Homework

Read Total War and underline 3 main ideas

Trenches

• On the Western Front, fighting quickly came to a stalemate.

• Trench Warfare– Each side dug extensive trench systems. If they

couldn’t destroy each other, they were forced to dig in.

Life in the Trenches

•They lived in the trenches.–That’s where lived, ate, and slept. It was a miserable existence.

Life in the Trenches

• Disease• Rats and Lice spread disease• There was no sewage system, which spread

dysentery

• Because they could find themselves standing around in flooded trenches, some soldiers developed a condition called trench foot.

Life in the Trenches

• Soldiers would go “over the top” and charge the other trench.

• Between the trenches was an area known as no-man’s land. There was nothing there but craters, barbed wire, and corpses.

Weapons

• WWI was not like any other war before it.• The Industrial Revolution allowed troops to

move faster, and also led to the invention of new ways to kill your enemy

Rifles

• Rifles were not new, they had been around for a while, but new designs and more precise manufacturing (in factories) led to more rapid firing rifles.

• Soldiers could now shoot 12-15 rounds per minute.

Machine Guns

• Automatic weapons that could shoot 400-600 rounds per minute.

• They were big and heavy, which meant that they didn’t get moved a lot.

• Made it possible for just a small crew to mow down entire waves of enemy soldiers.

• Machine guns

Artillery

• New technology also made artillery (cannons) more effective.

• Artillery shells would be fired into enemy trenches…there was no place to hide.

• Filled with high explosive, or poison gas.

The Paris Gun

Poison Gas

• Gases that cause choking, blinding, or severe skin blisters.

• Many kinds were used, but mustard gas is particularly nasty– Caused burning and blistering on your skin, your

lungs, and could blind you.– Could penetrate clothing.– Wasn’t deadly, but would take a soldier out of battle.

Poison Gas

Vehicles

• Tank– Protected advancing troops as they broke

through enemy defenses.• Submarine

– Used by Germany to destroy Allied shipping.• Aircraft (Planes and Airships)

– At first, mainly used for observation. Later, pilots engaged in air combat

A British Tank

The Whole Picture

• The combination of trench warfare and new weapons proved deadly.

• The battle of the Somme lasted 5 months

Shellshock

• The war was not just physically damaging to soldiers, but mentally damaging also

• Shellshock occurred when a soldier would be constantly living with death and destruction

• Soldiers mentally and physically distance themselves from life, sometimes to an extreme length.– Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Links

• Hell in the Trenches