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Trench warfare reached its highest development on the Western Front during World War I (1914–18), when armies of millions of men faced each other in a line of trenches extending from the Belgian coast through northeastern France to Switzerland.
Trench warfare becomes necessary when two armies face a stalemate, with neither side able to advance and overtake the other. Although trench warfare has been employed since ancient times, it was used on an unprecedented scale on the Western Front during World War I.
Trench Warfare. Life in the Trenches, 1914-1919. World War I was a war of 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. Fighting ground to a stalemate.
The scale and ghastliness of trench warfare in World War I left an indelible mark on Western culture and memory. It‘s estimated that over 5 million soldiers served in the trenches on the Western Front, with nearly 1 million killed.
During WWI, trenches provided shelter for soldiers who engaged in the harsh fighting along the Western Front. They also made it difficult for the opposing forces to advance and attack the frontline. Dug under the cover of darkness, they ran eight feet deep and between four-six feet wide.
The image of muddy, rat-infested trenches stretching across the battlefields of Europe has become synonymous with the First World War. The stalemate of trench warfare, which characterized much of the fighting on the Western Front, was a defining feature of the conflict.
The trench warfare of World War I was a defining feature of the conflict, shaping the experiences of soldiers, the course of the war, and the memory of the conflict for generations to come. The decision to dig trenches was a response to the changing nature of warfare and the strategic importance of the Western Front, but it resulted in a brutal ...
Trench warfare is perhaps the most iconic feature of World War I. By late 1916 the Western Front contained more than 1,000 kilometres of frontline and reserve trenches. Enemy attacks on trenches or advancing soldiers could come from artillery shells, mortars, grenades, underground mines, poison gas, machine guns and sniper fire.
Trench warfare reached its zenith during the First World War (1914–18) on the Western Front in France and Belgium’s Flanders region. In the popular imagination, trench warfare on the Western Front is associated with the most horrific conditions of the First World War.
Millions of men perished in trench warfare, but it was one of the defining strategies of World War I – particularly on the Western Front. However, this strategy was nothing new: armies had been holing down in the earth for centuries, to avoid having soldiers exposed.