The Western Front became one of the defining images of the Great War. The problem of Western Front was that to make ground men had to leave the security of their trenches and attack an entrenched enemy across a strip of ground that soon became known with some accuracy as no-man's-land. What makes the Battle of Neuve Chapelle even more exceptional is that it was one of the first trench warfare encounters to take place on the Western Front. Two of the largest battles ever fought, Verdun and the Somme, were fought during 1916. Germany commander General von Falkenhay was the first to undertake an offensive in 1916. The Allied armies had now developed methods that could overcome the Germans whether they lurked behind strong defences or were in the open. The main factor in wearing down the German army was the Ludendorff offensives of 1918.