World War I: Battle of Verdun Overview of the Battle of Verdun, 1916. Contunico © ZDF Enterprises GmbH, Mainz A trench system may begin simply as a collection of foxholes hastily dug by troops using their entrenching tools. These holes may subsequently be deepened so that a soldier can safely in one of them, and the individual foxholes may be connected by shallow crawl trenches. From this beginning a system of more permanent may be constructed.
In making a trench, soil from the excavation is used to create raised parapets running both in front of and behind the trench. Within the trench are firing positions along a raised forward step called a fire step, and duckboards are placed on the often muddy bottom of the trench to provide secure footing.
The ancestor of modern trench warfare was the system of progressively extended trenches developed by the French military engineer for the attack of fortresses in the 17th century. Trenches remained merely a part of siegecraft until the increasing firepower of and compelled both sides to make use of trenches in the (1861–65). The trench lines of the in the final months of that war were the foremost example of trench warfare in the 19th century. Fort Mahone, Petersburg, Virginia Breastworks of the Confederate Fort Mahone (“Fort Damnation”), Petersburg, Virginia, April, 1865. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (LC-B8171-3211 DLC) Trench warfare reached its highest development on the during (1914–18), when armies of millions of men faced each other in a line of trenches extending from the Belgian coast through northeastern to.
These trenches arose within the first few months of the war’s outbreak, after the great offensives launched by and France had shattered against the deadly, withering fire of the and the rapid-firing piece. The sheer quantity of bullets and shells flying through the air in the battle conditions of that war compelled soldiers to burrow into the soil to obtain shelter and survive. Trench warfare A German machine gun emplacement during World War I. Prints and Photographs Division/Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Adobe flash cs6 exam questions and answers. (digital file no.
LC-USZ62-136100) The first, or front, line of trenches was known as the outpost line and was thinly held by scattered machine gunners distributed behind dense entanglements of. The main line of resistance was a parallel series of two, three, or four lines of trenches containing the bulk of the defending troops. The defenders’ artillery was posted to the rear of the main line of trenches. Each main line of trenches was fronted by fields of barbed wire intended to slow down and entangle attacking. As World War I progressed, both sides, but particularly the Germans, developed trench systems of progressively greater depth and strength in order to ensure that the enemy could not achieve a breakthrough at any particular point.