Trench warfare in the First World War dominated the Western Front in particular from late autumn 1914 to spring 1918, but also, to varying degrees, on the Eastern Front, the Isonzo Front and the Gallipoli Peninsula. After the initial German advance under the Schlieffen Plan had been halted at the First Battle of the Marne and the subsequent Race to the sea ended without a strategic breakthrough, the front line became deadlocked along a stretch of around 700 kilometres between the Channel coast of northern France and the Swiss border. Trench warfare developed into a complex, deeply echeloned system. It comprised front-line trenches, communication and reserve trenches behind them, as well as extensive shelters, bunker complexes and barbed-wire entanglements. Machine guns and the massive use of artillery made infantry attacks extremely costly in terms of casualties.
To break the deadlock, the warring parties turned to innovative military methods and tactics, including the use of poison gas, infiltration troops and tanks. In addition to the direct effects of combat, the soldiers’ daily lives were characterised by extreme weather conditions, poor hygiene and disease. Constant artillery fire led to psychological trauma, which became known as ‘shell shock’. Major offensives resulted in hundreds of thousands of casualties without achieving any operational breakthroughs. The combination of the United States’ entry into the war, the material exhaustion of the Central Powers, and the Allies’ major offensive in the summer of 1918 brought the trench warfare to an end.
Origins and Transition (1914) After the Battle of the Marne the German OHL had realized that the Schlieffen Plan had failed. As a consequence both the Allies and the Germans had started their Race to the Sea to rout their opponent's flank. The race ended with the First Battle of Ypres with either side failing to rout their opponent. At the same time the French advance in Lorraine and Alsace were checked.Since there were no more flanks to bypass, the entire front, stretching from the North Sea to the Swiss border, had come to a standstill.
In the decades leading up to 1914, military technology had advanced in the area of firepower. The introduction of the machine gun and modern rapid-fire and heavy artillery increased range, accuracy, and lethality on the battlefield many times over. At the same time, there was a lack of the technology necessary to sustain dynamic attacks or push deep into enemy territory. The railroad existed for long-distance transport, but at the front lines themselves, resupply depended on horses and marches on foot. With every kilometer, an attacking army moved further away from its supply depots, leading to ever-longer transport routes. The defending side, on the other hand, could deploy troops to the points of breach much more quickly via its intact rail network in the rear than the attacker could advance on foot.
Architecture
Trenches Western Front Early trenches were simple shallow depressions resembling slit-trenches and fox-holes of World War II about deep, to provide temporary cover for a lying shooter. By 1916 trench systems consisted of a series of three trenches running parallel to each other: the front trench, the support trench and the reserve trench. These trenches were built below or above ground as breastworks, or as a combination of trench and breastwork. A typical front line consisted of two trenches: the fire trench and the command trench. The fire trench was a continuous zigzag line traversed at intervals by earthen parapets, which protected against enfilade fire and shell blasts. They were about to thick and the length of trench or 'bay' between each one was to .
Located some 20 yards ahead of the fire trench, a steady line of barbed wire, approximately wide and high, stretched across no-man's-land. Beyond this, an additional wire obstacle may have been erected, with its outer edge positioned or from the trench. A network of tunnels in the parapet of the fire trench and lanes through the barbed wire defences were used by soldiers to enter no-man's-land. Occasionally, a sap trench would extend into no-man's-land by or , serving as an observation or advanced warning post.The barbed wire itself ran before the front line to deep, and the Germans also used razor wire.
The command trench were running about behind and parallel to the fire trench. The two trenches met at regular intervals, enabling communication to be maintained along the entire front line. Within the command trench dug-outs provided shelter during artillery bombardment. Unlike the Allies, the German army used concrete for reinforcement from the very beginning of the trench war. This enabled the Germans to build particularly deep dugouts up to . These shelters or Stollen were designed to withstand continuous shelling from guns of up to 200 mm calibre, and at selected spots hits from even heavier pieces.The standard depth was between and below ground level. The Stollen could consist of multiple exits, anti-gas curtains, drainage sumps and pumps, full cooking facilities and sometimes electricity generators for lighting. Tunnels connecting these dugouts featured reinforcements of corrugated iron encased in concrete.
To ensure orientation in the trenches, they were given names and often numbers. They also served a further psychological function. Names such as Augsburger-Graben, Piccadilly Circus and Tranchée de Champagne evoked a sense of security and home amongst the soldiers. Names such as Kronprinz-Graben, Joffre Farm or Victoria Trench were motivated by patriotism. Others, such as Gangrene Alley, Tranchée de l’Enfer or Hopeless Street, reflected the soldiers’ cynicism.
