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Trench Warfare Quiz
The importance of trench warfare
Life in trenches during WW1
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World War 1 start July 28, 1914 and end in November 11, 1918. The war involved the whole nation in the world. The trenches only a few of army were inside it, it was the most dangerous places to be in during the war. Behind the trenches their were many supplies like training establishments,stores, workshops, headquarters, food, water, and guns supplies. That’s where most of the army was were employed during the war. The trenches were there because they were the domain of the infantry, with the supporting arms of the mortars and machine-guns, the engineers, the medics and the forward positions of the artillery observers and others. The main reason why they used trenches was because they could be protected from powerful enemy artillery and small
Imagine four years of justing trying to capture the other teams trench, how dreadfully boring. World war one a great war of powers, invoked first by serbia’s overwhelming feeling to be their own people separate from Austria-hungary which thus lead to the assassination of the archduke Ferdinand of the Austrian-hungarian empire, which then lead to all the countries allied with Austria-hungary to support Austria in it’s attack on serbia, then all the countries allied with serbia to bring up arms on Austria, and Austria’s allies. This in terms of alliances had come upon through imperialism that lead to germany already against Austria in terms of expansion.
World War I, also known as the Great War, lasted from the summer of 1914 until the late fall of 1918. The war was fought between the Allies, which consisted mainly of the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire, and the Central Powers, which consisted mainly of the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria (Alliances - Entente and Central Powers). In total, it is estimated that twelve million civilians and nine million combatants died during this horrific and devastating war (DeGroot 1). When the war first began in 1914, many people thought that it would be a war of movement that would quickly be over. However, that changed when the Germans, who were trying to reach and capture the city of Paris in France, were forced to retreat during the Battle of the Marne in September 1914 (Ellis 10). German General von Falkenhayn, who felt that his troops must at all cost hold onto the parts of France and Belgium that they had overtaken, ordered his men to dig in and form defensive trench lines (Ellis 10). The Allies could not break through the enemies lines and were forced to create trenches of their own (Ellis 10). This was only the beginning of trench warfare. A war of movement had quickly come to a standstill on the Western Front. A massive trench line, 475 miles long, quickly spread and extended from the North Sea to the Swiss Frontier (Ellis 10). With neither side budging, soldiers were forced to live in the most miserable of conditions. Simply put, life in the trenches was a living hell. A lieutenant of the 2nd Scottish rifles wrote, “No one who was not there can fully appreciate the excruciating agonies and misery through which the men had to go [through] in those da...
The First World War saw a new form of warfare known as Trench warfare which involved trenches which were deep long dugouts made by the soldiers that lived in these trenches. The trenches proved useful as they protected the soldiers from artillery and bomb fire and were most likely situated in the eastern and western fronts of Europe. However the conditions of the trenches were far from exuberant but were in fact severely terrible. There was bad hygiene throughout the trenches, for example soldiers bathed probably only once a month and as such were prone to diseases such as trenches fever (which were due to the lice attracted by the bad hygiene). The weather was no exception as well, in the summer it would be too hot and in the winter it would be too cold and due to the nature of the trenches, when it rained the trenches would be filled with water, and due to such conditions welcomed the disease known as trench foot which was due to prolonged exposure to water and claimed the foots of many soldiers. There was also the constant danger of bomb fire and snipers would always be on the lookout for any movement. Latrines, which were toilets used in the trenches also sprouted fear as the enemy could see them in this area of the trenches and therefore were in constant danger of death. Soldiers also had to follow a strict code of conduct which was known as trench etiquette which ordered them to respect higher officers and they would have to be punished if the trench etiquette was ignored.
World War One was the first major war that was fought in mainly in Europe, and parts of Asia. The war lasted from July 28th, 1914 to November 11th, 1928. There were over a hundred nations involved not only from Europe, but from Asia, Africa, Central America, North America and many Island nations. There were millions of casualties fighting in slow moving trench warfare , and many battles were also fought at sea.
It is evident that WW1 soldiers were deeply impacted by the war. Historians have found numerous journals and diaries that tells personal experiences from soldiers. Especially since this was a war that had a lot of new inventions, these soldiers had a lot to write about. Trench warfare changed the war entirely. Generals had to come up with better fighting tactics to make advances during the war. Prior to WW1 battles were fought out in the open and with less protection. There was no barb wire or sandbags to protect these soldiers. Life in the trenches were rough with constant firing occurring every few seconds. This made it very difficult for them to rest. In the trench soldiers are active all day and have to be ready for combat at all times. The daily journal of Pvt. Donald Fraser gives great detail of what actually took place on the battlefield.
The stalemate on the Western front had developed by December 1914 because of the new advances in defensive weaponry where both sides had developed lethal weaponry like the machine guns and artillery, which subsequently led to trench warfare. The Machine Gun was a very dominant weapon in the First World War. It could kill hundreds of men a minute due to its rapid firing rate of 600 bullets a minute. However the machine guns that were used in the First World War weighed between 30kg – 60kg, would require a four to six operators and could heat up extremely quickly; clearly not very effective as a offensive weapon (Duffy, Michael. "Machine Guns.") Machine Guns were only effective for defense as they were extremely heavy, required a lot of ammunition a needed to be fixed into the ground. This made it severely difficult to attack and move with machine guns. Artillery was even deadlier as a defensive weapon and was one of the most important weapons of the First World War as it was the cause of the majority of human losses. The artillery ranged from field artillery to heavy and long range artillery that could fire long distances and would trap the enemies in their trenches. The Trench Mortar was also a very effective weapon in the war, which was a “tube” that would fire at a vertical angle (higher than 45 degrees) and could therefore be fired within the safety of the trench, unlike artillery. All these new advances in technology made trenches almost impossible to attack yet also kept each side trapped in their trenches.
