT. Moving big guns up to the front by hand.'] digital.nls.uk/74546544 Image by National Library of Scotland