Trench Warfare Dbq

The men and women who served in the First World War endured some of the most brutal forms of warfare ever known. Millions were sent to fight away from home for months, even years at a time, and underwent a series of terrible physical and emotional experiences. The new technologies available to First World War armies combined with the huge number of men mobilized made the battlefields of 1914-18 horrific, deadly and terrifying places.

Chemical warfare, while horrible, proved to be unwieldy and unpredictable, and relatively easy to counter. After some limited successes against unprepared opponents, the use of chemical gas had very little tactical benefit; the recognition of this limited utility is that after widespread use in 1915 - except for the short-lived effects of the introduction of mustard gas in 1917 - gas was abandoned by both sides as an effective tactic.

The United States used tanks very effectively throughout the war. “In 1943-4 the USA produced 47,000 tanks, almost all Shermans, while Germany produced 29,600 tanks and assault guns. Britain, in 1944, produced only 5000 tanks.”(Keegan 399). “Their rule was that five shermans were needed to knock out one German Panther.” By producing this many tanks they were able to send in loads of them into the battlefield and have the advantage over their enemies. This rule the army had was understandable, since the United States produced 47,000 tanks throughout the

The first World War has been reported to be one of the most brutal wars in the history of time for many reasons. One of those reasons was strategic usage of chemical warfare. Chemical gas was used on both sides of the line, which turned out to be fatal for many. World War I was mostly fought in the trenches, where soldiers lived in deep, v-shaped holes or underground bunkers. Both sides would occupy these trenches in order to escape from the constant stream of bullets. These battles often ended in a standoff, or tie, which helped the introduction of a different, brand new style of fighting that included the use of chemicals. These chemicals had a range of

Trench warfare was adopted to maintain an area of land, to prevent the enemy from capturing that land. The importance of this investigation was to show the significance of trench warfare during the First World War and how effective it was on how it had prevented many full on, front lined, assaults. World War I could have had a great impact in history with the amount of war casualties, which would have been historically shocking, but instead it created the stalemate, which prevented such numbers of deaths from happening.

Frist of all, in the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans introduced the first use of poisonous gas. When poison gas first introduced it was a popular weapon choice and would be the weapon to change the outcome of the war. The Germans surprisingly attack the Allies, where the used lethal chloride gas against them. The gas was deadly and killed over one thousand soldiers. (1) It also allowed a significant advanced for the Germans in the war. The gas usage continued to grow throughout the war. In the end, many Allied countries started chemical weapons research. Gas warfare became common but effective actions were used to protect the troops. After World War 1, poison was use for a while but in today’s war it is no longer allowed. Instead of poisonous gas, chemical warfare is used. Chemical weapons come in a variety of forms and are used for several different techniques.

World War I was known for its very slow-paced battle and the stage of stalemate. After advancing from Germany on France, battle turned into trench warfare. Trench Warfare is a defensive strategy in a field where the army stays in rows of trenches that were placed along the Western Front during the war. The use of trenches during the Great War was a very significant tactic during battle, by making soldiers hidden but exposed just enough to be able to attack the enemy. On a daily basis, life in the trenches was very scary and filled with horror. Death was upon the soldiers even if there was nobody attacking them. There was a continuous shell fire that would randomly take the lives of many. Some men died on their first day in the trenches, and very few were lucky to make it out unharmed. Shell fire was not the only issue in the trenches. There were plenty of diseases and infections spreading around like a wildfire. Many soldiers got infections and diseases that could not be treated such as Trench Foot or Trench Fever. Although trench warfare acts as a great defensive and offensive measure, it became very dangerous because of the many different causes of death including shell fire, diseases, and infections.

