In general, trench warfare involved two opposing armies digging trenches in the Earth that face each other. The armies of World War I did this in order to avoid gunfire from the enemy forces and to await their own orders to attack “over the top” of the trench. It became the primary form of warfare after the failure of the Schlieffen Plan: an operational plan used by the Germans to take over France and Belgium and carried out in August 1914.
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Deaths and Casualties from the Western Front
Trench warfare caused an enormous numbers of casualties
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Trench warfare reached its highest development on the Western Front, when armies of millions of men faced each other in a line of trenches extending from the Belgian coast through northeastern France to Switzerland. These trenches arose within the first few months of the war’s outbreak, after the great offensives launched by Germany and France had shattered against the deadly, withering fire of the machine gun and the rapid-firing artillery piece. The sheer quantity of bullets and shells flying through the air in the battle conditions of that war compelled soldiers to burrow into the soil to obtain shelter and survive.
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Tactics
At least initially in World War I, forces mounted attacks from the trenches, with bayonets fixed to their rifles, by climbing over the top edge into what was known as “no man’s land,” the area between opposing forces, usually in a single, straight line and under a barrage of gunfire.
Not surprisingly, this approach was rarely effective, and often led to mass casualties. Later in the war, forces began mounting attacks from the trenches at night, usually with support of covering artillery fire. The Germans soon became known for effectively mounting nighttime incursions behind enemy lines. |
Why Were They so Difficult to Attack?
Trenches were only so Effective
However, anything coming from the air would have an open shot at you; that’s why both sides in the war were invested in anti-aircraft weaponry. And as soon as tanks came around, the game changed dramatically and trenches were not as great anymore. Trenches remained effective for all of WWI as technology had not caught up yet, but by the time WWII came along, technology had taken huge leaps forwards and trenches were mostly obsolete.
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