World War I, the Great War, lasted from 1914 to 1918. It is most well known for the horrors of trench warfare style fighting. Tactically, trenches actually saved lives. They were constructed to protect the soldiers from the worst effects of the war. Life in the trenches was difficult and death was never very far away.
Trenches were built during World War I to protect stalemated troops on both sides from artillery and rifle fire. Although the war began with rapid movement of the German army, when the Allied forces stopped the Germans, both sides dug trenches to help avoid losing territory they had gained. The first trenches were built on the western front on September 15, 1914, when allied forces planned to stop German troops in Belgium and
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France. The conflict was longer and bloodier than both sides had expected.
This led to a system of narrow walkways known as the trench system. Without trenches, WWI would have been much bloodier. Trenches were not new to the Allies. Trenches had been used during the sieges of Vicksburg and Petersburg and they had been used by the British in the Boer War but had been used as defenses. During WWI, they were used on a much larger scale. Around 25,000 miles of trenches were dug during WWI on the western front. They ran from the North Sea coast of Belgium to Alsace, a Swiss town on the border. Trenches turned the war into one of position and attrition. Attrition is warfare that is meant to wear down the enemy. There were usually three lines of trenches. The first line, or the front line was usually around 50 yards from the enemy, the support trench, which was usually several hundred yards behind the front, and the …show more content…
reserve trench, which was several hundred yards behind that. Trench warfare turned artillery into the key weapon of modern warfare. Also, head-on tactics didn’t work against new weapons that fired faster and were more accurate. Another reason was that there were heavy casualties which caused both sides to change tactics. Trenches were built by both sides during the war. Trenches were built in zig-zags for many reasons. One reason was that this prevented enemies from firing straight down the trench. It also offered many angles for shooting at the enemy. Another reason was that it gave protection against bombs. Trench walls were reinforced with wood, tree posts, and clay bags. Trenches were usually built during the night. Trenches were built by soldiers with shovels. These soldiers were usually called engineers. The raised ground in the front of the trench (parapet) and the raised ground on the back of the trench (parados) were for protection. The land in between the trenches was called “No Man’s Land”. Water was a huge factor in trenches. Water was very bad for the trenches. Water weakened the trench walls. Soldiers spent most of their time repairing the trenches, not fighting. Barbed wire was used to slow the enemy down in front of the trenches. German trenches were usually better than British trenches because the Germans dug their trenches on high ground unlike the British. No man’s land was the land in between trenches. Often, soldiers on their first day were killed by a sniper shot while peering over the parapet. Life is the trenches was routine, hard and unpleasant, and death was never very far from soldiers’ minds.
Soldiers woke before dawn for uniform and bayonet inspection. This was very important because water and mud could clog up the weapons. Soldiers stood on the fire-step to protect against morning raids. Breakfast followed the stand-to, or inspection. After breakfast, daily chores were assigned such as filling sandbags, repairing trench floors, draining the trenches, repairing the trench walls, and preparing the latrines. Surprisingly, there was very little fighting even on the front lines. Most raids were done during the night. This was also when soldiers would be listeners. They would lie down on the ground and try to get information about the Germans. Usually, most of a soldier's time in the trenches was spent doing manual labor. Carrying was a very common job for a soldier to have. Soldiers would carry ammunition, water containers, and food rations. Many soldiers got lost doing this job. This was hard and very tiring because many trenches were filled with water and mud. Sentry duty was a two hour watch where soldiers kept a lookout for enemy raids. Sleep on the job got you executed by firing squad. If you did your chores, you could write home, clean your rifle, mend your uniform, or sleep. It was hard to sleep because of artillery shells. Also you slept in your uniform which was muddy and very uncomfortable. Food or rations were critical on the front line. Wet rations
included soup, tea, porridge, and bacon. Dry rations included bread, hard biscuits, beef and cheese. Soldiers never got enough food because the work in the trenches was so physical. Water was also always in short supply. Water was brought to the front lines in containers and distributed in buckets to men’s water bottles. Repairing and building barbed wire was a nighttime job. The deadliest weapon was the machine gun. The most feared weapon, however was mustard gas. This was because mustard gas could make the troops suffocate. Mustard gas was first used by the Germans against the Russians in Poland, but the gas wasn’t very effective because of the cold weather. Soldiers were given gas masks to protect themselves against it. Experts say ⅓ of all Allied casualties happened inside the trenches. Disease was a huge problem. Author Peter Hicks says, “Living in a hole in the ground was not the healthiest life and trenches were particularly filthy places.” One major problem of trenches was trench foot. Trench foot was caused by damp, cold conditions. Tight boots also caused swelling. Often, officers would give feet inspection where they would check the soldier's feet. British troops were told to change their socks as often as they could and to stomp their feet to get the blood flowing.Trenches were the perfect place for rats to live. They ate debris and unburied dead soldiers. Lice was very common in the trenches. Ninety-five percent of British soldiers were infested with lice. The bugs would live the seams of clothes. Lice caused typhus and trench fever. Finally, the worst thing about trenches was the smell. The trenches reeked from many sources such as rotting carcasses, overflowing latrines, soldiers who hadn’t bathed in months, poisonous gas, rotting sandbags, stagnant mud, cigarette smoke, and food being cooked all led to a terrible smell.
