Trench Warfare

11 Key excerpts on "Trench Warfare"

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  Trench Warfare, 1850–1950

  • Anthony Saunders(Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Pen & Sword Military

    (Publisher)

  The emergence of Trench Warfare was not an aberration, as is sometimes thought, but part of a wider change in modes of warfare that took place over a period of about sixty years, in which technological, ideological, tactical and strategic issues all played their parts. Trench Warfare has been blamed on stupid army commanders, on technological advances and on technological failures, but the target of such criticism is usually aimed solely at the First World War rather than at Trench Warfare in a wider context. The most common misconception about Trench Warfare on the Western Front is that it was somehow avoidable and that the prolonged stalemate between 1914 and 1918 was the result of general incompetence. Had that been the case, all commanders in all armies engaged in the fighting would have suffered the same malaise for four years until, miraculously, a cure was suddenly plucked from the ether for the disease of Trench Warfare, then quickly administered to the warring armies so that movement was immediately restored to the stagnated soldiery. This is not what happened.

  Part of the problem lies in understanding the nature of Trench Warfare. After all, trenches and earthworks were essential features of both battle and siege for centuries, yet so-called Trench Warfare did not occur until the mid-nineteenth century, and did not become a dominant factor in warfare until the beginning of the twentieth. The question is: what differentiates traditional siege work, in which trenches figured prominently, and fighting that may be described as ‘Trench Warfare’? In other words, what is Trench Warfare?

  Trench Warfare is usually described as military operations between two entrenched armies. It is a form of stalemate in which neither side can breach or outflank the defences of the other so that breakthrough cannot be achieved, irrespective of the size or type of operation carried out to achieve that aim. In other words, it is mutual siege. The manner in which the fighting is conducted, and the nature of the weapons used and their numbers, all factor into the equation since these contribute to the stalemate and its intractability. If this were not the case, ‘Trench Warfare’ would have occurred in the eighteenth century. Clearly, there is a complex relationship between the various factors which, in the right balance, produce stalemate and, hence, Trench Warfare. In other words, there has to be a fluid balance between the opposing armies to prevent breakthrough in order for Trench Warfare to occur.

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  Disputed Earth

  Geology and Trench Warfare on the Western Front 1914–18

  • Peter Doyle(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Uniform

    (Publisher)

  4 GEOLOGY AND Trench Warfare

  The line of trenches runs nearly everywhere through low-lying ground, intersected with watery ditches and small streams; the land is so level, and the atmosphere so heavy, that, as a rule, the eye ranges little further than the rifle bullet will carry.169

  A well-revetted German trench on the Western Front, c. 1916

  The Great War is Trench Warfare to many, yet it has a much longer history. In modern warfare, trenches all too often appeared due to the offensive capability of advanced weapons, with desire asserting itself to stop the war of movement by ‘digging in’ – thereby protecting the infantry and preserving their opportunity to attack again. But the use of trenches has a long history in siege warfare. Dating back to at least the seventeenth century, siege trenches were dug by an attacker in an attempt to protect their camp and works. Trenches and saps were thus built as a fortification to face a fortification, and were known as the ‘lines of circumvallation’.170 The recreation of the trench lines in late 1914 therefore owed much to at least two and a half centuries of application and development of the art of the military siege, rather than a new innovation, and produced parallel fortresses that were exceptionally difficult to destroy, and which in turn required powerful ‘siege weapons’ to attempt to do so. New ‘siege engines’ would be called upon in this age of industrial warfare.171

  Trenches may have reappeared often in history, but one thing was certain: that not all trenches were equal in value and effectiveness. Trenches could suffer enfilade fire – the opportunity for an enemy to fire along their length – which was in part due to the method of construction, and the position relative to topography. They could be exposed to observation and vulnerable for the same reason. Trenches could be perennially wet; they could be subject to collapse, or they could be exceptionally difficult to dig. These factors were to a large part controlled by the nature of ground, of the underlying geology. And if the armies that fought in the Great War had not expected Trench Warfare, then they would need to learn quickly how best to use it – and this would mean reaching out to the new science of geology in order to mitigate the various problems that presented themselves. It was as if Walter Kranz’s prediction of the importance of soldiers who really

