August of 1914, the clatter of hobnails on ancient cobblestones heralded an era of unprecedented darkness. The first war of the industrial age began when German troops surged across the border of tiny Belgium crushing opposition beneath the steel studded soles of their heavy military “Schnurschuhe” ankle boots.

Sweeping through Belgium and into France, by fall, the swift movements of August had stalled, and the conflict descended into the stagnant mud-caked hell of the Western Front. In four years of savage fighting over eight million soldiers and twelve million civilians died before light returned to Europe.

Hobnails had been used for centuries to reinforce the soles of military footwear. Roman “Caligula” sandals used iron studs to decrease wear and extend the life of the footwear and presumably the wearer. A millennium later, German boots used the same technology as evidenced in the museum collection’s First World War low boots. 

Caked with mud and cracked by incessant moisture, the boots show the extreme conditions of the Western Front. On the average, heavy hobnailed boots whether German, French, British or American, lasted as little as three months in the trenches. The pairs specific history has been lost to time, however all indications lead to the probability these boots were collected by an American soldier in the latter stages of the Great War before the guns fell silent in November 1918.

Barely twenty years would pass before German hobnails again rang out on the streets of Europe.