TRENCHxWARFARE
Doubtless with the Franco-Prussian War in mind – a whirlwind assault which brought the Third French Republic tumbling down in a matter of six months – the military on both sides considered that the coming conflict would be a short, sharp encounter. Victory would go to the side that showed from the outset the greatest national spirit, the greatest show of courage, and the greatest tenacity of purpose. The troops would be home for Christmas. And, indeed, that is just how the war began. The Germans, having thrust their way through Belgium, swept into Northern France and made for Paris. But movement ended some 20 miles from the capital. By September, such was the opposition then put up by the French and the British that the Germans were not only obliged to stop, but also forced to take ground cover. And by the end of the year these “trenches” (long, deep, narrow ditches) stretched for 450 miles, from the English Channel to the Swiss border (see map above). Save for the occasional attempt to pierce through these formidable lines of defence – like the costly frontal attacks at the Somme, Verdun and Passchendaele, and the
infamous Nivelle Offensive – it was to bring years of virtual stalemate and the appalling living and fighting conditions that went with it. And that was particularly so along a crescent-shaped line stretching some 200 miles from Ypres to Verdun, where the open landscape required deep, well constructed defences to prevent a decisive break through. In most cases, there was a front-line trench, linked to support and reserve trenches situated close behind. They were often built in a zigzag pattern so that explosions or rifle fire during an attack was restricted to a limited area.
As the men would have it, in many areas these trenches were nothing short of hell on earth. The Western Front had by far the most, but they were also necessary in other areas, such as Gallipoli and parts of the Italian and Russian campaigns. First and foremost, there was, of course, the constant danger of sniper fire and shellfire, especially at dawn and dusk when there was always the possibility of an all-out attack. And just as dangerous, if not more so, was, a raft of deadly diseases that were there for the catching, such as dysentry, cholera and typhoid fever, all thriving off the filthy conditions the men had to live under, and conveyed by swarms of rats living off the dead. Lice and nits also played their part, and in the early stages of the war many men suffered from “trench foot”, a serious condition caused by the wet and cold conditions under foot. And as the war dragged on more and more men suffered from “shell shock”, a mental breakdown brought on by the sights and sounds of carnage. In the worst of cases men were committed to an “asylum” for the rest or best part of their lives. Officially, seventy days in the “front line” were followed by thirty days in support, and a hundred days in reserve (with local leave a possibility), but this timetable depended totally on the stage of the battle. It was a matter of “availability” – the resources at hand.
But the real slaughter began when an attack was launched on enemy lines and, after heavy bombardment, the infantry were ordered “over the top”. Then the need for trenches became abundantly clear. Thousands of men were killed in an area appropriately called “no-man’s land”, blown up by enemy gunfire or mowed down by the incessant, withering fire from machine guns. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme – lst July 1916 – the British alone lost some 19,200 men and 38,000 wounded!
It is in no way difficult to see the reason for this carnage. Over the past forty years military technology, along with technology in general, had made unprecedented advances. As we shall see, the improvement of existing weapons and the introduction of new ones had changed the face of the battlefield. Artillery, for example, had been immensely increased in range and power; rifles had become more accurate and dependable; and the reliability and rate-of-fire of the machine gun – a deadly weapon in open country – had been immensely improved. The horse had no place on this battlefield, though some charges were made! Horses were put to good use behind the lines, but even here the age of the motorcar gave birth to the truck and, much later, the first experimental tank, a weapon intended to bring movement ba
ck in ground combat. And, as we shall see, in other attempts to end this stalemate, both sides used chemical warfare (gas) to gain ground, and both developed aircraft as quickly as possible to play an active and more telling part in battle – though never decisive at this stage.
And one other battlefield “weapon” needs to be mentioned, a cheap device which, it could be argued, never receives the recognition it deserves for its deadly contribution to the death toll …. barbed wire. Stretched across no man’s land and particularly thick in front of the forward trenches, this cheap, spiteful barrier slowed down the attacking forces, giving the machine gunners a constant and easy target. Before an attack, sappers would go out at night to cut paths through the barbed wire (illustrated), but often these only served to bunch the infantry together, thereby becoming a target for the hand grenade as well as the bullet. Axharrowing account of a wounded German soldier who was trapped on a barbed wire fence and took two days to die is given in I Was a German, the autobiography of the playwright Ernst Toller. Two men lost their lives in trying to rescue him. It is estimated that there were over one million miles of this death-dealing device on the Western Front alone. And it was a particularly deadly weapon during the Gallipoli campaign. The Turks put long strands of it across the beach and just below the water line at any likely landing site, and this cost many lives.
Incidentally, AllxQuiet on the Western Front, a novel by a German veteran of the war, Erich Maria Remarque, tells the graphic story of a young infantrymen who undergoes the horrors of trench warfare and suffers thereafter from post traumatic stress disorder. Highly regarded for its authenticity, it was published in 1929 and made into an Oscar-winning film in 1930. When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, both the book and film were banned.
