The Flammenwerfer M.16. was a flamethrower used by German infantry during World War I for clearing trenches and killing riflemen. It was used in 1918 in the battle of Argonne Forest in France against Allied forces, although an account in a 1917 issue of The Living Age suggests eye witness accounts of it being used at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The Flammenwerfer M.16 was the first flamethrower ever. The Nazis in the 1940s created the sequel, the Flammenwerfer 35. German riflemen would usually be behind flamethrower carrying infantry. The flamethrowers would kill enemy infantry, helping the riflemen move in.