How did Trench Warfare change WW1?
Image of the 1st Battalion from the Mid-Kent Volunteers departing from Briton (1914) from: Popperfoto/Getty Images
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Trench warfare greatly altered World War 1 and warfare in general to a great extent as Trench warfare was different to anything seen before. Trench warfare was a type of warfare which was responsible as such, for most of the deaths during World War One (Darlington, 2012). Wars before had mainly been head-on open battles, to tactics had to be changed. A common tactic of attack was to attack at dawn or dusk, when visibility was poorer. The other main tactic was to bombard the enemy trenches with artillery, then to send soldiers to attack the enemies’ trenches, hoping that their fortifications were destroyed. Unfortunately the majority of times the enemies had not had too much damage, emerging from their trenches and firing at the soldiers in no-mans-land. These assaults rarely succeeded and often descended into chaos. If some solider did end up in the enemies trenches they were faced with hand to hand combat. However, this was rare. This meant that over the course of World War One, little was achieved by either side (Carrodus, Delany, Howitt, Smith, Taylor & Young, 2012, 2012).
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