1. “All Quiet on the Western Front” The German army moved into France and for a while it looked like they would capture Paris. The German army quickly developed problems with their supply lines and had to move their troops on foot. The French military maintained its morale and, together with the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), fought hard.

2. “All Quiet on the Western Front” In the first Battle of the Marne, the Allies pushed the German army back 40 or 50 miles. They saved Paris but the Germans occupied a large portion of the industrialized northeastern region of France. Very quickly, the war on the western front settled into a stalemate. The opposing armies faced each other across a line of trenches that stretched across France.

5. To enable soldiers to fire through the parapet, a fire-step was dug into the forward side of the trench. The fire-step was 2 or 3 feet high. Sentries stood on this fire-step. It was also used by the whole unit when “standing-to.” (when anticipating enemy attack)

6. Trench Warfare Trench warfare was a war of attrition. This means that there were few big campaigns that ended in decisive victories or defeats. Instead, the opposing sides constantly harassed each other and attempted to wear the enemy down, as if by friction. It produced a sense of exhaustion and hopelessness among the men in the trenches.

8. Trench Warfare Life in the trenches was very difficult, physically and emotionally. Some of the difficulties the soldiers faced included: water and mud, the cold, rats, lice, “trench fever,” corpses, artillery fire and poison gases. One soldier said that the worst aspect of trench warfare were the “hours of boredom punctuated by moments of terror.”

10. Trench Warfare Most of the land where the trenches were dug was either clay or sand. The water could not pass through the clay and because the sand was on top, the trenches became filled with water when it rained. Vyvyan Harmsworth wrote in a letter dated 13 January 1915, “Hell is the only word to describe the weather out here and the state of the ground. It rains every day! The trenches are mud and water up to one’s neck up to one’s neck.

11. Trench Warfare Guy Chapman wrote in his autobiography, “Rain had made our bare trenches a quag,and earth, unsupported by revetments, was beginning to slide to the bottom…Dugouts filled up and collapsed. The few duckboards floated away, uncovering sump-pits into which the uncharted wanderer fell, his oaths stifled by a brownish stinking fluid.”

12. Trench Warfare Constant dampness caused trench foot, a common and horrifying condition. Troops were told to change their socks 3 times a day to try to prevent it.

13. Isaac Rosenberg, The Immortals (1918) Isaac Rosenberg I killed them, but they would not die. Yea! all the day and all the night For them I could not rest or sleep, Nor guard from them nor hide in flight. Then in my agony I turned And made my hands red in their gore. In vain - for faster than I slew They rose more cruel than before.

14. I killed and killed with slaughter mad; I killed till all my strength was gone. And still they rose to torture me, For Devils only die in fun. I used to think the Devil hid In women’s smiles and wine’s carouse. I called him Satan, Balzebub. But now I call him, dirty louse.

15. Trench Warfare Stuart Dolden wrote that “the outstanding feature of the trenches was the extraordinary number of rats. “The area was infested with them. It was impossible to keep them out of the dugouts. They grew fat on the food that they pilfered from us, and anything they could pick up in or around the trenches; they were bloated and loathsome to look at. “

16. Trench Warfare Some were nearly as big as cats. We were filled with an instinctive hatred of them, because however one tried to put the thought out of one’s mind, one could not help the feeling that they fed on the dead.”

17. Trench Warfare When soldiers received the order to go “up and over” or “over the top” they had to leave the relative safety of the trenches and cross no- man’s land in order to attack the enemy.

18. “Over the Top” by John Nash, 1918

19. Trench Warfare The area known as no-man’s land was a blasted, ripped up void. The opposing armies planted land mines to protect their troops. They also strung up miles of barbed wire and used stakes and other objects to make it harder for the enemy to cross no-man’s land. By slowing the enemy troops down, you had a better chance of killing them before they got to you.

20. Trench warfare left the environment scarred and barren- just mud and tree stumps. Everything green was destroyed. It took years for this land to recover.

21. And on other fronts? The Eastern Front The Dardenelles and the Gallipoli Campaign naval battles