Entitled: Marching in along a camouflaged road. Sketch shows troops marching in a war-torn landscape during World War I by Lucien Jonas. In France, the heavy losses in manpower at the front decimated an entire generation of Frenchmen and is thought to have created a leadership vacuum when that generation came of age. France had fallen behind Germany and England in population during the 19th century. They were, therefore, less able to sustain wartime losses. France also suffered untold property damage since most of the war on the western front was fought on French soil.