What is trench warfare?
Image of AIF soldiers doing a trench warfare training course from:
http://www.dva.gov.au/aboutDVA/publications/commemorative/homefront/img_gallery/Pages/Image045.aspx |
Trench warfare is a combat type where opposing forces battle from inside trenches facing each other face to face. During World War 1 trench warfare was used from beginning to end and consisted of soldiers having to dig them all out themselves causing death every turn. They used trench warfare to avoid the gunfire of the enemy.
The trenches consisted of three areas or sections these sections were; Front line, Support Trenches, and Reserve Trenches. The front lines were used for firing at the enemies, the Support Trenches were used for the soldiers to rest and the reserve trenches were used to hold and store all the supplies and reinforcements (History Man, 10). The main things about the trenches were that they had to be deep enough to protect all the soldiers from the enemies’ gunfire. To protect the soldiers from the gun fire the trench tops/edges were lined with parapets which are sandbags filled up with a muddy soil dug from the trenches. The parapets were stacked up and in rows up to six meters thick which made it so if a bullet was to be shot a soldier it would drop of into the sand bag and be stuck in there (Wilkinson, 2011). Some facts of the trenches are; that the trenches were two meters deep and two meters wide and also that the trenches on the Western Front were approximately 700 kilometres long, stretching from the coast of Belgium to the boarder of Switzerland (Oxford, 2012). |