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WWI was fought differently than any other war in history. The German soldiers lived in the trenches. They ate, slept and died in the trenches. If your head went above the trench, you would get shot. If you got out of the trench you would be shot. If one of your comrades was shot and killed outside of the trenches you could not get out to go get his body because you would get shot a well. I think that pretty much answers your question.

Trench warfare was not new or unique to World War One. For a similar situation, simply look at the Siege of Petersburg/Richmond in the American Civil War.

What was different about trench warfare in WW1 was the machinegun and long-range artillery piece. Both items of technology enforced a stalemate on the war that had never been seen before, and one which the current generation of military leadership was completely incapable of finding a solution for.

Most of the battles in 1914 were "normal" fluid battles, with soldiers out in the open, fighting in a manner similar to previous wars. However, once a stalemate had set in, and soldiers started digging trenches, the strategic and tactical situation changed. "Modern" trench warfare could not fought according to any of the old strategies - the mass slaughters of 1915 to 1917 are evident of this, as the unimaginative leaders of both sides simply kill millions of soldiers to no useful purpose, trying the same tactics as had failed before.

In the end, the machinegun and artillery piece as used in Trench Warfare force a complete re-thinking of military strategy, with the abandonment of massed frontal assaults common to pretty much all military tactics throughout history. New technologies and strategies change warfare from an effort of mass infantry, to a Chess-game like combination of high technology and maneuver, where small unit actions with new weapons dominate fixed defenses and massed infantry.

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14y ago

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