Ww1 Trench Warfare Essay

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Trench Warfare in WW1
Trench warfare played a major role in World War 1 due to the constant offensive and defensive positions the soldiers were in. World War 1 began in 1914 with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife. The assassination was just a trigger as there was already unrest between countries in Europe. The opposing sides were Germany, Austria-Hungary and Turkey. The allied sides were Russia. France and Great Britain. Australia joined the war because of association with Britain as the mother country. Trench warfare was a relatively new type of fighting to WW1. The conditions in the trenches were terrible for the soldiers, and this type of fighting had a great effect on WW1.
Trench warfare was put into place in WWI when
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The soldiers had to sit in trenches for days, even weeks, fearing that if their head appears over the surface they will get shot by a marksman (McAndrew, 2005). This form of fighting became an integral part of the hostilities during the First World War.
The soldiers had to endure horrific conditions within the trenches. After days of rain, the trenches would fill with water and become very muddy. When the soldiers would have to spend weeks in the wet mud, they would get a condition called “trench foot” which is a gangrene of the feet and toes from over exposure to wet weather. Often the soldiers would need to have their feet amputated. Also because of the dead bodies lying in the trenches as well as food scraps and poor sewerage, rats and flies would be terrible. Because of the bad conditions, the solders would get infectious diseases like Cholera and Dysentery. (Trench-warfare N.D) Because of the horrendous conditions, life in the trenches was terrible. Diseases such as trench foot and cholera prolonged the war, as new soldiers had to be sent to the trenches. These conditions were a characteristic of trench warfare during the First World

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