Ww1 Trench Description

World War I, the bloody conflict that consumed Europe from July 1914 until November 1918, was fought by millions of men. While they came from different backgrounds, races, and religions, the soldiers of the western front of this Great War all shared one thing in common they were all subjugated to living in trenches. Trench warfare in general can be summed up in two words, horrible and dangerous. As it became clear to the High Command that this wasn’t going to be the quick war they had once believed it would be, and the notions that will alone wins wars and always being on the offensive was the only way to win, is when both sides started to hunker down and get serious with building fortifications and entrenching themselves. The Germans were the first, which gave them better positions and better trenches. Of all the miseries associated with trench life some of the biggest and hardest to combat came from nature itself. Along the entire western line from the coast to La Bassée living in trenches meant a never-ending battle against water and even worse mud. While the Allies, and the British especially, suffer from this worse than the Germans, due to Germans getting the high ground, both sides were constantly rained on, and in the brutal winters intense cold came …show more content…
Terrible new weapons made their debut in the war, artillery, machine guns, gas, and snipers, struck fear soldiers on the front line. The constant mental strain placed on soldiers, a good amount coming from the constant thunderous bombardment of artillery led many to become shell-shocked. Forced, futile charges over the top had soldiers running across no man’s land directly into enemy machine guns to be mowed down. Snipers picked off any man who dare show his head, although this lessoned to some extent towards the end of the war as disillusionment set in and de facto truces were made, snipers on both sides allowed free travel in the