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  Rational Fog

  Science and Technology in Modern War

  • M. Susan Lindee(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Harvard University Press

    (Publisher)

  Trench Warfare then involved a technological and social system of immense complexity. It was not just a series of muddy ditches but a huge network of supply, strategy, communication, and social performance. The incredible maps of trenches and the trench system—and even the parks where sections of trench are preserved—suggest how modern the trench was. It was architec-tural in its complexity. Many trench systems consisted of three parallel zigzag lines. The front was called the fire trench, from which soldiers would fire on the enemy. Typically it was six or seven feet deep and about six feet across. It had a fire step, running laterally along the front, which could be mounted by any soldier attempting to fire or observe. Trenches had traverses, which were sharp turns at ten-yard intervals. These were intended to localize any offenses, either blast and shrapnel, or gunfire, should enemy troops land in the trench itself. Fire trenches, as the first line, often had barbed wire piled on the enemy side. Next was the support trench for supplies and rest, and fi-nally the reserve trenches. Linking them all were communication trenches. No man’s land was the unclaimed space between the trenches. It was unoc-cupied and technically “disputed” though that is probably not the right word (Figure 7). It could be as narrow as twenty yards, as wide as 1000 yards, but was usually about 200 yards—less than an average block in New York City. Despite the proximity of the enemy most of the time, both sides saw the enemy only infrequently. French and British troops were moved around a lot. German troops could spend two years essentially at the same small section of trench. The immobility of the trenches, as the lines stabilized and the war dragged on, provoked desperate technological solutions. One of these solutions was chemical weapons. The 1914–1918 war was the only major global conflict in which chemical weapons were routinely used by all sides.

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  Discovering the Western Past

  A Look at the Evidence, Volume II: Since 1500

  • Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, Andrew Evans, William Bruce Wheeler, Julius Ruff(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  The prewar alliance system meant that, for the first time in a century, all the great powers were at war, making the scope of the hostilities greater than in any recent fighting. Moreover, the conflict quickly became a world war as the belligerents fought one another outside Europe and as non-European Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. [299] The Problem Especially in western Europe, such losses resulted in increased reliance on what has been called the “infan-tryman’s best friend,” the shovel. To avoid the firepower of the new mod-ern weaponry, opposing armies dug into the earth, and by Christmas 1914 they opposed each other in 466 miles of trenches stretching through France from the English Channel to the bor-der of Switzerland. These trenches represented stalemate. They were separated by “No Man’s Land,” the open space an attacker had to cross to reach the enemy. Swept with machine gun and artillery fire and blocked by barbed wire and other obstacles, “No Man’s Land” was an area that an at-tacking force could cross only with great losses. In such circumstances, neither side could achieve the tradi-tional decisive break through into the enemy’s lines. Field Marshal Horatio Kitchener, an experienced commander of the old school of warfare and British secretary for war until 1916, ex-pressed the frustration of many about such combat: “I don’t know what is to be done—this isn’t war.” In their efforts to achieve victory, generals and statesmen sought to break the stalemate in a number of ways that extended the impact of World War I.

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  The Trench

  Life and Death on the Western Front 1914-1918

  • Trevor Yorke(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Countryside Books

    (Publisher)

  Major Walter Gordon Wilson (right) were responsible for much of the design of this new vehicle. After the war they were singled out and rewarded for their work.

  The habits of the 19th century were quickly wiped away and new tactics and weapons introduced in a desperate race to make the crucial breakthrough. In the space of just over four years, the way in which the infantry and artillery were used radically changed to meet the demands of Trench Warfare while improved guns, bombs, aircraft, tanks, flamethrowers and poison gas changed the face of warfare forever.

