why was trench warfare used in ww1

As it was by and large the Western Front that was dominated by trench warfare I will focus on that geographical are for this answer. Artillery mainly fired fragmentation, high-explosive, shrapnel or, later in the war, gas shells. Two divisions would occupy adjacent sections of the front, and the third would be in rest to the rear. They cleared surviving enemy personnel from recently overrun trenches and made clandestine raids into enemy trenches to gather intelligence. Losses on all fronts for the year 1914 topped five million, with a million men killed. Behind the pillboxes were more lines of barbed wire and more trenches and dugouts reinforced with concrete to withstand artillery bombardment. The concave trench line facing the salient was called a "re-entrant." By 1916, catapult weapons were largely replaced by rifle grenades and mortars.[39]. The British experimented with firing thermite incendiary shells, to set trees and ruins alight. In the Eritrean-Ethiopian War of 19982000, the widespread use of trenches raised comparisons to the trench warfare of World War I. The French Army fielded a ground version of the Hotchkiss Canon de 37mm used by the French Navy. While having very few bunkers and artillery compared to heavy defence lines like the Maginot Line, it allowed defensive platoons to regroup between field fortifications (wood-earth firing posts, dugouts and pillboxes) instead of locking them into bunkers, while forcing the invaders to attack trenches as in World War I without armor and direct fire support. Mustard gas was not as fatal as phosgene, but it was hard to detect and lingered on the surface of the battlefield, so could inflict casualties over a long period. The territory that separated the opposing trenches was called the "no man's land". The 31st Australian Battalion once spent 53 days in the line at Villers-Bretonneux, but such a duration was a rare exception. Trenchmen were usually looked down upon by fellow soldiers because they did not fight. The Nanpo Bunker (Southern Area Islands Naval Air HQ), which was located east of Airfield Number 2, had enough food, water and ammo for the Japanese to hold out for three months. Mustard gas also had the property of being heavier than air, causing it to sink down hills and therefore down into trenches. World War I saw large-scale use of poison gases. There were failures such as Passchendaele, and Sir Douglas Haig has often been criticised for allowing his battles to continue long after they had lost any purpose other than attrition. The front wall of the trench, known as the parapet, was about 10 feet high. They were usually called cowards because if they were attacked while digging, they would abandon the post and flee to safety. Fighting ground to a stalemate. Each morning and evening, just before dawn and dusk, the troops participated in a "stand-to," during which men (on both sides) climbed up on the fire-step with rifle and bayonet at the ready. The receivers of . It was supported by numerous underground barracks, shelters, ammunition dumps and depots, with its own telephone network and narrow gauge railways with armoured locomotives, backed up with heavy rail artillery. [67], Nervous and mental breakdowns amongst soldiers were common, due to unrelenting shellfire and the claustrophobic trench environment. Artillery dominated the battlefields of trench warfare. To the surprise of medical professionals at the time, there was no outbreak of typhus in the trenches of the Western Front, despite the cold and harsh conditions being perfect for the reproduction of body lice that transmit the disease. Military mobility was drastically reduced; hidden land mines, and unstable footing made it easy to slide into or get buried in a camouflaged anti-tank trench. [104] Pictures of muddy trenches, stumps of charred trees in a shell-pocked landscape made the Battle of Bakhmut emblematic for its trench warfare conditions, with neither side making any significant breakthroughs amid hundreds of casualties reported daily. Later in the war, the Allies did succeed in breaking through German lines using the newly-invented tank. As far back as the 18th century, Prussian military doctrine (Vernichtungsgedanke) stressed manoeuvre and force concentration to achieve a decisive battle. Volunteers for this dangerous work were often exempted from participation in frontal assaults over open ground and from routine work like filling sandbags, draining trenches, and repairing barbed wire in no-man's land. Why was there trench warfare in World War 1? These dummy trees, constructed by army engineers, protected the snipers, allowing them to fire at unsuspecting enemy soldiers. The Germans embraced the machine gun from the outsetin 1904, sixteen units were equipped with the 'Maschinengewehr'and the machine gun crews were the elite infantry units; these units were attached to Jaeger (light infantry) battalions. Trenches were never straight but were dug in a zigzagging or stepped pattern, with all straight sections generally kept less than a dozen metres. Initially, both the parapet and parados of the trench were built in this way, but