The first world war was one of the most brutal and remorseless events in history; ‘the global conflict that defined a century’. Over nine million soldiers and a large amount of innocent civilians lost their lives. Empires crumbled, revolution engulfed Russia and America rose to become a dominant world power. Huge armies deployed new weapons of devastating effect from rifles and pistols to torpedoes and flame throwers. These weapons were used not only in the trenches but by tanks too. This was an advantage to those who were able to access such machinery as they could easily launch bullets and missiles at nearby enemy bases. The downfall of the tank was the fact it was unable to cross the trenches. Tanks were not the only pieces of equipment that could access this machinery but U boats and planes too. The British carried ‘bolt action rifles’ in which fired 15 rounds per minute at a minimum range of 1,400 metres away. This allowed the British to take out foes at a far greater range. By using machinery in which rules out the need for getting up close to the enemy was a great advantage during world war one. Soldiers ran from trench to trench attacking with all that they had. This resulted in a massacre as the soldiers running toward the trenches were shot down. Machinery such as machine guns and heavy artillery were the weapons used in the trenches. In modern day society, machine guns are the main weapons used by soldiers. This wasn’t the case around the 1914s. They took four

World War I was known for its very slow-paced battle and the stage of stalemate. After advancing from Germany on France, battle turned into trench warfare. Trench Warfare is a defensive strategy in a field where the army stays in rows of trenches that were placed along the Western Front during the war. The use of trenches during the Great War was a very significant tactic during battle, by making soldiers hidden but exposed just enough to be able to attack the enemy. On a daily basis, life in the trenches was very scary and filled with horror. Death was upon the soldiers even if there was nobody attacking them. There was a continuous shell fire that would randomly take the lives of many. Some men died on their first day in the trenches, and very few were lucky to make it out unharmed. Shell fire was not the only issue in the trenches. There were plenty of diseases and infections spreading around like a wildfire. Many soldiers got infections and diseases that could not be treated such as Trench Foot or Trench Fever. Although trench warfare acts as a great defensive and offensive measure, it became very dangerous because of the many different causes of death including shell fire, diseases, and infections.

It was a war like no other, with the use of gas and other new technology which allowed opposing sides to kill each other in large numbers with incredible speed. Joseph Boyden's use of vivid and expressive language gave the reader every tool they needed in order to really feel as though they were experiencing the war for themselves. At Verdun, Germans would cut barbed wire and use flamethrowers to clear out enemy machine-gun posts. These flamethrowers were easy targets due to the large tank on their back. (http://online.wsj.com/ww1/flamethrowers) Boyden used this small piece of information which could have easily been looked past; as a result, it only helped build the story and really allow the reader to experience what it might have been like to witness this type of weapon. "Before I can get off the ground and aim at the fire shooter, a couple of men in the trench do it. One of them hits the tank… A fiery explosion shoots up into an orange-and-black ball of flame. He is unrecognizable lying there, gasping, the pink inside his mouth the only colour that stands out against the oozing and charred black of his body." As I continued to read the book, the more I realized how much of a struggle it must have been to get up each and every day and muster up the will to keep fighting. If it wasn't the Germans, than it was the environment. With harsh rains, cold nights, wet trenches, and almost useless equipment. Private Donald Fraser of the Canadian

Soon the machine gun became a defensive weapon rather than an offensive weapon, as it was used to stop offensive enemy troops across this no man’s land. Gas was used infinitely by both sides in an effort to triumph over the trenches. If any trench was taken by an opposing force, a succeeding trench was dug just meters behind the one taken, making advancements longstanding and difficult. In this process many troops lost their lives, more so than any other war.

On April 22 the Germans sought to remove the Salient by introducing a new weapon of modern warfare- poison gas. Following an intensive artillery bombardment, they released 160 tons of chlorine gas from cylinders dug into the forward edge of their trenches into a light northeast wind.4 “As thick clouds of yellow-green chlorine drifted over their trenches the French

Almost all attacks were awful failures, with mass slaughter being the result. Some were killed outright; others would take days to die from their horrific injuries, lying alone in the mud. Technology was a main part of trench warfare. Heavy artillery gave many men shell shock. It was generally used for creeping barrages when it would fire just in front of the men creeping forwards to try and get into the enemy trenches.

On April 1915, The first poison gas attack began when the German forces shocked the Allied forces along the Western Front by firing more than 150 tonnes of lethal chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions at Ypres, Belgium (History.com Staff, 2010). Poison gas was the most feared of all weapons in World War One. Poison gas was used in the trenches even when there was no attack going on. If a Soldiers got trapped with poison gas, it would mean that soldiers have to put a crude gas mask (Figure 1) on because it helped protect the soldiers from inhaling airborne pollutants and toxic gases. Poison gas can leave the victim in agony for days and weeks before they succumbed to their injuries.

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