  Tactics

  Trench Warfare came about because advances in weaponry were not matched by the same progress in mobility. German rapid-fire guns and new heavy artillery were aimed at the British, who were still moving around as if on a parade ground. Although tanks and aircraft which would later reverse this imbalance were available, their abilities were not fully appreciated and the tactics applicable to them still needed to be developed. Another reason why Trench Warfare developed was that once the Western Front formed a continuous line to the coast there were no flanks to get around the side of the enemy. This meant that most advances had to be made directly towards the enemy line. Soldiers and their commanders had been trained to expect a mobile war. As the conflict degenerated into a stalemate they had to develop a whole new approach to warfare.

  Cavalry

  Although many had warned that the days of cavalry as a fighting force were numbered, they were still seen as an important part of the British forces at the outbreak of war. The power of the charge was considered a valuable weapon and it was believed that they could exploit gaps made in enemy defences with their speed. This proved tragically wrong along the Western Front as the horses were simply mown down by machine gun fire and artillery. However, as the area rapidly turned into a mud bath horses proved invaluable in moving artillery and supplies with hundreds of thousands brought from around Britain or imported from as far away as New Zealand. Horse feed was the single largest commodity imported into France during the conflict, and British veterinary hospitals which were established there, returned half a million animals back to health. The tank and armoured vehicles with caterpillar tracks eventually made it unnecessary to pluck these noble beasts from peaceful farm duties and throw them into the horror and torture of the war zone, as depicted in Michael Morpurgo’s War Horse

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  Palgrave Advances in Modern Military History

  • Matthew Hughes, W. Philpott(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  In the absence of such technology, attacking forces relied on a variety of measures: flags, flares, pigeons and runners. In contrast the defender's telephone lines were usually intact and they were able to summon reserves forward to plug any gaps and call for extensive artillery support to bombard the attacker. land warfare from machiavelli to desert storm 97 Trench deadlock was eventually broken through the deployment of new technologies in the form of the tank and improvements in existing platforms like aeroplanes. Equally important, wireless communications improved command and control and experience resulted in the creation of new strategies and tactics designed to unravel a trench system. However, of fundamental importance to the neutralization of this system of defence were improvements in artillery and especially the skill of providing indirect fire support to infantry in defence or attack. 45 When these measures were combined with improvements in air power, artillery and the tank, the result was a change in the balance between offence and defence in favour of the former. The Germans clearly demonstrated this in the 'Michael' Offensive of March 1918 and so, too, did the British and French in the summer of 1918. By November 1918 the Allies had driven the Germans from virtually all of occupied France and liberated the Belgian coast. It was during the inter-war period that the experience of the First World War was assimilated, and new operational concepts emerged that were to shape the character and conduct of battle during the Second World War. The most fertile and productive thinking on this issue recognized that a future major European war would quickly replicate the conditions of the First World War. In fact, it was predicted that the next war would be even more protracted and costly because of continuing improvements in firepower and the creation of new fortifications like the Maginot Line in France.

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  Poles in Kaisers Army On the Front of the First World War

  • Ryszard Kaczmarek(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften

    (Publisher)

  In the Trenches of the Western Front 94 A Soldier in the Trench The trench was the most significant and most frequently mentioned experience of the Western Front in the First World War� After the formation of the frontline of 700 kilometers, both sides extended the – initially provisional – fortifications by creating three lines of trenches and connecting ditches that altogether amounted to 40,000 kilometers of trenches� As much as the circumference of the Earth� 258 Since then, Poles wrote in letters about the “war in ditches;” from the German “Graben” which means “a ditch, a trench�” But when one looks at the history of the regiments, one easily notices that not everyone shared the same experience� Each segment of the front was specific� Moreover, the trenches were formed spontaneously, when no one expected the soldiers to stay there for a few years� Some regiments dug their trenches in a hurry, without a plan and without a deeper consideration of how the individual positions should look like in order to properly fulfill their function� In the other regiments, although mostly at lower headquarters levels (divisions, regiments, battalions), the military leadership wanted to prepare the positions for autumn and winter, well aware that there was no chance of a quick end to the war� When it turned out that the latter were right, there began an exchange of observations and technical tips on the front� Trench Warfare for a long time remained a completely new and unknown phenomenon to German staff officers� Only over time did the German General Staff began to meticulously collect all information on the subject, because earlier they completely ruled out the possibility of anything blocking the simultaneous offensive of all German armies� Although, some of the wars at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries proved that such a situation was theoretically possible,