a later technique was to dispense with the parados for much of the trench line, thus exposing the rear of the trench to fire from the reserve line in case the front was breached. Fighting ground to a stalemate. [75] During the next two years the German army tried to establish special stormtrooper detachments in all its units by sending selected men to Rohr and have those men then train their comrades in their original units. In the Winter War, the Mannerheim Line was a system of flexible field fortification for the defending Finns. The rear wall of the trench, known as the parados, was lined with sandbags as well, protecting against a rear assault. Throughout most of World War I, the opposing armies on the Western Front tried to break through the enemys trench system by mounting infantry assaults preceded by intense artillery bombardments of the defending trenches. The borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan amid the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are also heavily fortified with trenches and barbed wire, with the two sides regularly trading fire. Frontal assaults, and their associated casualties, became inevitable because the continuous trench lines had no open flanks. The main benefit of the barrage was suppression of the enemy rather than to cause casualties or material damage. Cave entrances were built slanted as a defence against grenade and flamethrower attacks. When one side's front line bulged towards the opposition, a salient was formed. The first major trench lines were completed in November 1914. Raiding parties were much larger than patrols, encompassing about 30 soldiers. The first major gas attack in war occurred 100 years ago this weekend, in what is now Poland. World War I weapons included types standardised and improved over the preceding period, together with some newly developed types using innovative technology and a number of improvised weapons used in trench warfare. Similarly, howitzers, which fire on a more direct arc than mortars, raised in number from over 1,000 shells in 1914, to over 4,500,000 in 1916. Similar tactics were used by the North Korean and Chinese forces in the Korean War when confronted with American airpower. The first, or front, line of trenches was known as the outpost line and was thinly held by scattered machine gunners distributed behind dense entanglements of barbed wire. Trenches were also utilized in the Paraguayan War (which started in 1864), the Second Anglo-Boer War (18991902), and the Russo-Japanese War (19041905). The second aim was to protect the attacking infantry by providing an impenetrable "barrage" or curtain of shells to prevent an enemy counter-attack. Heavy rainfall flooded trenches and created impassable, muddy conditions. At the time, trench warfare gave the defender the advantage and it was difficult to break through lines. It was characterized by numbness and pain in the feet, but in bad cases could result in necrosis of the lower limbs. Breakfast was then served, at which time both sides (almost universally along the front) adopted a brief truce. Trench warfare is resorted to when the superior firepower of the defense compels the opposing forces to "dig in" so extensively as to sacrifice their mobility in order to gain protection. Trench warfare was a type of warfare that saw the participating armies of the First World War fight numerous battles against each other by the use of a man-made system of trenches that spanned hundreds of miles in total. After a brief period of mobility over the battlefield in the first months of the conflict, the opposing armies settled into a long and deadly war of attrition. Forces of nature posed as great a threat as the opposing army. And . The static movement of trench warfare and a need for protection from snipers created a requirement for loopholes both for discharging firearms and for observation. What's On Give Apr 12, 2017 Home / Tools of Trench Warfare The signature aspect of the First World War in Europe was the protracted stalemate of trench warfare. Capturing the objective was half the battle, but the battle was won only if the objective was held. The diggers were not exposed, but only one or two men could work on the trench at a time. However, the impact of tanks in World War I was less than it could have been, due to their late introduction and the inherent issues that plague implementing revolutionary technology. Thus trench warfare was born. In the beginnings of the war, both sides realized that it was going to be very difficult for either side to advance and both began digging. Some trenches contained dugouts below the level of the trench floor, often as deep as 20 or 30 feet. Mortars had certain advantages over artillery such as being much more portable and the ability to fire without leaving the relative safety of trenches. The phrase " trench warfare " immediately conjures images of the mud and slaughter of the Western Front during World War I. The opposing systems of trenches are usually close to one another. By 1918, it became a weapon of choice for Stotruppen (stormtroopers) with a team of six Pioniere (combat engineers) per squad. Trenches