Trench warfare had a massive impact on soldiers and their families. It caused many deaths and injuries throughout the duration of the war and had a massive effect on the health of the soldiers. If a grenades or mustard gas were thrown into the trenches then the soldiers couldn't move away as the trenches were not very spacious.
Why trench warfare was so important in World War 1
Trenches were long, narrow ditches dug into the ground where soldiers lived. They were very muddy, uncomfortable and the toilets overflowed. These conditions caused some soldiers to develop medical problems such as trench foot. There were many lines of German trenches on one side and many lines of Allied trenches on the other.
Top 10 Facts about The Trenches
What tactics were used in World War 1?
How did trench warfare affect the soldiers who fought in WWI? Soldiers that were involved in the trench warfare lost their lives due to machine guns, grenades, and gas. This resulted in a stalemate where neither side can win.
Disease and 'shell shock' were rampant in the trenches. With soldiers fighting in close proximity in the trenches, usually in unsanitary conditions, infectious diseases such as dysentery, cholera and typhoid fever were common and spread rapidly.
Trenches provided protection from bullets and shells, but they did carry their own risks. Trench foot, trench fever, dysentery, and cholera could inflict casualties as readily as any enemy. Rats, flies, and lice were also commonplace.
The terrible casualties sustained in open warfare meant that trench warfare was introduced very quickly. Trenches provided a very efficient way for soldiers to protect themselves against heavy firepower and within four months, soldiers on all fronts had begun digging trenches.
Trench life involved long periods of boredom mixed with brief periods of terror. The threat of death kept soldiers constantly on edge, while poor living conditions and a lack of sleep wore away at their health and stamina.
The war led to inflation and many poorer families could not afford the increase in food prices. The impact of the German U-boat campaign also led to food shortages and this hit home when rationing was brought in by the government in February 1918.
What did trench warfare cause? economies and resources within their own countries. No-man's land. A war of ____ is based on wearing the other side down with constant attacks and heavy losses.
On the Western Front, the war was fought by soldiers in trenches. Trenches were long, narrow ditches dug into the ground where soldiers lived. They were very muddy, uncomfortable and the toilets overflowed. These conditions caused some soldiers to develop medical problems such as trench foot.
The development of armoured warfare and combined arms tactics permitted static lines to be bypassed and defeated, leading to the decline of trench warfare after the war. Following World War I, "trench warfare" became a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges, and futility in conflict.
Which statement best explains how the development of trench warfare at the beginning of World War I affected the progress of the war? It resulted in stalemates that prolonged the fighting.
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).
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 protecti...
Trench warfare began with the beginnings of WWI in 1914. By the end of 1914, The Western Front saw extensive use of trenches.
Trench warfare in WWI involved incredibly long systems of ditches that provided a defensive position for the soldiers and a position from which the...
Life in trench warfare was very difficult. The soldiers had little room to move and had to deal with rats, confinement, and diseases, in addition t...
The weather also contributed to the misery in the trenches as rain would increase the water level and Winter was freezing. As a result of these living conditions, trench warfare was not used as often in the future. Trench warfare had a massive impact on soldiers and their families. It caused many deaths and injuries throughout the duration ...
The pros of trench warfare was that the civilian population wasn't as affected, soldiers were well-covered, allowed time for preparation and was beneficial to weaker sides who lack soldier numbers. However there were many cons such as: it did not offer a decisive result, the trenches were muddy and would fill with slushy mud and rainwater when it rained, sanitation was very poor, poison gas could easily kill those who did not put on their gas mask quickly enough, rats and lice were common and the contraction of disease was prevalent.# N#Living conditions in the trenches were abysmal and soldiers had a very difficult time adapting to their new way of life. In the trenches soldiers would be crammed shoulder to shoulder. This lack of space for the soldiers caused the deaths of many soldiers. These trenches were unclean, putrid and were riddled with disease. Soldiers would only have scraps of food to eat and living in cold, muddy trenches was horrible as it meant that soldiers were more likely to suffer from frostbite, trench foot (a painful condition of the feet caused by long immersion in cold water or mud) and may other diseases (Baker, 2010). The weather also contributed to the misery in the trenches as rain would increase the water level and Winter was freezing. As a result of these living conditions, trench warfare was not used as often in the future.#N#Trench warfare had a massive impact on soldiers and their families. It caused many deaths and injuries throughout the duration of the war and had a massive effect on the health of the soldiers. If a grenades or mustard gas were thrown into the trenches then the soldiers couldn't move away as the trenches were not very spacious. This would result in the death or injury of the soldiers located in the vicinity of the grenades or mustard gas. Shell shock was a very common reaction of soldiers. It was felt by soldiers who were greatly affected by the deaths of their comrades, the intensity of the battles and the people that they had killed. This had a massive affect on the psychological well being of the person which resulted in former soldiers losing their self-control and attempting to commit suicide (Daniels, 2013). Families were also greatly affected because most would have to deal with the loss of a family member or care for a soldier who returned injured or scarred psychologically. Since the war was prolonged due to trench warfare, the women of the household had to take up male job positions in order to ensure their survival. This meant that women had to work harder to ensure their economic stability. Other women were not as lucky and were forced onto streets with their family causing death and poverty.
