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Trench Warfare Aaron Berman, Will Ryan, and Jim Wald Trench Warfare A Comparative Analysis of Civil War and World War I Trenches Lauren Fraser 4/30/2013 Page | 1 Table of Contents Chapter 1: “A Soldier’s Life for Me”…Life in the Trenches ....................................... 7 Chapter 2: The Building of the Trenches ....... 32 Chapter 3: European Observations and the Trenches of WWI ............................... 55 Conclusion: ................................... 79 Bibliography .................................. 85 Page | 2 Trench Warfare A Comparative Analysis of Civil War and World War I Trenches Intro: Trench warfare, or occasionally “siege warfare”, is often defined as a form of “occupied fighting lines” in which soldiers are protected by field works from an opposing front’s artillery and small-arms fire. One tends to picture trench warfare as two large armies bogged down due to heavy artillery and unable to do more than move gradually inch by inch across a battlefield; or of men leaping out of trenches to dash headlong into immense fire and certain death. Sometimes considered representative of futility in war, trench warfare has become synonymous with stalemates in the midst of conflict, of the wearing down of enemy forces until they are unable to continue from lack of arms or morale, and of a form of warfare that is nothing more than senseless slaughter in less-than-stellar environments. Trench warfare is so often associated with World War I because its usage was such a prominent characteristic. Tactically and strategically, the use of trenches for defensive purposes was not particularly new by 1914. Field fortifications – forts, strongholds, and even trenches – have Page | 3 been in sporadic usage throughout warfare as far back as the Romans, although not to the same extent as during the First World War. The closest comparison to that reliance on defensive earthworks by two opposing fronts occurred 50 years earlier during the American Civil War. Trench Warfare in the Civil War: The Civil War is often considered the first “modern” war; its technological advancements in things like weaponry and engineering revolutionized the way military affairs were – and would be – conducted. It was the largest and bloodiest war on American soil – the first to be fought by American citizens against American citizens. From the Civil War came the notion that wars would no longer be fought by the “professional soldier” as found in Europe, but by conscripted men. No longer would wars be waged by small, easily-managed armies but would pit entire countries against another. No longer could one consider a military engagement a “gentlemanly affair” full of grandiose charges across open fields. No longer would a reliance on offensive tactics solely suffice in bringing about an end to a war. As stated earlier, even by the Civil War the use of entrenchments was not a new concept. The early years of the Civil War saw sporadic usage of fortifications by both Union and Page | 4 Confederate forces, although the Confederacy made better and more frequent use of them than did the Union. Due to the widespread application of weapons with far greater rates of fire and accuracy than previously seen, commanders were well aware of the practicality of defensive earthworks as a use of cover against small ammunitions and artillery, not to mention as a way to reduce casualties (assuming one did not charge headlong out from behind said cover). The use of trenches was first commented upon at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862, and was even seen at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. “The tendency was for combatants to dig in either before an engagement (due often to a commander’s decision to remain on the defensive) or immediately after a pitched battle (due often to soldiers’ emotional reaction to the shock 1 of combat)”. But it wasn’t until 1864, when Ulysses S. Grant strove to capture Richmond and destroy Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia once and for all, that both the Union and the Confederacy would come to rely on a defensive tactic that, while once used tactically, would later be used strategically. Although it did not last as long as the First World War’s Western Front, Grant’s Overland Campaign was a brutal two months in which the reliance on entrenchments, the inability to breach 1 Earl J. Hess, Trench Warfare under Grant and Lee: Field Fortifications in the Overland Campaign (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), xiii Page | 5 superior defenses, and the subsequent losses of life that resulted from reckless charges into open territory could be seen as a prelude to what Europe would experience fifty years later. Thesis: In this paper, I will make comparisons between the experiences of Civil War soldiers and WWI soldiers in the trenches, as well as compare the ways both groups of soldiers built and organized their trenches. I will look at how trench culture developed in both wars, exploring the concept of whether or not said culture was a product of their surroundings as well as a way for soldiers to deal with traumatic situations. I will also explore the theory that Civil War trench warfare could have been a precursor to that of World War I because of the similarities in trench design, materials used, and the names of the different aspects of the trenches. Europe was fully aware of the increased reliance on entrenchments and fortifications that developed during the later years of the Civil War. Countries like Britain, France, and Germany had sent their own military observers to obtain information about the military tactics and innovations of America, and yet they failed to fully grasp the importance of what had changed in regards to warfare as a result. Page | 6 It is this fact that will be another focus of this paper. Despite the many acclaimed observers that Europe sent to America during the Civil War, how was it that none of them took away the important lessons the Civil War had to offer in regards how wars would be fought in the future? Why, despite all evidence to the contrary, were the European powers so set in their desire to fight an offensive war that they chose to disregard the fact that changing technologies no longer made it possible for that to be the only viable tactic? And yet, trench warfare still had a prominent presence on World War I battlefields. By the end of this paper I hope to figure out how, even over a 50 year timespan, that these two wars fought on two different landscapes by very different people wound up relying so heavily on the same defensive structures and strategies. Page | 7 Chapter 1: “A Soldier’s Life for Me”…Life in the Trenches For soldiers in both the Civil War and World War I, life in the trenches was anything but glamorous. In fact, to say it was even remotely tolerable was a bit of a stretch. The hellish conditions of the trenches themselves, combined with the added stresses of inevitable combat, was enough for even the most veteran of troops to feel that their situation was hopeless. It can be safe to assume that, if asked, none of the soldiers from either conflict would readily admit that their times spent in these earthworks were the “best moments of their military lives”. There are a number of similarities in the experiences of the men in the trenches of both conflicts – facing natural elements, diseases, infestation, etc. However, just because these groups faced similar problems that does not suggest that all trench experiences were the same. For all the hardships, the men made basic attempts to make the best of their situations. However, the amount of time soldiers spent in their respective earthworks made all the difference in the way they experienced trench life. For soldiers in World War I, the amount of time spent in the trenches was dependent on “how active the area was, whether attacks were in progress, and the total number of troops Page | 8 available.”2 Time spent in the front lines, or rotating between the front and reserve trenches also varied among British, French, and German troops. With these factors in mind, the longest period of time in which a group of soldiers remained in the front-line trenches was for 51 straight days. However, it was generally typical for soldiers to remain in the front lines for anywhere between a few days to a week or more. In many cases, soldiers would remain in the same general location for months, but they were still able to move from the front lines to the reserve trenches. For soldiers during the Civil War, being constantly on the move prevented them from truly getting “settled” into their trenches. Trench warfare during the Civil War did not have the same lack of movement as trench warfare did during World War I, as entrenchments were still used primarily as a means of defense. To use the Overland Campaign as an example (since, comparatively, it was the period of time during the Civil War in which the reliance on trench warfare was similar to that of the Western Front), the longest a soldier remained in the same trench was for 8 days – specifically, from June 4-12 after the Battle of Cold Harbor. Because of the difference in time spent in the entrenchments, the experiences of a Civil War soldier 2 Stephen Bull, Trench: A History of Trench Warfare on the Western Front (Great Britain: Osprey Publishing, 2010), 94 Page | 9 were considerably less harsh than those of their World War I counterparts. But again, both groups still faced similar hardships.
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