were longer, deeper, and better defended by steel, concrete, and barbed wire than ever before. Victims died a slow, horrible death as their lungs filled with fluid. The French design was rejected as not strong enough and too difficult to mass-produce. Once the men reached the other side, their goal was to get close enough to gather information by eavesdropping or to detect activity in advance of an attack. Daily, Memorial Day - Labor Day Trench warfare is a type of combat in which opposing troops fight from trenches facing each other. In such warfare no single general could strike a blow that would make him immortal; the "glory of fighting" sank down into the dirt and mire of trenches and dugouts. Very early in the war, British defensive doctrine suggested a main trench system of three parallel lines, interconnected by communications trenches. After the early war of movement in the late summer of 1914, artillery and machine guns forced the armies on the Western Front to dig trenches to protect themselves. The defenders augmented the trenches themselves with barbed wire strung in front to impede movement; wiring parties went out every night to repair and improve these forward defences. The Italian Campaign fought from 1943 until the end of the war in Europe largely consisted of the Allies storming strongly fortified German lines which stretched from one coast, over the mountains to the other coast. "Saps" were temporary, unmanned, often dead-end utility trenches dug out into no-man's land. [89] The Japanese caused the American advance to slow down and caused massive casualties with these underground fixed positions. This did not prevent the ambitious commander from pursuing the strategy of annihilationthe ideal of an offensive battle which produces victory in one decisive engagement. These attacks usually failed, partly because the preliminary bombardment alerted the defenders to the imminence of an attack, thus allowing them time to bring up reserves for a counterattack, and because the bombardments themselves turned the no-mans-land between the opposing sides into rough, shell-pocked terrain that slowed down the attacking infantry. Each redoubt could provide supporting fire to its neighbours, and while the attackers had freedom of movement between the redoubts, they would be subjected to withering enfilade fire. Wire often stretched the entire length of a battlefield's trench line, in multiple lines, sometimes covering a depth 30 metres (100ft) or more. It became archetypically associated with World War I (19141918), when the Race to the Sea rapidly expanded trench use on the Western Front starting in September 1914.[1]. These views was, according to Hobson, largely based on theoreticians Jomini and Clausewitz, whom again had . This would allow any future conflict to take place off of French soil. Routines varied among the different regions, nationalities, and individual platoons, but the groups shared many similarities. It would take a revolution in mobility to change that. By 1917, the box respirator became standard issue, but that did not keep either side from the continued use of chlorine gas and the equally-deadly mustard gas. Consequently, many "trenches" in Flanders were actually above ground and constructed from massive breastworks of sandbags filled with clay. Once the guns stopped, the defenders had time to emerge and were usually ready for the attacking infantry. [73] Only years later would it be understood that such men were suffering from shell shock. The units who manned the frontline trenches the longest were the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps from Portugal stationed in Northern France; unlike the other allies the Portuguese couldn't rotate units from the front lines due to lack of reinforcements sent from Portugal, nor could they replace the depleted units that lost manpower due to the war of attrition. These tactics carried Prussian military doctrine down to smallest units specially trained troops manoeuvred and massed to assault positions they chose on their own. Anzac and some British soldiers were also known to use sawn-off shotguns in trench raids, because of their portability, effectiveness at close range, and ease of use in the confines of a trench. Trenches were also places of despair, becoming long graves when they collapsed from the weight of the war. At the start of the Battle of Berlin, the last major assault on Germany, the Soviets attacked over the river Oder against German troops dug in on the Seelow Heights, about 50km (31mi) east of Berlin. Following World War I, "trench warfare" became a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges, and futility in conflict.