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    First World War Trenches: 5 Minute History
    First World War Trenches: 5 Minute History
    First World War Trenches: 5 Minute History
    Ebook66 pages51 minutes

    First World War Trenches: 5 Minute History

    By Andrew Robertshaw

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    About this ebook

    How much can you really find out about the Trenches of the First World War in five minutes? This handy little history book will surpass all your expectations and leave you well versed on all you wish to know, and maybe even a little bit more… Was it always muddy? Was every minute spent under fire? How did they get around? What food was eaten? And how did they build them anyway? Jam-packed with facts, stats and first-hand accounts of the action, all woven together in an accessible way by an expert in the field, this 5 Minute History is a valuable addition to anyone’s bookshelf, ready to be delved into at a moment’s notice.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe History Press
    Release dateApr 7, 2014
    ISBN9780750955140
    First World War Trenches: 5 Minute History
    Author

    Andrew Robertshaw

    Andrew Robertshaw MA is a museum curator, military historian, author and broadcaster. He has written five books about aspects of military history. He is a subject matter expert for the army for whom he lectures, gives presentations at Staff College and runs battlefield studies. He has appeared as expert and presenter in a large number of television documentaries including The Trench Detectives, Time Team and Finding the Fallen. He is director of The Battlefield Partnerships and is working on a series of international media and archaeological projects.

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      Book preview

      First World War Trenches - Andrew Robertshaw

      CONTENTS

      Title

      Introduction

      Was Trench Warfare New in 1914?

      The ‘European War’ 1914

      Opening Moves in 1914

      Stalemate

      Digging In

      Navigating the Trenches

      Trench Weapons

      New Weapons of Trench Warfare

      Trench Life

      Out of the Trenches

      Into Battle or Over the Top

      Sick or Wounded

      Food in the Trenches

      The Trenches Today

      Select Bibliography

      Copyright

      INTRODUCTION

      MANY PEOPLE IMAGINE that the war started on the Western Front in 1914 and ended in 1918, was fought entirely in trenches and that there was little movement or open warfare over the more than four years of the struggle. This book aims to explain how trench warfare came about, to put this style of conflict in a historical perspective and to explore what caused the deadlock on the Western Front. It will examine the routine of trench warfare, the experiences of men on both sides of no-man’s-land and how the trench stalemate began in 1914 and ended during 1918.

      In films and on television the First World War is portrayed as being about the battles. The Somme in 1916 or Passchendaele in 1917 are presented as being typical experiences for the soldiers on the Western Front. In these on-screen presentations, trenches are places from which attacks over no-man’s-land are launched or repulsed with bloody casualties. Soldiers do not live in trenches, they only die, and the day-to-day experience of being in a hole in the ground is defined by shelling, gas, constant rain and, perhaps, war poetry. I want to use this Five Minute History to explain the details of life in the trenches in addition to exploring the day-to-day reality of the men who took part in the war on the Western Front.

      Since 1985, first at the National Army Museum in London and then in other museums, schools, colleges and universities, I have taught up to half a million young, and not so young, people about the First World War. I have used my illustrated presentation ‘Eye Deep in Hell?’ – note the question mark – with hundreds if not thousands of groups. Responses to this talk have ranged from questioning to outright disbelief. Some people believe that what they see on the screen in All Quiet on the Western Front or Blackadder Goes Forth are adequate representations of history and that anything else is clearly ‘wrong’. One veteran of the First World War described his experience of the trenches as being ‘90% bored stiff, 9% frozen stiff and 1% scared stiff’. Another suggested that his war was experienced ‘in colour’, not the black and white of the photographs and original film we see today. If this book succeeds, I want the reader to have an understanding of the 99 per cent of trench warfare the men experienced on an everyday basis and to bring some colour into the sepia world of 1914–18.

      ASR,

      Spring 2014

      WAS TRENCH WARFARE NEW IN 1914?

      BY OCTOBER 1914, as we will see, warfare on the Western Front, from the Swiss border in the south to the coast of the North Sea in Belgium, was locked into static trench warfare. Both sides had dug in either side of a strip of land, which became known as no-man’s-land. No one could move in this area in daylight and both sides worked in the night, when darkness allowed men to dig and erect barbed wire. However, this was not the first time soldiers had worked under similar conditions.

      In previous centuries, when an army was dispatched to surround and besiege a castle or town, the use of cannon or siege engines on both sides meant that the attackers had to protect themselves from enemy fire. The defenders had the advantage of earth or stone defences which had been designed and built as a permanent protection, whereas their opponents had to provide themselves with some means of cover while being close enough to the place they were besieging to use their artillery. The result of this was that besiegers would surround their objective and then start to dig in at night, when their opponents would have difficulty seeing and shooting at

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