When it comes to the First World War there’s one thing that instantly comes to mind – trenches.
Muddy, rat-infested hell holes with death around every corner. Places so bad that only going over the top could be worse. Trenches dominate our perspective. But are our perceptions really accurate?
In this episode of IWM Stories we answer three big questions: Why did trenches exist? What were conditions like inside the trenches? And how did trench warfare come to an end?
Trench warfare is a type of land warfare using occupied fighting lines largely comprising military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy’s small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery.
Trench warfare became archetypically associated with World War I (1914–1918), when the Race to the Sea rapidly expanded trench use on the Western Front starting in September 1914.
Trench warfare proliferated when a revolution in firepower was not matched by similar advances in mobility, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage.
On the Western Front in 1914–1918, both sides constructed elaborate trench, underground, and dugout systems opposing each other along a front, protected from assault by barbed wire.
The area between opposing trench lines (known as “no man’s land“) was fully exposed to artillery fire from both sides. Attacks, even if successful, often sustained severe casualties.
