Trench Warfare

What is trench warfare?

• Military operations in which the opposing forces attack and counterattack from systems of fortified ditches rather than an open battlefield

• Strategy of defending a position by fighting from the protection of deep ditches

Trench Diagrams

First Battle of the Marne

• French troops stop German advance

• Germans dig in and prepare to hold their ground

• Two massive systems of opposing trenches stretch for 400 miles across the western front

What was it like?

“Men standing in slime for days and nights in field boots…lost all sense of feeling in their feet. These feet of theirs, so cold and wet, began to swell and then go ‘dead’ and then suddenly to burn as though touched by red hot pokers.”

A picture of trench foot

“Nothing to see but bare mud walls, nowhere to sit but on a wet muddy ledge; no shelter of any kind against the weather except the clothes you are wearing; no exercise you can take in order to warm yourself.”

Trench Conditions

• Hopeless• Bleak and uncomfortable• Trenches ranged from simple holes to complex networks

that were six to eight feet deep with rooms for sleeping and eating

• Cold, wet, and dirty• Many health problems- disease spreads rapidly• Wide enough for 2 people to pass• Little shelter from the elements• Boring- could only repair trenches at night under cover of

darkness• Attacks came before dawn

– Soldiers “go over the top” and are mowed down by machine gun

• From trench to trench– Area in between trenches called “no- man’s

land”• 200 to 1000 yards• Much of fighting took place here• “Littered with the bodies of men”

Some historians call WWI the first industrial war. Several new technologies were developed for warfare. One of the most

destructive new weapons used in WWI was

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0% 1. The atomic bomb2. The cannon3. The fighter jet4. Poison gas

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How did technology make WWI different from previous conflicts?

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0% 1. The destructive nature of new weapons meant the war ended quickly

2. The destructive nature of the new weapons meant more casualties

3. Less men were required to fight4. Generals were able to control the fight fully

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Battle strategy in which soldiers fought from deep pits dug in the earth

1. Schlieffen Plan2. Triple Entente3. Alliance System4. Trench Warfare

New weapon that caused blindness, blisters and choking.

1. Poison gas2. Machine Gun3. Tank 4. No Man’s Land

Who was President of the US during WWI?

1. Warren G. Harding2. Calvin Coolidge3. Woodrow Wilson4. Abraham Lincoln

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