[3]. The Western Allies in 1944 broke through the incomplete Atlantic Wall with relative ease through a combination of amphibious landings, naval gunfire, air attack, and airborne landings. Daniels, Patricia E. "History of Trench Warfare in World War I." Available*, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, French military planning during the inter-war period, wood-earth firing posts, dugouts and pillboxes, "Eucharistic Miracle of TURIN ITALY, 1640", "Early Maori military engineering skills to be honoured by New Zealand Professional Engineers", "Ruapekapeka | NZHistory, New Zealand history online", "New Zealand Wars sow the seed of racial division we experience today", "Transport and Supply During the First World War". During trench raids, soldiers would aim to kill the enemy, take prisoners and gather information. They lacked traverses, and according to pre-war doctrine were to be packed with men fighting shoulder to shoulder. For instance, the Japanese on Iwo Jima had several levels of honeycombed fortifications. At about the same time the British were developing their own helmets. There are examples of trench digging as a defensive measure during the Middle Ages in Europe, such as during the Piedmontese Civil War, where it was documented that on the morning of May 12, 1640, the French soldiers, having already captured the left bank of the Po river and gaining control of the bridge connecting the two banks of the river, and wanting to advance to the Capuchin Monastery of the Monte, deciding that their position wasn't secure enough for their liking, then choose to advance on a double attack on the trenches, but were twice repelled. Used by American soldiers in the Western front, the pump action shotgun was a formidable weapon in short range combat, enough so that Germany lodged a formal protest against their use on 14 September 1918, stating "every prisoner found to have in his possession such guns or ammunition belonging thereto forfeits his life", though this threat was apparently never carried out. For example, at the Battle of Stalingrad, soldiers on both sides dug trenches within the ruins; as well in the Battle of Hurtgen Forest, both American and German soldiers also dug trenches and fox holes in the rugged woods of the forest which led to continuous stalemates and failed offensives that lasted for months, which was reminiscent of the trench warfare of World War I. large-caliber mounted field guns Why were tanks unsuccessful war machines in ww1? Land warfare involving static fortification of lines. Created convoys that protected ship by warships that could detect the movement of underwater submarines Trench warfare is a type of fighting where both sides build deep trenches as a defense against the enemy. The widespread use of machine guns and rapid-firing artillery pieces on the Western Front meant that any exposed soldier was vulnerable. After the Invasion of Kuwait, Saddam Hussein with the objective of forcing the coalition to engange in costly World War I-era trench warfare, ordered the construction of a massive fortification line in the Saudi-Kuwait border, consisting of regular trenchlines, "flame trenches" (ditches filled with oil to be ignited in case of attack), sand berms, trench works, tank ditches, barbed wire and minefields, which became known as the Saddam Line. The cause was to be found in the lethal combination of mass armies and modern weaponry. His major trench offensivesthe Somme in 1916 and Flanders in 1917were conceived as breakthrough battles but both degenerated into costly attrition. After the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line in March 1917, no man's land stretched to over a kilometre in places. Loose lines of wire can be more effective in entangling than tight ones, and it was common to use the coils of barbed wire as delivered only partially stretched out, called concertina wire. Many times, soldiers became trapped in the thick, deep mud; unable to extricate themselves, they often drowned. Omissions? The sides of the trench were often revetted with sandbags, wire mesh, wooden frames and sometimes roofs. Artillery pieces were of two types: infantry support guns and howitzers. By 1918, taking advantage of failing German morale, Allied attacks were generally more successful and suffered fewer casualties; in the Hundred Days Offensive, there was a return to mobile warfare. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. The shorter length also made them easier to use in the confined quarters of the trenches. The stand-to served as preparation for a possible attack from the enemy at a time of daydawn or duskwhen most of these attacks were likeliest to occur. Rats would feed on half-eaten or uneaten rations as well as corpses. Why were trenches used in World War 1? Many soldiers were more afraid of rats than other horrors found in the trenches. Kansas City, MO 64108 USA Their aim was to find a way to avoid as many unnecessary casualties as possible. The serial number range of World War I military Model 10 trench guns was 128000-166000. Exposure to a large dose could kill, and those not killed could suffer permanent lung damage. Patricia E. Daniels is a writer with a particular focus on 20th Century historical figures and historic events. Inside a trench, all that is visible is just a few feet on either side, ending at the trench walls in front and back, with a patch of leaden sky visible above. World War I Timeline: 1914, The War Begins, World War I: Air Marshal William "Billy" Bishop, The Maginot Line: France's Defensive Failure in World War II, B.A., English Literature, University of Houston. But trench systems were still effective, wherever mobility was limited, the front lines were static, or around known critical objectives that could not be bypassed. The defenders artillery was posted to the rear of the main line of trenches. On the Western Front it was typically between 90 and 275 metres (100 and 300yd), though only 25 metres (30yd) on Vimy Ridge. 