I just finished reading an outstanding volume presenting a series of front line panoramas taken by the British army on their sector of the Western Front during WWI.  WHat struck me the most was how the battlefield, particularly No Man's Land, did not look anything like the stereotype.  Typically when we think of the Western front we picture a blasted wasteland of ruined trees, shell craters, and bodies with the troops scuttling around like beetles.  The pictures in the book, some taken in the midst of the biggest battles fought by the British such as Passchendaele and The Somme, show an entirely different reality from the popular imagination.One of the biggest things I noticed is how narrow the zone of destruction was.  It was often only 300-400 metes wide and even then localized with undamaged trees, houses, and villages relatively close to the fighting front.  No Man's Land itself was full of greenery and tall grass except under extraordinary conditions.  I always wondered how trench raiding parties could manage to sneak through No Man's Land if it was so barren.  These pictures reveal how they were able to do so, because it was not as barren as is popularly thought.Many of the images are available for viewing at the [color color=rgb(55, 55, 55)] [/color][color color=rgb(228, 72, 7)]Imperial War Museum First World War Panoramas Collection[/color].