Shrapnel
Each side's big guns, firing from some distance behind the front line, would lob shells over their own soldiers to explode in enemy lines.
This caused indiscriminate death and injury as the resulting shrapnel — jagged pieces of metal — scythed through the troops.
George Ramage describes such an attack in a diary entry for 1 June 1915:
'Suffered prolonged bombardment, stiffest shelling I have been in to date — shells bursting all round trench but never in it — hot jagged fragments frequently dropping into it — no casualties — slept thro' most of it or tried to sleep — as lay on ground felt ground tremble & drums of ear throb at the explosions.'