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  The First World War in 100 Objects

  • Peter Doyle(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • The History Press

    (Publisher)

  The development of this type of Trench Warfare was an inevitable consequence of the improvement in weaponry, and in particular rifled weaponry, which could fire – with great accuracy, range and velocity – projectiles from as small as the rifle bullet to as large as the artillery shell. Unprotected, the infantryman was vulnerable to devastating firepower at longer ranges, and with the advent of quick-firing weapons such as the latest field guns and machine guns, the only way to ‘bite and hold’ a position was to ensure that men got to ground as soon as possible, digging into the earth to gain the maximum protection that could be afforded. Rifled weapons had contributed to the development of Trench Warfare in the American Civil War of 1861–65, which had gone from Napoleonic ranks to trench operations over its five years; and its appearance in modern warfare was heralded in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05.

  Excavations in Flanders in 2005 expose A-frames and corrugated iron revetments.

  In the First World War, entrenchment of the Western Front was an inevitable consequence of the fight for position that took place during the ‘Race for the Sea’ in the autumn and winter of 1914. From this point onwards the engineers of all the protagonists worked to develop and improve trench fortifications within unfavourable ground conditions, and to protect the infantry from both the attentions of the enemy and from the elements. The best positions were quickly taken and the lines set in position that would become the zone of Trench Warfare for some four long years.

  Engineer trench design needed consideration of ground conditions. The trench illustrated was one that was excavated in the Ypres Salient in 2005 and demonstrates in some detail how these specialist soldiers coped with the difficult ground – and show how unexpected challenges of extended siege warfare became a high science in itself. Recent archaeological studies in northern France and in Flanders have allowed scientists and historians to add further dimensions to our understanding of Trench Warfare provided by accounts, official histories and photographs. Here, engineers have tried to combat the inevitability of water collecting in the bottom of the trench, thereby promoting ‘trench feet’ – a condition akin to frostbite – as men struggled through the water-logged trench. Prefabricated wooden A-frames were sunk into the ground. The crossbar of the ‘A’ provides a support for an elevated walkway or duckboard. Water could accumulate below and could be drained away, if skilfully done. The rising timbers of the frame provided rigid support for the trench sides, known as slopes, which were important if the sides were not to collapse in on the trench garrison. This revetment differed from trench to trench, from army to army. In the case illustrated from the Ypres Salient, corrugated steel was used; however, sandbags, wattle hurdles, timber – all were tried according to whatever was available. Trench construction varied between nations – in many cases wattle was used as a natural revetment type.

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  An Uncertain Trumpet

  The Evolution of U.S. Army Infantry Doctrine, 1919-1941

  • Kenneth Finlayson(Author)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  80 British tactics evolved to a certain degree in the course of the war, but the changes were piecemeal in nature, originating from diverse sources and, as a whole, showing little sense of a comprehensive effort to achieve an armywide tactical system. For the European nations, World War I presented problems of a magnitude never before encountered on the battlefield. At the tactical level, the need to penetrate the opposing lines through the curtain of shells and machine gun fire proved an almost insuperable problem. The Imperial German Army, after the initial failure of the Schlieffen Plan, adopted a strategy of the deliberate defense to conserve the fighting strength of the forces. Possessing the strongest staff system, the Germans made significant alterations in all areas of their tactical doctrine, particularly in their use of the elastic defense and infiltration tactics. Germany's opponents France and Great Britain, more focused on offensive action, achieved lesser levels of tactical proficiency. In all three cases, the experience of the world war formed the cornerstone of the tactical doctrine developed by each nation in the interwar period. Unlike the late arriving American army, the European nations adapted their tactical doctrines based on their bitter experiences of four years of continuous warfare. NOTES 1. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, translated by Samuel B. Griffith (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), 100. Infantry Doctrine in the Great War 25 2. Ian Hamilton, cited by Wilhelm Balck, Tactics, translated by Walter Krueger (Leavenworth, KS: U.S. Cavalry Association, 1915), vi. 3. Holger Her wig, "The Dynamics of Necessity: German Military Policy during the First World War," in Military Effectiveness, edited by Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1988), vol. 1, 85. Her wig estimates that the German army lacked 14,000 trucks to effectively support the right wing of the Schlieffen Plan.

