what was the trench warfare? how was it important?

Answer 1

trench warfare was first used in ww1, where soldiers hid in trenches and fought from there. trench warfare changed the meaning of war significantly. soldiers killed randomly. previously, only soldiers killed soldiers. a war could occur and all the daily routines of life would occur. no civilians would die. there was more honor in the previous war. you knew your target, and you killed him. but in trench warfare, you can't see your enemy. it wasn't necessarily abt honor, this 1st World war. ww1 was more abt defeating the other side in terms of ammunition. so in trench warfare, there was no honor involved, there was a lot more bravery however. ppl lived in trenches, it was their home, everything they knew. it was a disgusting experience, very horrid. this warfare promoted smoking which was a factor in increasing unhealthy conditions amongst americans. it also triggered the ammunition development of ww2. in ww2, more advanced technological warfare was used (ie. blitzkreig by hitler, sonar and radar by the british, submarines and the atomic bomb by truman). trench warfare is the primitive version of ww2 warfare in my opinion.

Answer 2

Trench warfare was largely during World War I. Both sides posessed heavy machine guns which made attacking by infantry charges little better than suicide. Both sides dug in and kept their forces in the trenches to protect them.

Each would periodically mount infantry charges and get slaughtered by enemy guns and artillery while crossing "No Mans Land."

The development of early tanks and lightweight machine guns late in the war allowed attacks to succeed, and thus the practicalilty of trench warfare died out.

Answer 3

Think of the evolution of modern war. Place yourself as a British colonel in the Napoleonic wars. Your most difficult decision might be when to form line against infantry or to form square to repel cavalry, but you were fighting a low-level form of maneuver warfare, moving your regiment across the field of battle.
The American Civil War began with Napoleonic tactics, but improvement in armaments made this a very dangerous proposition. By the middle of the war, you saw regiments digging in to limit exposure to enemy fire, and a trench line might be held for days.
Now move forward to World War I. It is suicide to march across open ground against machine guns in prepared positions with artillery support. The front stagnates. But there is no technologic alternative, except in a small way with the introduction of the early tank and with some new German infantry doctrine that comes only too late for them in the war.
Mechanisation and armor improve mobility in the Second World War, but much is still fought, though not with complete stalemate, from dug-in positions.
It is really only with the first Gulf War, and then only with complete air supremacy, that maneuver war, now with the addition of vertical envelopment, regains pre-eminence.

Answer 4

It will probably be more helpful if you read the info available at this link yourself....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trench_warfare