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Aspects of Trench Warfare Essay
Aspects of Trench Warfare Essay
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Trench Warfare was used in World War one and it was very dangerous and deadly. Trench warfare was used because during the First Battle of the Marne September 1914 the Germans were pushed back by the Allied army. When they became stalemate the Allies began digging protective trenches because they couldn’t break through the German defense line. These trenches turned into one of the main features of the war for the next four years. The front wall of the trench, known as the parapet
was
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.
The outbreak of World War One was accompanied by new strategies, innovations, and inventions that developed modern warfare. World War One saw the widespread use of everything from artillery to machine guns and airplanes to submarines. World War One also saw the world’s most powerful navy, Great Britain’s Royal Navy, pitted against the up and coming German Imperial Navy. From Britain’s effective use of the naval blockade to Germany’s terrifying unrestricted submarine warfare, both sides were constantly looking for new strategies to implement.
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...
was useful for firing over the top as you could rest your gun on it.
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.
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.
Life on the Western Front During World War One A dispassionate look at the numbers of the horrendous casualties sustained by the armies of the Allies and the Central Powers on the Western Front in WW1, clearly indicate that these casualties figures are far inferior to what might be anticipated if, indeed, total war had reigned in every location, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and along all the 475 miles of trenches that extended from the North Sea to Switzerland. A couple of simple examples will readily make the case. Imagine two front-line trenches separated by only 20 to 30 yards of ‘No Man’s Land’ (in some extraordinary situations, distances were even less). A determined and prolonged effort by a few hand-grenade bombers on either side could make any hope of a sustained tenancy quite impossible. Again, given the accuracy and rapidity which trench mortars could be deployed against routinely manned trenches (one battalion per 1,000 yards) and their associated dug-outs, a quite short, but determined, and mutually hostile, barrage could readily reduce both trench systems to total ruin.
Soldiers' Account of Trench Life Life in the trenches was horrific; the frontline soldiers dreaded having to return to them. During their tour of duty there, they lived in considerable tension. The trenches were far from safe; possibly one third of all casualties on the Weston front were killed or wounded in the trenches, mostly from artillery fire. In this essay I will be discussing and comparing the accuracy and differences between the soldiers' accounts of the trenches and official accounts composed by the government.
One weapon or machine was created, and an even better one was made. New developments such as machine guns, poison gas, tanks, and new strategies to thwart trench warfare affected how WWI was fought and it came with catastrophic results. Poison gas is perhaps the most feared weapon out of all. Created to overcome the long stalemate style of trench warfare, its purpose was to draw out soldiers hiding in the trenches. One side would throw the poison gas into the enemy trenches and they would either wait for their enemy to come out into open fire or perish in the trenches.
World War I is known as a war that occurred on extremely cruel terms; there were not many restrictions on what and when certain weapons could be used. Unfortunately, the Industrial Age brought with it many new ways to kill; the soldiers of World War I came in contact with many new weapons that they had never seen in combat.
Trench warfare became a common practice in World War One, leading to a war of attrition. Both the Allies as well as the Germans enacted similar basic defense strategies and dealt with many of the same debilitating trench conditions. Trenches were built in an elaborate networking system, with three major sections, the front lines, the support, and the reserves. There was a rotation schedule for soldiers in the trenches, so that each regiment served time at the front lines. Trench conditions were horrendous including rodent infestation as well as unsanitary living spaces; many were infected with diseases such as trench foot with most trenches were filled with dead corpses for weeks after they were first killed. Defense mechanisms included creating dense fields of barbed wire in No Man’s Land, between the enemy trenches, in order to prevent an attack on the trench. Trench sanitation and defense were not the only reasons for the stalemate connected with World War One. The weather played
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
World War 1 World War 1 was called “The Great War”, “The war to end all wars”, and “The first modern war”. It has many causes and a few repercussions and I will describe them in detail. The most widely known reason for the start of World War 1 was the assassination of the Arch Duke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in the Serbian capital of Sarajevo. The ArchDuke was there to talk to the Serbian leaders about peace on the Balkan Peninsula. After a Serbian was arrested for the assassination, Austria-Hungary pulled out of the peace talks and declared war on Serbia.
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...