Digging Holes to Modern Warfare

Yorkshire Trench and Dug Out Ypres, Belgium
The development of rifles and machine guns led to trench warfare. This lead
to developments of aircraft and tanks as the war raged on.
Photo by Chris Monroe

25 April, 2018

Detroit, MI, USA

Perhaps one of the reasons World War I is somewhat forgotten in our minds today is the result of the slow pace of battle. The Battle of Gettysburg in the American Civil War lasted just 3 days and contained enough points of historical significance to fill volumes of books. During World War II the famous Battle of the Bulge lasted just six weeks. By comparison many of the battles of WWI played out over the span of several months or years. Often, they never had a clear outcome as much as they just fizzled out after a stalemate. The reality is that without the ability to delineate a neat and orderly timeline for historical events, we tend to lose the ability to commit to memory the names of people and places that make history happen. So, what caused the slow pace of battle during WWI? Two words: modern warfare.

For 200 years prior to WWI, land armies across Europe fought each other in roughly organized lines of ranks and files. In fact, terms like "front line" and "line infantry" come from this outdated style of battle. Literally people lined up in rows and exchanged volleys of musket fire with their enemies just yards away. Sounds fun, right?!?

To the front-line infantryman, the result of advancements in barrel rifling in the late 1800's increased marksmanship. In addition to the improved range, new rifles with breach loading capabilities meant that soldiers could fire more rounds in a shorter time. This was the single biggest advancement for the foot soldier in more than two centuries. However, it also meant his enemy was just as lethal, and as a result there was a need for more protection. Whereas the line soldier had previously relied on the inaccuracy of his enemy to stay alive, now he had to find reliable protective cover. The advancements in these individual weapons also lead to increased lethality of crew served machine guns. Over the previous 50 years, the development of more reliable machine guns led military strategists to look at protective measures as a means of survival.

Yorkshire Trench. Ypres, Belgium
The hole in the steel plate allowed a British
sniper to stay protected while firing.
Photo by Chris Monroe

The answer to the need for more protection was right below their feet. The seeds of trench warfare were planted in the American Civil War and the Crimean Wars, where earthen barriers and hastily dug trenches were used to protect personnel. As lines were drawn along the Western Front in World War I, trenches became not only a means of protection and survival, but at the same time a pretty good measure of certain death.

The first WW1 trenches were linear systems simply designed to get a soldier out of the direct line of fire. Howeve, with more accurate artillery fire thanks to standardized shells and improved mathematics, soldiers were no longer safe just by being underground. So, if you got out of the trench you would be shot. If you stayed in the trench you could be blown up. What's more, both sides decided to use chemical weapons along the western front. On April 22, 1915 chemical weapons made their introduction. The use of gas canisters first by the Germans, then by the British lead to all hell breaking loose in the trenches. More than 90,000 died and more than 1 million were injured due to the use of chemical weapons during WWI. Not so fun fact: A Belgian Army lab currently disarms 5 gas shells a day recovered from the remains of the western front. They currently have a 30-year inventory of shells to disarm!

Yorkshire Trench. Ypres, Belgium
This system of "duckboard" helped improve conditions in the
trenches. In addition to allowing water to flow under the
boards, the upside down A-frame helped support the walls.
Photo by Chris Monroe

As the war progressed engineers developed more sophisticated designs for trenches. Instead of straight lines, the trenches were designed to absorb artillery blasts. By building a series of curves and cutbacks, soldiers could survive an incoming attack thanks to the walls absorbing the majority of the impact. Protective rooms with seals to prevent against gas attacks were built. Some trenches were build with duckboards to allow water to drain underneath. In the end more than 25,000 miles of trenches were dug along the Western front. They stretched from the Northern coast of Belgium all the way down to Switzerland in the South.

With the perfect development of the airplane, wars will be only an incident of past ages. -Edward Burhart, Mayor of Dayton Ohio, 1909

As with all great civilian engineering achievements, it is the goal of the military man to bastardize the invention for the purpose of killing. Call it advantageous engineering. WWI saw the first use of the airplanes and gasoline motorized vehicles for fighting purposes.

In 1905, only two years after the Wright Brothers' first flight of a fixed wing aircraft in Kitty Hawk North Carolina that they contracted with the US Army for airplanes to be built for observation and surveillance. When WWI began it became clear very early on that the increased firepower of modern armies would rule out the effectiveness of conventional horse mounted cavalry. In 1914 a French pilot used a machine gun mounted on the front of his plane to take down a German reconnaissance plane. From there the rest is history. The weaponization of aircraft was fought by many, but ultimately could not be stopped. One could argue that aircraft development happened faster than any other field of development in modern warfare.

Great Britain and France were the first to build the massive machines of war that we now today call "tanks." They are so named because in an effort to keep their real use a secret, the British claimed that they were actually mobile water tanks.  In reality they were designed to move across the dreaded no mans land between the trenches and take out the enemy on the other side. However, the need for the tank to develop was far ahead of the actually ability of the technology and designs of the time. On 15 September, 1916 tanks went in to battle for the first time. Although they were effective in combat in no mans land, the tank would not make it's truly triumphant appearance in major conflict until World War II.

Somme American Cemetery. Bony, France
Even helmet technology advanced during World War I. This
is a stylized America helmet dating from 1917.
Photo by Chris Monroe

It was the slow pace of the war with a lack of steadily moving armies that makes our minds struggle to pay attention to WWI. But it was this stalemate that lead innovators to look at what it would take to make it in to the enemies trench. One could argue that the inventions in modern warfare that resulted from the dragging battles of 1914 to 1918 are still having a great impact on our world today. We are constantly in an arms race for bigger and faster and more expensive military machinery. Whereas battlefield tactics won wars in past generations, now we look to win wars with technology. This is another example of World War One's continuing impact on our current state

of world affairs.

Chris

Notes:

-To learn more about Trench construction check out this blog post.