Living conditions in the trenches were abysmal and soldiers had a very difficult time adapting to their new way of life. In the trenches soldiers would be crammed shoulder to shoulder. This lack of space for the soldiers caused the deaths of many soldiers.
Shell shock was a very common reaction of soldiers. It was felt by soldiers who were greatly affected by the deaths of their comrades, the intensity of the battles and the people that they had killed.
This meant that women had to work harder to ensure their economic stability.
If a grenades or mustard gas were thrown into the trenches then the soldiers couldn't move away as the trenches were not very spacious.
World War I is intimately associated with trench warfare, but what is that, and how was it enacted? Much like it sounds, this style of combat occurs when opposing armies launch attacks and counterattacks from a system of permanent trenches.
Trenches were designed with wooden planks, called duckboards, and sandbags to help keep out water. To prevent enemy soldiers from having a straight shot down a trench and being able to achieve multiple kills, a zigzag design was implemented.
WWI was largely fought with battalions in the trenches. A battalion is a large military unit comprised of at least 2 companies. Trench warfare made it so difficult that neither side could make much progress in capturing the other side's territory.
Before World War 1, trench warfare was mostly used during the Civil War. However, with the wide use of artillery and new inventions like machine guns, trench warfare became a very important factor during World War 1.
In both of these battles, the Germans dug trenches to defend themselves from the Allies. As a result, both sides began to attempt to outmaneuver each other by finding the open flank. However, this attempt by both sides to outmaneuver each other resulted in both sides continuously digging trenches for defense.
Germany had been planning to conquer France using the Schlieffen Plan, in which they attempted to encircle France from the north and take Paris. Germany advanced into French territory, but the French began to push the Germans back.
In the Battle of the Somme, about 750,000 British and French troops were killed. In the famous Battle of Verdun, where the Germans attempted to capture the city of Verdun in France, over 300,000 French and German soldiers were killed and over 750,000 were wounded.
Because both sides realized that the battle was not moving anywhere and that men were being killed for nothing, army commanders turned World War 1 into a war of attrition. This means that instead of having a complicated strategy, both sides would attempt to wear the other down by simply killing as many men as possible.
Artillery exploding left and right forced the Germans to dig in. To protect themselves, they dug trenches along the Aisne River.
The tactical ancestor of modern trench warfare was the system of progressively extended trenches developed by the French military engineer Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban for the attack of fortresses in the 17th century.
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. These trenches arose within the first few months of the war’s outbreak, after the great offensives launched by Germany and France had shattered against the deadly, withering fire of the machine gun and the rapid-firing artillery piece. The sheer quantity of bullets and shells flying through the air in the battle conditions of that war compelled soldiers to burrow into the soil to obtain shelter and survive.
Overview of the Battle of Verdun, 1916. trench warfare, warfare in which opposing armed forces attack, counterattack, and defend from relatively permanent systems of trenches dug into the ground. The opposing systems of trenches are usually close to one another. Trench warfare is resorted to when the superior firepower of the defense compels ...
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. The main line of resistance was a parallel series of two, three, or four lines of trenches containing the bulk of the defending troops.
World War II : Okinawa. Japanese soldier, flushed from a cave by a smoke grenade, surrendering to U.S. Marines on Okinawa, 1945. U.S. Department of Defense. Classic trench warfare reappeared in the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), a basically static war in which such mobile weapons as tanks and aircraft were in short supply.
