Many are based on stories Tardi remembered from his grandfather, who was a veteran of that war, and books he read about the topic.

And I still get this recurring nightmare of finding myself standing in front of a Call-Up poster - it’s a personal anxiety of mine, being caught up in a situation I can’t control.

[3] Tardi had dealt with World War One as a subject before in Adieu Brindavoine, published in Pilote (1972-1973) and Le Fleur au Fusil (1974).

[5][6] It Was the War of the Trenches is a more ambitious work for whom Tardi documented himself thoroughly, asking advice from various historians and based his drawings on numerous photographs from this period.

The comic has a clear anti-war theme, reflecting the soldiers who are permanently physically and psychologically scarred and the numerous who died for a seemingly pointless cause, which are portrayed in brutal graphic detail.