1914 witnessed the clash of huge armies armed with deadly new weapons that had been . The Commander in Chief of the British forces during most of World War I, General Douglas Haig, was constantly seeking a "breakthrough" which could then be exploited with cavalry divisions. They were dug far below the surface of the earth out of reach of the heaviest artillery.Grand battles with the old maneuvers were out of the question. Members of the raiding parties armed themselves with rifles, knives, and hand grenades. The device is most associated with Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli, where the Turks held the high ground. Temporary trenches were also built. Again, this is an approximate range and some slight variance on either side is possible. British dugouts were usually 2.5 to 5m (8 to 16ft) deep. The mud not only made it difficult to get from one place to another; it also had other, more dire consequences. But the gas was easy to detect by scent and sight. Many critics have argued that brave men went to their deaths because of incompetent and narrow-minded commanders who failed to adapt to the new conditions of trench warfare: class-ridden and backward-looking generals put their faith in the attack, believing superior morale and dash would overcome the weapons and moral inferiority of the defender. Soldiers carried specialised weapons, like knives and knuckledusters, during these raids, but . Mass infantry assaults were futile in the face of artillery fire, as well as rapid rifle and machine-gun fire. [87] These defences succeeded in stopping the German armoured pincers from meeting and enveloping the salient.[88]. Trench warfare created a living environment for the men which was harsh, stagnant and extremely dangerous. What began as a temporary strategy evolved into one of the main features of the war at the Western Front for the next four years. Once the cycle was completed, it would begin anew. At Gallipoli and in Palestine the Turks provided the infantry, but it was usually Germans who manned the machine guns. Additionally, they acknowledged the futility of managing a grand detailed plan of operations from afar, opting instead for junior officers on the spot to exercise initiative.[77]. The Allies increased use of the tank in 1918 marked the beginning of the end of trench warfare, however, since the tank was invulnerable to the machine gun and rifle fire that were the trenches ultimate defense. World War I popularized the use of the machine guncapable of bringing down row after row of soldiers from a distance on the battlefield. Attacks across open ground became even more dangerous after the introduction of rapid-firing artillery, exemplified by the "French 75", and high explosive fragmentation rounds. Relatively little use was made of trenches in the mobile warfare of World War II in Europe. Amid a heavy barrage, dozens of shells per minute might land in the trench, causing ear-splitting (and deadly) explosions. On an individual level, a typical British soldier's year could be divided as follows: Even when in the front line, the typical battalion would be called upon to engage in fighting only a handful of times a year; making an attack, defending against an attack or participating in a raid. The 10th Battalion, CEF, averaged frontline tours of six days in 1915 and 1916. [24] After the buildup of forces in 1915, the Western Front became a stalemated struggle between equals, to be decided by attrition. However, trench warfare re-emerged in the latter stages of the Chinese Civil War (Huaihai Campaign) and the Korean War (from July 1951 to its end). The German forces resorted to trench warfare in the World War I during the second half of 1914. 13: Tactical responses to concentrated artillery: Introduction, "Was the tunnellers' secret war the most barbaric of WW1? It was during these daytime hours that the soldiers would amuse themselves with trench magazines. However, all armies experienced shell shortages during the first year or two of World War I, due to underestimating their usage in intensive combat. Its defensive use was first institutionalized as a tactic during the American Civil War. In the forward zone, the conventional transport infrastructure of roads and rail were replaced by the network of trenches and trench railways. The U.S. military began to issue models specially modified for combat, called "trench guns", with shorter barrels, higher capacity magazines, no choke, and often heat shields around the barrel, as well as lugs for the M1917 bayonet. In extreme cases, gangrene would develop and a soldier's toes, or even his entire foot, would have to be amputated. This situation would only be altered in WWII with greater use of motorized vehicles.[26][27].

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