Finally, machine guns were positioned in concealed strongpoints along the front line. All the lines had communication trenches connecting them at fixed intervals. Telephone cables, reliefs, rations and supplies of ammunition ran along these trenches to the battalion and battery headquarters. These communication trenches were also constructed in zigzag pattern. At right angles to, and on either side the communication trenches, featured slit trenches, providing protection during bombardments. Some to behind the command trench was the support trench with dug-outs, which accommodated support troops for the front line garrison.
The French trench system differed somewhat from those of the British and Germans. There were only two lines: the front line and the support line. The French front line consisted of segments, with fully garrisoned and fortified trenches interspersed with trenches garrisoned only by sentries. This enabled the former to defend the latter with enfilade fire. The French support trench was also fully garrisoned and contained deep dug-outs to protect against shelling. Their quick-firing guns compensated for the lack of a reserve line. In case of a raid, for example, to prevent an incursion into the command trench, there were simple barbed-wire barriers positioned above the trench that could be lowered. When a position was deliberately abandoned, such as during the German retreat to the Siegfried Line in 1917, trenches and shelters were rigged with booby traps.
Eastern Front Compared to those on the Western Front, the trenches on the Eastern Front were more difficult to construct; there was a shortage of labor, building materials were harder to obtain, and the roads and rail lines were either too few or too overloaded to allow for the rapid transport of supplies. It was not until 1916 that a trench system of roughly similar scale was established.The Austro-Hungarian front line consisted of the three foremost trenches, which formed a strip about one kilometer deep. Within this strip were massive shelters designed to withstand even the heaviest artillery fire. The dugouts were reinforced with concrete; the officers’ quarters even had windows. There were concrete machine-gun emplacements designed to provide enfilade fire. In front of the trenches there were several rows of uncut wire often electrified and further reinforced by landmines. The Russian trenches were rather primitive, with gun positions that were too exposed and dugouts that were poorly constructed from weak and even rotten wood. The trenches were not deep enough to withstand bombardment, nor long enough for defence in depth. There were too many troops on the front line, making them vulnerable to artillery, and too few reserves in the rear for counterattacks. Dardanelles
At the Dardanelles, troops behind the line (and, in the early stages, those in the trenches as well) were also responsible for sapping, tunnelling and digging in order to secure and extend their postions. Everyone, except for the men occupying the trenches, were tasked with constructing roads along the hillsides behind their positions and transporting all the supply to the trenches. This constant task never stopped until the Evacuation. The front and support trenches were typically manned by different companies of the battalions holding the various sectors. The reserve companies were employed as carrying or digging parties during the day and slept at night close behind the support lines. A frequent occurrence at night was the movement of troops in "rest" to positions behind important posts. As a result, the rear trenches were overcrowded, and messengers hardly could find their way without tripping over the sleeping bodies.
The actual system of manning the line, was garrisoned more heavily at night than by day. During the early months, Anzac troops, refrained from using flares, letting the enemy illuminate No-Man's Land. This was changed when they realized it allowed Turkish patrols to move freely. Consequently, sentries were ordered to engage in intermittent sniping fire during the dark hours. As in France, each bay of the front line was manned only by a small proportion of the troops, usually a sentry (or a sniper and his observer) during the day, and two sentries at night. At dawn, when an attack was most probable, the entire front-line was occupied.Trenches featured the same components as in the Western Front with loop-holes, periscopes, sniperscopes and barbed-wire. Trenches were constructed in the same way as those in France with the frontline firing trenches dug in zigzags and smaller trenches connecting each line. Due to the lack of space no man´s land was just between 10 and 300 yards wide.
High Mountains Despite the terrain the trenches in the Alps were actually zigzagged, featured communication trenches and dugouts; some even had concrete walls.Natural grottoes or caverns blasted 10 to 15 feet deep into the rock were used as protection against heavy artillery fire. The construction of these rock caverns required enormous quantities of explosives, building materials and labour from engineering units and infantry. Many frontline positions therefore consisted merely of trenches hewn into the rock, reinforced with sandbags, barbed wire and Spanish Riders.After the Italian defeat at Caporetto the British took over the italian defenses at Piave. Here they constructed a rudimentary defence in depth based on the existant trenches already built.Supplying ammunition and food, as well as transporting equipment, posed a logistical problem. Where there were no cable cars, everything had to be carried on foot or by pack animals. Avalanches, altitude sickness and temperatures as low as -30° Celsius placed a massive strain on the soldiers.
No man's land