In the American Civil War, field fortifications emerged as an essential of warfare, with both armies employing entrenchments to an extent never before seen. Troops learned to fortify newly won positions immediately; employing spades and axes carried in…
In the Battle of Dien Bien Phu (March 13–May 8, 1954), which resulted in the French expulsion from Indochina, the communist -led Viet Minh used classic 18th-century siege methods and drove forward an elaborate system of trenches to negate the effects of French artillery and airpower, preparatory to the battle.
Although trench warfare has been employed since ancient times, it was used on an unprecedented scale on the Western Front during World War I .
By the time the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, an estimated 8.5 million men (on all fronts) had lost their lives in the so-called "war to end all wars.".
Trenches were dug in a zigzag pattern so that if an enemy entered the trench, he could not fire straight down the line. A typical trench system included a line of three or four trenches: the front line (also called the outpost or the fire line), the support trench, and the reserve trench, all built parallel to one another and anywhere from 100 to 400 yards apart.
Some trenches contained dugouts below the level of the trench floor, often as deep as 20 or 30 feet. Most of these underground rooms were little more than crude cellars, but some, especially those farther back from the front, offered more conveniences, such as beds, furniture, and stoves.
The main trench lines were connected by communicating trenches, allowing for the movement of messages, supplies, and soldiers and were lined with barbed wire. The space between the enemy lines was known as "No Man's Land.". The space varied but averaged about 250 yards.
Similar to frostbite, trench foot developed as a result of men being forced to stand in water for several hours, even days, without a chance to remove wet boots and socks. In extreme cases, gangrene would develop and a soldier's toes, or even his entire foot, would have to be amputated.
Misery in the Mud. Life in the trenches was nightmarish, aside from the usual rigors of combat. Forces of nature posed as great a threat as the opposing army. Heavy rainfall flooded trenches and created impassable, muddy conditions.
Disease was rampant, like “Trench Foot” and “Trench Fever” (which came from vermin and lice). The British army alone suffered about 20,000 casualties from Trench Foot by the end of 1914. Trench foot decreased as the quality of trenches increased.
It was usually about 275 yards across. Trenches consisted of several lines: front lines, support lines, reserve lines, and retreat lines. Also there were supply lines, workshops, training facilities, and HQ. They had dugouts, where up to 3 men could squeeze in for shelter.
At a British salient at Ypres, there was a spot where an arm was sticking out from a trench wall. Soldiers called the arm “Jack” and would shake the hand on their way out of and back into the trenches (Dr. Vejas Liulevicius).
Boards had to be put at the bottom of the trenches due to moisture. They were typically about 10 feet high and were lined with sand bags. They had a parapet in the front. Trenches had a “fire step” that allowed people to see over the edge. They had machine gun and mortar batteries placed at intervals.
Soldiers would be rotated, spending (perhaps one week on the front lines, then a week in the reserve trenches, then time behind the lines (sometimes on leave). The daily routine involved getting ready (“Stand To”) for an attack at the beginning of the day.
Never light three cigarettes from the same match (this supposedly gave snipers the chance to see the soldier, to aim, and then to fire) At the Battle of Mons, many British soldiers believed that angels had rescued them from the Germans (this was based on a short story).
At the Battle of the Somme, a statue of the Virgin Mary was leaning. It was believed that when the statue fell, the war would end (this didn’t come true). The “Crucified Canadian”, supposedly crucified by the Germans (not true). The “No Man’s Land Army”, made up of deserters and other soldiers acting independently.
One of those diseases was a condition called trench foot, which at times called for an amputation of the soldier's foot as to prevent the tissue necrosis to spread even further.
The conditions that most of the infantry who fought in the trenches had to live in were deplorable. They couldn’t wash regularly, had to live very close to their improvised lavatories and were dependant on the mercy of the weather to stay dry. This type of habitat frequently resulted in a quick spreading of diseases, many of which were excruciatingly painful. One of those diseases was a condition called trench foot, which at times called for an amputation of the soldier's foot as to prevent the tissue necrosis to spread even further.
It was of the utmost importance that the soldiers receive quality nourishment as it would have direct effects on their ability to withstand the dreadful conditions. It truly is hard for us to even imagine what it must have felt like having to endure such a hardship that was life in the trenches during the Great War.
The label was ‘’shell shock’’, which was in connection to the prolonged periods of bombarding and the stress caused by it . This condition seriously impeded soldiers ability to cope with life during wartime, which was hard to deal with even with the most stable mental state.