Consenvoye is in the northeast corner of France near the Belgian border, in the region of Lorraine. This is where the famous Battle of the Meuse-Argonne was fought. The Meuse-Argonne battle was the largest frontline commitment of troops by the U.S. Army in World War I, and the final offensive of the war.
Who worked in this makeshift smithy? An American farrier; horses were also stabled inside the ruined church. Under the same roof (or what was left of it), the American set up an evacuation hospital.
The trench warfare in this region was legendary. The wet soil couldn't withstand the stress of the war and any advances had to be via roads, bridges, and ramps that had to be engineered and built first. Large artillery couldn't move because the horses couldn't pull through the mud and the temporary roads couldn't hold their weight. Many horses were listed as "drowned in mud".
The battle is long remembered as the costliest ever in US military history: 115,000 Americans were among the 300,000 soldiers on both sides who died there.
The church image is in the collection of the New York Public Library. It is courtesy of of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building / Photography Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs.
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