“War is unorganized murder, and nothing else” (Harry Patch). In World War 1, which was first called the Great War, there were many causes of the war breaking out. The Great War started August 1st 1914, days after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophia, when they visited Bosnia. Many soldiers went to war for no reason but to fight for their country. The Great War was not only affected by the soldiers, but also by the civilians as well.
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.
By December 1914 the First World War had reached a dilemma on the western front that neither the triple entente nor the triple alliance had expected. The war had reached a stalemate, a state where both sides are so evenly balanced that neither can breakthrough against the enemy. The advances in Technology played a big role in creating the stalemate through strong defensive weaponry such as Machine Guns and Artillery, this caused ‘trench warfare’ (BOOK 48). Trench war is when troops from both sides are protected from the enemy’s firepower through trenches. Many advances in technology also attempted to break the stalemate throughout the war with tanks, gas and aircraft, these however failed. Eventually the stalemate was broken through a combination of improved technology, new strategies and the blockading of the German ports.
I will use my own knowledge as well as many sources from the booklet provided. The sources that I shall use will come from many categories including primary accounts of soldiers in the trenches, photographs, paintings, propaganda and official government accounts. I will note the uses of the sources including their strengths and weaknesses, their provenance, reliability the importance and usefulness as well as the limitations of their usefulness. In section A, I will look at sources from history textbooks describing what life was like in the trenches. Most of the sources in this section are official accounts produced by the government and are therefore probably reliable however there is evidence to suggest that these are used for propaganda or censored.
“The Battle of the Bulge, fought over the winter months of 1944 – 1945, was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies in World War Two. The battle was a last ditch attempt by Hitler to split the Allies in two in their drive towards Germany and destroy their ability to supply themselves” (Trueman).
World War I was one of most brutal and largest wars that ha world has ever experienced. World War I was a war fought in many countries all over the world including Europe, France, Russia, Britain, France, the United States and many other countries. Although World War I officially began on July 28th, 1914, this war has been building up for quite a bit of time. The issues started minor but began to grow larger until the official date of the war was declared much like a domino affect.
World War I, otherwise known as the Great War, began as a small battle that eventually developed into a prodigious uproar between several countries. An event that could have perhaps been avoided and prevented unnecessary deaths. WWI’s beginnings are controversial and historians throughout the world have several theories about the destructive event. Said to be one of the most disastrous and ruinous struggles between nations, The Great War lasted from July 1914 until November 1918. Referred to as a World War because of the global participation and the international unsettle; this war was exacerbated by 7 million casualties. World War I was primarily concerned with the struggle for mastery in Europe, but it was a global conflict that reached across five oceans and three continents. (Wilmott, 1) World War I introduced modern technologies including weaponry and nuclear machinery from opposing forces known as Central Powers against the Allied powers.
World War I, also known as “The Great War”, was a global war that revolved mainly around Europe. It took place from 1914 to 1918. This was a very brutal war that caused many casualties. The soldiers who survived experienced severe trauma and mental discomfort. This trauma was a direct result of the violence and agony they experienced during the war.
World War 1...what is it? Normally when you think about it you must be wondering how on earth am I still alive! World War 1 was also known as The Great War that took place from 1914-1918 within most parts of Europe. Within this informative essay I will be talking about the features, the results, the end, and how World War 1 changed the lives of the Europeans.
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 was called “The Great War”, “The war to end all wars”, and “The first modern war”. It had many causes and a few repercussions and I will describe them in detail.
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...