Not surprisingly, this approach was rarely effective and often led to mass casualties. Trench warfare caused enormous numbers of casualties.Īt least initially in World War I, forces mounted attacks from the trenches, with bayonets fixed to their rifles, by climbing over the top edge into what was known as “no man’s land,” the area between opposing forces, usually in a single, straight line and under a barrage of gunfire. Thus, trenches may have afforded some protection by allowing soldiers more time to take other defensive steps, such as putting on gas masks. (While significant exposure to militarized chemicals such as mustard gas would result in almost certain death, many of the gases used in World War I were still relatively weak.) Long, narrow trenches dug into the ground at the front, usually by the infantry soldiers who would occupy them for weeks at a time, were designed to protect World War I troops from machine-gun fire and artillery attacks from the air.Īs the “Great War” also saw the wide use of chemical warfare and poison gas, the trenches were thought to offer some degree of protection against exposure. But they became a fundamental part of the strategy with the influx of modern weapons of war. Trench warfare in World War I was employed primarily on the Western Front, an area of northern France and Belgium that saw combat between German troops and Allied forces from France, Great Britain and, later, the United States.Īlthough trenches were hardly new to combat: Prior to the advent of firearms and artillery, they were used as defenses against attack, such as moats surrounding castles. Trenches were common throughout the Western Front.
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