The Development of a Stalemate on the Western Front The main reason trenches developed on the western front is due to the failure of the Schlieffen plan, if it had not been for this elaborate quick way to win the war by Germany, trench warfare may never have developed in WWI. As the Germans were being pushed back from Marne they had to dig trenches to protect themselves from the advancing allies, and the allies mirrored them and did the same. The conventional explanation offered by historians for the stalemate on the western front (an area stretching from Belgium all the way down to the Alps) is that by 1914 technology and industrialism had overtaken military strategy and tactics, making them obsolete. Supposedly machine guns and rapid-fire artillery had made the traditional tactics worthless; linear tactics and cavalry charges were things of the past by 1914, and also bad choices were made by inexperienced commanders.
From early in the war, in May of 1914, Blunden recalled his experience in the trenches of France. Structured with sandbag walls, the Old British Line in which the men were stationed was only a frail comfort, as the trenches were often only one row deep with no additional protection against debris caused by artillery shells. Communication between the between the front line and the Old British Line was provided some covered by through the Cover Trench, although Prior’s account of returning from The Island, the front line, states that he had to pause every two minutes to lay in a ditch along the road to avoid the infamous German machine guns. The Germans bombarded the Cover Trench with heavy fire and large shells over the farmhouse and its residents, including children. Because the Germans were known for using gas, Blunden and his men underwent training to prepare for attacks. After completing this course, he was sent to the dugout near Cuinchy Keep, which was described as “dirty, bloodthirsty and wearisome,” primarily due to the number of mines which had already been exploded, and that it was not completely finished. However, when fighting in the trenches, “There was nothing for it but to copy experience, and experience was nothing but a casual protection.”
World War I is often regarded as the Great War. It was fought from 1914 until 1918 and it is considered to be the bloodiest war humankind has led so far. In merely four years a whole generation of young men was wiped out: approximately 16, 5 million lives were lost, even more were wounded, and the rest that had managed to survive was traumatized for life. One of the reasons why there were so many human casualties was the fact that World War I turned out to be the first trench warfare in history. The sense of permanent stalemate brought about great disillusionment from the romantic idea of warfare and the concept of the soldier was no more one/that of an honourable warrior but that of a victim.
In the beginning of World War One the common outlook on warfare was that of a primarily mobile and open method of attack. Trench warfare was thought to be a temporary phenomenon which would be replaced by infantry and cavalry skirmishes. No one had predicted that only after a couple of months of open and mobile warfare, the November of 1914 would begin four years of static trench warfare.
In previous centuries soldiers had confronted each other from fixed places— however certainly not for years at a time and by no means withstanding the physical and psychological circumstances of WW1 1914–1918. The trenches were the front lines: the most treacherous places World War 1 trenches were dirty, smelly and riddled with disease. For soldier’s life in the trenches meant living in fear. In fear of diseases (like cholera and trench foot) and of course, the constant fear of enemy attack. Trench warfare WW1 style is something all participating countries vowed never to repeat and the facts make it easy to see why.
Trench warfare was heavily used during World War I because it was effective throughout the war. Availability of new weaponry made the war more deadly on a large scale. For example, the use of poison gas at the trenches was highly effective if they were unprepared and in groups. Inhabiting the trenches gave them more time to strategize and receive protection, which increased their chances of survival, but didn’t guarantee it. Raiding and spying were used in order to get an idea of what the enemy was doing and what their set up was. Building up defense levels were just as crucial as attacking. All in all, trench warfare on the Western Front was important in aiding soldiers and providing soldiers time to carefully plan out attacks strategically and make sure they were actually effective to make some sort of positive gain in the war.
Most of World War One’s fighting took place in trenches. According to www.wwi.lib.byu.edu, fighting trenches varied anywhere from thirty meters apart to a few hundred meters apart from each other. Trenches were used as protective barriers that covered soldiers and prevented them from being shoot. If a soldier were to come out of a
In World War I, tanks first appeared at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette in September 1916. It was the first time tanks had ever been used in a military conflict. Although most tanks in WWI could not exceed 4 miles per hour, they still played an extremely important role as they increased mobility on the Western Front and eventually broke the stalemate of trench warfare. Artillery and machine guns were particularly effective against the main form of offense: the infantry units. As a result, “the defense was stronger than just about anything that could be thrown against it, so much so that infantrymen spent most of their time cowering in trenches and bunkers” (Mizokami). When the infantry did attack, they would often surpass their supporting machine
The First World War introduced a new type of warfare. New weapons were combined with old strategies and tactics. Needless to say, the results were horrific. However, a new type of warfare was introduced: trench warfare. In the movie War Horse, the character that owned the horse originally while he worked on his farm, Albert Narracott, finally was old enough to join the army. His first sight of battle was the Battle of Somme which took place in France near the Somme River. During this battle, the British troops start out in trenches, which were pretty much tunnels dug strategically to avoid gunfire. The soldiers would wait until they were told to advance, and they would run from one trench to the next. Trenches and the area between trenches were muddy and the trenches themselves were poorly conditioned (http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/chapters/ch1_trench.html). Many of the soldiers who fought in trenches succumbed to a foot disease called trench foot and if not treated immediately, gangrene could infect the foot and an amputation would be necessary for survival. Commanding officers ordered one or t...