Ww1 Trench Description

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

Intro: The life for the average soldier in the WW1 trenches was pretty horrible. They had to live in mud, fellow dead soldiers and lots of rats, some the size of your hand. Life of a soldier was very tough, having to see your best mate get shot and he left to rot. Any soldiers that made it out of the war would have suffered either shell shock or post-traumatic stress disorder and living with either of these would have been terrible.

To explain the main features of trench warfare we must look at all the points the trench design, the modern technology etc. Trenches were designed in a specific way. They were built in a zigzag fashion to accommodate for bombs destroying them. If a bomb did hit them then only a corner of the

World War I differed from previous wars in the essence that technological sophistication of weaponry such as artillery, poison gas and machine-guns created a vehement war with a massive number of casualties. In the novel All Quiet on the Western Front, German World War I veteran Erich Maria Remarque delineates the experiences that German soldiers face on the restless front, and the toll that the physical conditions and the mental stress take on the deterioration of the youth of each soldier battling on the terrain. Remarque’s war novel strays away from the romantic and glorifying thought of war in order to emphasize the hardships war forced upon the men who fought for their country. The weapons that are in the hands of the men on the front lines become their livelihood, and the terrain of the battle are the only things separating a common man and a man marked by the scars of war. At some point, war no longer becomes a fight between enemies from two different countries, it becomes a battle between one’s self and the urge to resist barbaric and animalistic acts when in dire situations.

The first American artillery round in World War I was on October 23, 1917. This demonstrates the start of the use of artillery from the American perspective. Trench warfare seemed to have settled down; General John J. Pershing insisted that American troops were to be trained in open warfare. By the time American troops began to appear on the battlefield in significant numbers, the general did this in order for the American troops to have skills in open warfare allowing for artillery to be moved closer in order to attack the infantry thus the war had become more mobile. In 1918, American troops joined in at Chateau-Thierry to halt General Erich Ludendorff's offensive. Counterattacking under a heavy artillery barrage, they cleared the Germans in 2 weeks. This demonstrates the power artillery had during the war not only on the side of the Allies but also on the German side as well. On July 4, allied artillery laid down a devastating barrage for an hour before the enemy's guns attacked. The enemy fell back and a massive Allied attack was launched. Approximately 3,010 guns of 26 calibers and 46 models poured 74 types of ammunition into the salient in the 4 hours and 45 minutes prior to the attack. A total of about 900,000 rounds of ammunition

The majority of fighting on the Western front during World War one was fought in trenches. These were long, deep ditch like structures where soldiers would live, fight and most likely die. The two armies would be stationed on parallel trenches where they would face each other in a long battle of attrition, there would be many different lines of trenches where armies would retreat to or advance to a captured trench. In between The two armies trenches would be no mans-land where the fighting happened.

“Freedman breaks down the Great War into key battles and issues, covering the causes of the war, the leaders, the modern weapons and technology, and the war 's consequences. Firsthand accounts of allied and German soldiers are presented as well.”(Miller). The start of the war that every country was part of. It was the War that changed everybody 's lives. The War was an outbreak to to all of the countries. “Only when the world went to war again in the 1930s and ’40s did the earlier conflict become known as the First World War. Its casualty totals were unprecedented, soaring into the millions. World War I is known for the extensive system of trenches from which men of both

A front line trench located about 50 yards to a mile from its enemy counterpart. It was guarded by the tangled lines of barbed wire. That were used as support to the trench line several hundred yards back. Reserve lines were several hundred yards behind that as well. But a well built trench did not run straight for any distance. Because that would invite the danger to them. As well as sweeping fire. Along any long stretch of the line. Instead it was zigzagged about every few yards. As well as there were three different types of trenches. Firing trenches were lined on the side facing the enemy near steps there were also defending soldiers. That would stand to fire their machine guns. As well as throw grenades at the advancing enemy offense coming from communication trenches. Also saps of little depth in positions that extended into no man’s land and afforded spots for observation posts. As well as some grenade throwing and machine gun

Waiting to see if they’ll become the next rat infested corpse slowly dissolving next to them, teenage soldiers crouched in muddy trenches became the popular image of World War 1 (“WWI: Technology and Weapons of War”). War leaders failing to adapt to new tactics and weaponry led to many needless deaths in this all-out battle. Technological advancements in chemistry, metallurgy and engineering made the war far more complex and deadly than the past conflicts (“WWI: Technology and Weapons of War”). The introduction of this complex weaponry from both sides involved in this gruesome combat made winning the war seem almost impossible.

The war that was to end all wars broke out in the summer of 1914, after the assassination of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire’s Archduke. World War One was so violent and so many men died; one could compare the war to the slaughtering of cattle at a butcher’s shop. The war opened the eyes of man to a new era of warfare. No longer would soldiers be worried about lining up in front of the enemy and engage in the age old traditions of European conflict. Now soldiers would have to face the age of machine guns, barbed wire fences, and gas attacks. The public would also be introduced into a new era of media coverage of the war. Unlike in wars past, pictures could now be taken and published in the newspaper and sold on the stands. The gruesome images of the

During world war one, there had been many strategies that have been used during the war, one of them being Trench warfare. Trench warfare has been an important strategy that soldiers used to protect themselves and their comrades.

“Twenty-one million men, Soldiers, armies, guns” (Sandburg, L#5-6). In ‘Statistics’, Sandburg symbolizes the evolution of war as it coincides with our civilization. Sandburg uses The Napoleonic Wars as a base point for comparison, a war that transpired mainly by means of tedious marching across thousands of miles. Sandburg takes us to his era, in the midst of the First World War, where civilization has advanced modern warfare from its rudimentary beginnings into something completely unrecognizable from The Napoleonic Wars. The reader is also able to look at once modern warfare of Sandburg’s era and see that it too is unrecognizable to them through the vigorous metamorphosis of war. Pile the bodies high at Napoleon’s victory and defeat (L#1). In Sandburg’s following poem of war, we begin with a tenebrously saturnine tone. Sandburg uses The Napoleonic Wars as a reference point again as he shows us that in one simple sweep, millions of bodies are shoveled under the grass. This poem is all about the death that every great war brings us. The millions of gallons of blood spilt, the billions of bullets fired, the

The First World war is often thought of as the first modern conflict, with modern battles. It was also one of the first examples of total war, whereby a county’s entire economy and workforce was geared towards the war effort. This in turn led to mobilisation on an unprecedented scale meaning that a greater percentage of a nation’s population was in military uniform than ever before. An often overlooked consequence of this is that a great deal of these men ended up as prisoners of war. It is estimated that between eight to nine million were held captive over the whole war, or one in every nine men in uniform. The dangers these men faced is therefore a matter of historical significance. Indeed, it was something that concerned the belligerent

In War, Neither side would give in to what the other side wanted, and would not give up any of their land. Since no one would give up any land, each country tried to win by fighting for smaller pieces.

The First World War witnessed an appalling number of casualties. Due partly to this fact, some historians, developed the perception that commanders on both sides dependence on only one disastrous approach to breaking the stalemate. These historians attributed the loss of life to the reliance on soldiers charging across no-man’s land only to be mowed down by enemy machineguns. The accuracy of this, however, is fallacious since a variety of tactics existed on both sides. The main reason for battlefield success and eventual victory came from the transformation of battlefield tactics; nevertheless, moral played a major role by greatly affecting the development of new tactics and the final outcome of the war.