Ww1 Trench Description

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.

The Western Front was the main location of war during World War 1. The outcome of the battles resulted in the formation of a battle front, which saw three years of warfare in 1915, 1916 and 1917, with only a few months of mobile warfare at the start and at the end of four years of fighting.

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

The most obvious factor in stopping an advance through a line of trenches, are the trenches themselves. These were ditches dug with

By mid September 1914 the introduction of trench warfare had begun and on the western front for the Germans it had become a war of attrition. By November 1914, with the exception of the United States of America, most major nations were at war due to allegiances or direct involvement.

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

Germany had telephone cables that went from trench to trench so that they could communicate with each other about what was going on. The Germans also had tunnels built in-between their trenches so that the soldiers could move from trench to trench safely. The Germans had a built-in water pump to help keep the trench floors dry.

Trench warfare, although trenches were used in ancient and medieval warfare, in the American Civil War, and in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), they did not become important until World War I (Trench Warfare). The introduction of rapid-firing small arms and artillery made the infantry charges of earlier wars virtually impossible, and the war became immobile, with the contenders digging thousands of miles of opposing trenches fronted by barbed wire

In addition, there was a support trench a couple hundred yards behind the front-line trench. In it, there would be holes within the walls of the trench for protection, with enough room to fit about three men. Also, trenches were not dug as straight lines, but in a zigzag pattern every few yards to prevent enfilade, and were reinforced by sandbags and wood. Trench floors would also be covered with wood boards, commonly known as duckboards. Overall, the expanding use of trench warfare was greatly implemented on the Western Front as they began to develop a trench

War in the trenches is described in an apocalyptic, horrific terms, usually there were three parallel lines of trenches, a front- line trench was of major importance guarded by tangled lines of barbed wire, typically only occupied in force during stand to attention at dawn and dusk , located 50 yards to a mile from its enemy counterpart, a support trench line to which the garrison would draw when the front trench was bombarded, located several hundred yards back, and several hundred yards behind that a reserve trench line where

Most trenches were dug deep enough that men couldn’t be seen from above. Troops were then ordered to seek momentary cover in the trenches (FIGURE 1) however eventually it became their permanent front line.

The use of trenches in The Great War was to protect soldiers while they moved positions and to exchange fire across an empty zone labeled as No Man’s Land. However, as Jennifer D. Keene explains, no soldier ever spent the entire war in the trenches. Troops rotated between the trenches, reserve, or rest areas, which were located in the rear. Keene goes on to tell that the normal rotation duration for soldiers on the line was for three weeks and the duration for behind the line was for one week, however, that time could vary depending on whether a unit was in training or if there was not enough replacement troops at the time (“American Soldiers and Trench Warfare”). Troops, although not always on the front line, were never completely

World War I was prolonged, it was one of the most brutal and disastrous war in European History. One of the areas it took place was on the Eastern front; this was between Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary. Another area that the war took place was the Western Front; this battlefield ranged from the Belgian coast which was the northern end, to the southern end which was the Swiss Frontier; this mainly was between Great Britain, America and others that lied in the East. To Germany, this battle front was known as "die Westfront", to France it was known as "Le Front Occidental", for the British force, it was "The Western Front". Communicating along with supplying front line troops was a huge problem. Technology was slowly being developed, but

World War I was a stalemate right from the outbreak of the war as a result of trench warfare. With the introduction of this system, a piece of land stretching from the Belgian coast, through France, and ending in Switzerland, became the venue for majority of the conflict. For almost three years, this line shifted by no more than a few hundred yards. All of this changed when the United States joined the war and prompted Germany to make an all-out drive on the Allies so as to end the war before the American Army reached full strength on the battlefield. The American Expeditionary Force allowed the Allies to take the offensive, thereby ending the static state of war that had settled on the Western Front as a result of trench warfare.