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  It Can't Last Forever

  The 19th Battalion and the Canadian Corps in the First World War

  • David Campbell(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Wilfrid Laurier University Press

    (Publisher)

  These were short-barrelled weapons, usually muzzle-loaded and fired at a steep angle. Mortar rounds, although much easier Waging Trench Warfare: September 1915–March 1916 | 69 to detect owing to their slower velocity, were greatly feared because, like howitzer shells, their steep trajectory permitted them to fall directly into a trench. Some of the larger ones could actually be seen with the naked eye as they arced lazily upward and then tumbled down onto the terrified occupants of the targeted position. The German varieties, known collectively as Minenwerfers (literally “mine throwers”), and as “minnies” by the British and Dominion troops, came in various sizes; the larger types were sometimes called “rum jars” or “flying pigs,” while the smaller ones were known as “piss tins.” The havoc these weapons could wreak was terrible. Large mortar projectiles filled with high explosive could create huge craters, and the concussion of their detonations sent debris and people flying in all directions. Mortar shells filled with shrapnel did hideous damage by spraying bits of scrap iron over a wide area. Survivors of such assaults reputedly had bits of old clocks and other domestic metal articles removed from their wounds. 15 Perhaps the most fearful weapon, based largely on its novelty at this time, was gas. The Canadians had made their reputation as first-class troops through their dogged stand in the face of gas attacks during the Second Battle of Ypres in April 1915. Following the German lead, the Allies soon built up their own arsenal of chemical weapons. Although it did not prove to be a breakthrough weapon for either side on the Western Front, gas remained potent and terrifying, for its power lay as much in its ability to intimidate as in its capacity to maim and kill.

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  A History of Chemical Warfare

  • K. Coleman(Author)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  12 A History of Chemical Warfare British Expeditionary Force (BEF) assumed it must land in France within days of war being declared for it to be effective. These plans show the extent to which strategists committed themselves to the view that standing on the defensive would lead to destruction. These strategic calculations, however, proved to be ill-founded and the end of 1914 locked the armies on the Western Front in a deadly, static form of Trench Warfare and about to experience the nightmare intensification of the industrialised battlefield. Unwilling to accept the deadlock of Trench Warfare, army staffs of both sides deliberated on ways to break the stalemate and return to open or manoeuvre warfare. Alternatives were proposed; some were strategic like the Allied attack on Gallipoli, some tactical like the change from full-scale bombardment prior to attack at Neuve Chapelle. In April 1915 the Allies carried out a military landing on the Gallipoli Peninsular. They were to hold the area and advance. 2 The Gallipoli Campaign is remem- bered as one of the classic failures of military history. Undoubtedly, however, the Campaign was of lasting significance because the troops, in the first action of its kind, under immense physical and emotional pressure, strove for political and military gains to no avail. At Neuve Chapelle British military doctrine dictated that indirect fire could cut wire and that a short bombardment would allow a break-in. However, indirect fire was inflexible and the artillery found it difficult to locate targets and so therefore, indirect fire was ineffective. 3 However, although the break-in was easily achieved, the breakthrough was defeated as the Germans had time to bring up reserves during the gaps between the phases of the battle. Therefore, both plans failed for a variety of reasons, and the deadlock on the Western Front continued. By the autumn of 1914, interest in the combat possibilities of toxic chemicals had quickened.

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