High School History - WW I

Unable to save Belgium, the Allies retreated to the Marne River in France,

where they halted the German advance in September 1914. After struggling to

outflank each other’s armies, both sides dug in for a long siege. By the spring of

1915, two parallel systems of deep, rat-infested trenches crossed France from the

Belgian coast to the Swiss Alps. German soldiers occupied one set of trenches,

Allied soldiers the other. There were three main kinds of trenches—front line, sup-

port, and reserve. Soldiers spent a period of time in each kind of trench. Dugouts,

or underground rooms, were used as officers’ quarters and command posts.

Between the trench complexes lay “no man’s land”—a barren expanse of mud

pockmarked with shell craters and filled with barbed wire. Periodically, the sol-

diers charged enemy lines, only to be mowed down by machine gun fire.

The scale of slaughter was horrific. During the First Battle of the Somme—

which began on July 1, 1916, and lasted until mid-November—the British suf-

fered 60,000 casualties the first day alone. Final casualties totaled about 1.2 mil-

lion, yet only about seven miles of ground changed hands. This bloody trench

warfare, in which armies fought for mere yards of ground, continued for over

three years. Elsewhere, the fighting was just as devastating and inconclusive.

582 CHAPTER 19

Saps were shallower trenches in

“no man’s land,” allowing access to

machine-gun nests, grenade-throwing

positions, and observation posts.

Communication trenches

connected the three

kinds of trenches.

Dugout

Barbed wire

entanglements

Trench Warfare

A

Artillery fire “softened

up” resistance before

an infantry attack.

Front line trench

Support trench

Reserve trench

Enemy trench

A

B

C

D

B

C

D

C

“No Man’s Land”

(from 25 yards

to a mile wide)

MAIN IDEAMAIN IDEA

C

Drawing

Conclusions

Why do you

think soldiers

were rotated in

the trenches?