Trench Warfare During The Great War

During World War I, trench warfare was very common. It was a newer technique in battles as in wars prior to the Great World War, fighting was less invasive and men merely marched at each other from opposite ends of fields and fought until only one side remained standing or a white flag was hung high in surrender. In fact in older wars, the fighting was far less dangerous to the point where battles were often times viewed by locals who watched from side lines with really no threat of getting hurt. In World War I however, the fighting had upscaled to the most sadistic type the world had ever experienced. With the industrialist wave that had overcome us in the late 1800s into

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.

During the Great War, many different types of trenches were used. This includes the frontline trenches, and the reserve trench. In the front

Trenches were long, narrow ditches dug into the ground where soldiers lived day and night. There were many lines of German trenches on one side and many lines of the trenches on the allied side. In the middle there was no-man’s land, so called because it didn’t belong to either army. Soldiers crossed no- man’s land when they wanted to attack. Soldiers in the trenches did not get much sleep, but when they did it was in the afternoon during daylight and at night for only 1 hour at a time. They were woken up at different times, either to complete one of the daily chores or the go to fight. The system of trenches was employed because a German commander, General Erich von Falkenhayn, decided that his troops must at all costs hold onto those parts of France and Belgium that Germany still occupied. Falkenhayn ordered his men to dig trenches that would provide them with protection from the advancing French and British troops. The Allies soon realised that they could not break through this line and they also began to dig trenches.

In World War 1, there were many new tactics that war has never seen before. Trench warfare was one of the new tactics that they used in World War 1. They used the trenches for many things. In World War 1 and All Quiet on the Western Front. They are an accurate portrayal of each other because of the way they fought while in cover, built them, and the way they put all their resources in them.

Trench Warfare in WWI Trench warfare was a new land warfare strategy where soldiers would stand in six to eight foot deep trenches that were dug in to the ground. These trenches were blocked off in the front by barbed wire and sandbags. Sure this strategy was very effective, but it affected the soldiers negatively just as much. World War I brought with it a style of warfare so barbarous that it ultimately benefited no one, yet scarred those involved for life. This scarring is quite evident from accounts of those present during the war, when trenches were the supreme defense.

Trench warfare is perhaps the defining fighting style of WWI, especially along the Western Front. In this type of warfare, soldiers would fight from within elaborate trench systems. This style emerged as the result of advancements in firepower that were not matched by advancements in mobility. Thousands of miles of trenches were dug throughout Europe and opposing sides constantly bombarded the other with artillery fire. For soldiers, life in the trenches was difficult and unhealthy; the muddy and unsanitary conditions and polluted water contributed to the spread of diseases, like dysentery and trench foot.

Trenches are a place during WW1 where troops from either country, use to shoot the enemy of protect themselves from possible artillery attacks, There are ups and downs to trenches in WW1, the positives is that Trenches help the troops from being blown into 1 million pieces, also it helps them get a better, and safer way of the troops shooting the enemy. But the down sides of the Trenches are that the way of travel throughout the trenches is a wooden planks, which is a disadvantage because of the gaps between the wooden planks, which led to water from underneath the wooden planks getting to the soldiers boots, and inside their boots. This is bad because this could lead to a terrible disease called Trench foot which is basically a disease developed

The point of trench warfare is so the soldiers get enough protection to hold their ground to then defend or attack. The development of the machine gun heavily influenced the need to engage in trench warfare since the only way to avoid these guns were to take cover in the ground. However, the warfare did not do its job multiple times. For example, the Battle of Verdun was one of the many bloodiest battles of World War I. Trenches were heavily used in this battle and a lot of casualties took place. A total of 600,000 soldiers were killed, missing, or wounded.

The Trench Warfare was certainly one of the major events of World War 1. The Trenches were a tactic which protected the soldiers from the artillery and other deadly weapons which they could find on the battlefield above, however, the trenches killed as many soldiers living below as they did on the battlefield above. The trenches were a safe shelter for the soldiers, yet a deadly grave caused by the hygiene. Many soldiers caught the numerous deadly diseases which they could find down in the trenches below and these spread to cause many unsightly deaths for the soldiers. However, overall the trenches still provided adequate protection for the soldiers and without the idea of these underground holes, the war would have been far more gruesome.

But since the stalemate in World War I drug out, an elaborate system of trenches was needed. Major trenches were dug from the North Sea, through Belgium and France, to the Swiss border.

Warfare was very different from previous conflicts especially with the nature of war including new technologies. The most potent weapon during the Great war was the machine gun, which fired 200-250 shots per minute. The skill and accuracy of soldiers was not as of a necessity for this weapon as it shot so rapidly. This weapon did not always immediately kill an enemy, but it would likely lead to a loss of a limb which resulted in infections that would eventually end their life. Other new weapons including flame throwers and hand grenades also came into play during this war. War on land also took a turn as to how it was fought. Trench warfare became prevalent at the end of 1914. Both sides of the war dug themselves into the ground in order to entrench themselves in which they would live, eat, sleep, and fight in. The area in between the trenches on each side was referred to as “No Man’s Land”. The conflict was moving further away from face to face fighting resulting

Trenches are a long narrow ditch in the ground that were used to protect troops from the enemy’s fire. When trenches were invented in World War One they made hiding and staying protected from the enemy troops easier, they also made it safer. With the invention of trenches the death rate decreased, as the troops now had a safe but still efficient way to fight the enemy troops.Even tho the trenches did keep the soldiers safe from the enemy troops, they weren’t the best place to be either as they could fill with water up to as high as the soldiers knees meaning it would go into their boots, leaving them with trench foot.The water in the trenches also wasn't great as it could carry disease that may cause the soldier or soldiers to become very sick. “The idea of digging into the ground to give some protection from powerful enemy artillery and small arms fire was not a new idea or unique to the Great War. It had been widely practiced in the US Civil War, the Russian-Japanese war and other fairly recent wars. Trench warfare of the First World War can be said to have begun in September 1914 and ended when the Allies made a breakthrough attack that began in late July 1918. Before and after those dates were wars of movement: in between it was a war of entrenchment. The massive armies of both sides dug in to take cover and hold their ground. By November 1914 there was a continuous line

The taro of being in the trenches in WWI was devastating for the men that were living in these holes. In the trenches themselves were bad. They had desies, filthy blood, vomit, and rodents with these desies and especially muddy. More men died from them deseis that were carried by rodents, especially rates and big mice than from the battles. The battle was bad and the toll of dead was close, but the trenches to a few more than battle. The trenches were a scare place even when they weird about attacks, and gas attacks by the end of the war.

Warfare in the trenches is a scene of horror, from dying men to rats the size of cats, mustard gas, barbed wire, and shell holes. We have a set routine living in the trenches however it is very hard. We have to worry about the diseases, such as trench foot, many men have lost feet because of this horrid disease. One of the worst parts about trench warfare is the weaponry we have to face, weaponry such as the mustard gas. Mustard gas is so hazardous to our men it can result in burns and blisters all over the body. It also causes some men to go blind or makes their eyelids stick together. When mustard gas gets in our men’s throats they start start to swell and close up. I miss my family and my home. I can’t wait to get home if I ever make it