Trench warfare

Trench warfare is a battle tactic, or way of fighting. It was commonly used on the Western Front in the First World War. It has been utilized in other wars, such as the Iran-Iraq War and the Russo-Ukrainian War.

In this style of fighting, soldiers on a battlefield dig trenches to protect themselves. These trenches have many different parts, such as places for sleeping, storage, headquarters, and weapons. Behind the front lines are other trenches for moving soldiers and supplies.

In trench warfare, there is an area called "no man's land" between the front trenches on the battlefield. Soldiers on each side try to cross no man's land to get to the enemy's trenches and attack. This area is often covered with barbed wire and land mines.

In World War I (1914 - 1918)

Trench warfare was widely used during World War I.

Life in the trenches

Death was frequent in the trenches, even when there was no fighting. Many soldiers fighting in trench warfare died of disease.

The trenches were dirty. Some men disappeared into the mud because it was so thick. The cold, wet and unsanitary conditions made many soldiers sick. Lice spread trench fever, a fungal infection which caused severe head pain and fever. Rats invaded the trenches and spread disease everywhere. The brown rats were the more hated kind. They ate human remains. Some grew to be as big as cats.

The trenches had a terrible smell. Bodies were rotting in shallow graves; men had not washed in weeks because there were no facilities; cesspits were overflowing; and creosol or chloride of lime were used to fight the constant threat of disease and infection. There was also the lingering odour of poison gas, and the smells of cordite, rotting sandbags, stagnant mud, cigarette smoke, and cooking food.

The trench system

Front-line trenches were usually about seven feet deep and six feet wide. The front side of the trench was called the parapet. The rear side was called the parados. Along the top of the parapet and the parados, soldiers typically built a wall of sandbags that was two to three feet tall. The sandbags helped to absorb bullets and shell fragments.

It was impossible for soldiers to see over the top of a 7-foot trench. To solve this problem, armies added a two or three-foot ledge called a fire-step to the trenches.

Trenches were not dug in straight lines. If the trenches were straight, and the enemy got into them, they could shoot straight along the line. Instead, soldiers dug trenches with alternate fire-bays and traverses.

Duck-boards were also placed at the bottom of the trenches to protect soldiers from problems such as trench foot. Soldiers also made dugouts and funk holes in the side of the trenches to give them some protection from the weather and enemy fire.

The front-line trenches were also protected by barbed-wire entanglements and machine-gun posts. Short trenches called saps were dug from the front-line trench into No-Man's Land. The sap-head, usually about 30 yards forward of the front-line, was then used for listening posts.

Behind the front-line trenches were support and reserve trenches. The three rows of trenches covered between 200 and 500 yards of ground. Communication trenches were dug at an angle to the front-line trench and were used to transport men, equipment and food supplies.

In some places No Man's Land could be as narrow as thirty meters (100 feet). Tanks were commonly used to cross this land.

Other websites

Jackson, Patrick, In Depth: A century of mud and fire, BBC News, 27 June 2006
Association for World War Archaeology Archived 2008-04-22 at the Wayback Machine
Photograph of soldiers digging trenches during The First World War Archived 2008-04-30 at the Wayback Machine