Trench Warfare
What is
trench warfare?
• Military operations in which the opposing
forces attack and counterattack from
systems of fortified ditches rather than an
open battlefield
• Strategy of defending a position by fighting
from the protection of deep ditches
Trench Diagrams
First Battle of the Marne
• French troops stop German advance
• Germans dig in and prepare to hold their
ground
• Two massive systems of opposing
trenches stretch for 400 miles across the
western front
What was it like?
“Men standing in slime for days and nights in
field boots…lost all sense of feeling in their
feet. These feet of theirs, so cold and wet,
began to swell and then go ‘dead’ and
then suddenly to burn as though touched
by red hot pokers.”
A picture of trench foot
“Nothing to see but bare mud walls, nowhere
to sit but on a wet muddy ledge; no shelter
of any kind against the weather except the
clothes you are wearing; no exercise you
can take in order to warm yourself.”
Trench Conditions
• Hopeless
• Bleak and uncomfortable
• Trenches ranged from simple holes to complex networks
that were six to eight feet deep with rooms for sleeping
and eating
• Cold, wet, and dirty
• Many health problems- disease spreads rapidly
• Wide enough for 2 people to pass
• Little shelter from the elements
• Boring- could only repair trenches at night under cover of
darkness
• Attacks came before dawn
– Soldiers “go over the top” and are mowed down by machine gun
• From trench to trench
– Area in between trenches called “no- man’s
land”
• 200 to 1000 yards
• Much of fighting took place here
• “Littered with the bodies of men”
Some historians call WWI the first industrial war. Several new
technologies were developed for warfare. One of the most
destructive new weapons used in WWI was
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1.
2.
3.
4.
The atomic bomb
The cannon
The fighter jet
Poison gas
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How did technology make WWI different from previous
conflicts?
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1. The destructive nature of new weapons
meant the war ended quickly
2. The destructive nature of the new weapons
meant more casualties
3. Less men were required to fight
4. Generals were able to control the fight fully
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Countdown
Battle strategy in which soldiers fought from
deep pits dug in the earth
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Schlieffen Plan
Triple Entente
Alliance System
Trench Warfare
New weapon that caused blindness,
blisters and choking.
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2.
3.
4.
Poison gas
Machine Gun
Tank
No Man’s Land
Who was President of the US during
WWI?
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2.
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4.
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Woodrow Wilson
Abraham Lincoln
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