Felix Schaber

Outline  The beginning of Trench Warfare  Weapons of Trench Warfare  Life in the Trenches  Strategies to break through the enemy lines and defend their own  Facts and figures

The beginning of Trench Warfare  3rd August, 1914, German troops crossed the Belgian border in the narrow gap between Holland and France.  Germans are quickly victorious over the Belgians  The French an British are defeated at Sambre (22nd August) and Mons (23rd August).  The German army marches for Paris but is unable to break through due to a French counterattack (Battle of the Marne 4th to 10th September)  The German commander, General Erich von Falkenhayn, decided that his troops must hold onto those parts of France and Belgium that Germany still occupied.  Falkenhayn ordered his men to dig trenches that would provide them with protection from the advancing French and British troops.  The Allies soon realized that they could not break through this line and they also began to dig trenches.  After a few months these trenches had spread from the North Sea to the Swiss Frontier.  For the next three years neither side advanced more than a few miles along this line that became known as the Western Front.

Weapons of Trench Warfare

Infantry  At the beginning improvised weapons  Rifle  Bayonet  Shotgun  Hand grenades  Flamethrowers

Machine guns  British: Vickers machine guns Later changed to Lewis Gun  German: Maschinengewehr 08  Mostly used to defend  Heavy machine guns

Tanks  British innovation  First use: Battle of Somme  At first they were very ineffective  Later became essential

Artillery  Essential for any attack  Shaped the landscape at the Western Front  Fragmentation, highly explosive and gas shells  German 420 mm howitzer: Weight: 20 tons Could fire a one-ton shell over 10 km

Gas  Mustard gas  Chlorine  Phosgene 85% of the 100,000 deaths caused by chemical weapons during World War I  Gas masks: Urinating over a handkerchief Later developed  Not very effective due to countermeasures

Life in the Trenches

Water in the Trenches  Germans had the higher and therefore better positions  Water would be found 2-3 feet below surface  Rain would collect in the trenches  Caused trench foot

Trench Foot  Infection of the feet  Caused by: Cold Wet Unsanitary conditions  Sometimes feet had to be amputated

Food  Caned food  Nothing fresh  Rats ate some  Rations got lower and lower over the course of the war

Self Inflicted Wounds  Hoped to be released home  Mostly shot themselves in the arm or foot  Could be sentenced with execution

Strategies to break through the enemy lines and defend their own

Barb Wire  In front of the trenches in the No-Mans- Land  Worsened with the artillery fire  Redone at night

Cavalry  High place value at the beginning  Equipped with: Sword Rifle Lance  Massacred by machine gun fire

Miners  Specialist Miners-Not soldiers!  Objective: Blow up the trenches from below Then start a quick attack  Other side tried to hear them  Could take a year to dig

Facts and Figures

BattleYearAlliesGerman 1st Marne263,000220,000 1st Ypres , ,921134,315 Verdun , ,000355, ,000 Somme ,907465, ,294 2nd Aisne ,00040,000 3rd Ypres , ,000260, ,000 Spring Offensive ,374688,341 Hundred Days Offensive19181,069,636785,733 Total Casualties from Major Western Front Battles ,619, ,077,8382,948, ,297, Over 450,000 civilian deaths

Bibliography  Information:  Pictures: images/2008/04/22/51/00ec e9cc9c295488a2e97d_image_document_large_featured _borderless.jpg images/2008/04/22/51/00ec e9cc9c295488a2e97d_image_document_large_featured _borderless.jpg