why was trench warfare the only part of fighting in the great war?

Answer 1

Trench warfare was designed to counter the technological leap forward of the machine gun, and artillery. Armies where set up to fight as they had fought for 150 years. Soldiers in line, marching forward, fighting in large formations with cavalry to envelope and assist those formations. The advent of the machine gun and artillery radically changed all that, Hence, trench warfare!

PS, and the gentleman above is absolutely correct, it was not. Technology was advancing rapidly, but technology also cause trench warfare due to a mix of outdated order of battle coupled with new technoligies.

Answer 2

that is just not true. In the east, there were some open battles. also, the early battles at the western front were open battles. In the south (syria and irak), most battles weren't in trenches.

Anyway, it has several reasons.
1) technology.
-trenches could withstand most of the artillery in those days
-infantry in trenches had a better than good chance against cavalry
-machineguns were very deadly against slow moving infantry
-tanks weren't around yet.
2) historical coincidence. The french (and the germans as well) were convinced it would be an offensive war, just like in 1870.
-by a flaw in the german plan, there weren't enough troops forseen to encircle paris. The updated plan, with additional troops, did not pointed out how those troops should get to the front in time, since all the railway capacity was already beeing used. Thus, the french were able to entrench.
-The British showed early on how effective it could be.
3) strategic reasons
-germany had to fight a defensive war in the east anyway
-austria/hungary had to fight defensively against italy. the mountains provided great possibilities.

....

The battle of Jutland wasn't anywhere near belgium by the way. Jutland is part of Danemark.

Answer 3

Apart from trench warfare in Europe there was the Arabian campaign fought in the dessert with Lawrence of Arabia as well as fighting in the air and at sea.
The reason for most fighting in Europe being limited to trench warfare was that neither side had the ability to break through the oppositions trench defenses, particularly when defended by machine guns.
Both sides were looking for a decisive method of getting past the oppositions trenches but never succeeded. Poisonous gas, tanks, mindless charges of men against machine guns, artillery barrages all failed to open a gap which could be held to allow troops to get behind the trench line and create a flanking maneuver.

Answer 4

An interesting film on television recently made the point that the use of the telephone contributed to the persistence of trench warfare. While in the trenches there was communication with headquarters and reinforcements could be moved around but once troops went "over the top" communications were lost.

Answer 5

Trench Warfare was not the only part of fighting in the Great War.
I suggest you look at the Battles of the East, the African Campaign, the general conflict of the Far East to start with, then look at the other areas of the War, like sea, and air to see how many actions there was.
The whole preception of the Flanders Field and Verdun only applied to the Western front in that area.

Answer 6

It wasn't.

Although seen in earlier conflicts, trench warfare developed a long way during WW1 as a response to the mechanisation of warfare.

Previous methods of massed squares or frontal assaults were simply suicidal in the face of artillery and machine gun fire, so a method of protecting the infantry from this had to be developed and this was were the trenches originated.

Arguably, it wasn't until the development of the tank that trench warfare became redundant.

The Wikipedia entry on trench warfare is pretty good.

Answer 7

Trench warfare was a follow-on from many wars in earlier days when the military commanders believed it was the best method to use - I believe the phrase 'cannon-fodder' comes about because of the dreadful toll of bodies slaughtered during this type of fighting. However, with the introduction of the tank and then with the use of aircraft. such type of warfare became redundant. Further, there were many sea battles during the WWI, primarily because the Kaiser had been determined to build a navy/fleet far greater than his cousin's - what we know as The Royal Navy.

Answer 8

It wasn't... there were numerous naval battles (look up the battle of Jutland) and air combat took place in the later stages of the war. There was also fierce tunnel fighting in Belgium.
The fighting in the Middle East wasn't fought this way either.
Trenches became a common feature of the fighting in Europe because of the mass use of heavy artillery which had never been used on this scale before. Trenches were essential as a defensive feature in a landscape devastated by heavy shelling which wiped most landmarks from the map.

Answer 9

I don't know how they got those tanks and bi-planes in the trenches but somehow they must have.

No, there was much more to WW1 than trench warfare.

Answer 10

both sides fought in the old fashioned way until late on in the war.
this was by full frontal assaults. this was extremely costly in lives,so they got boggod down in the trenches.
new tactics were developed in 1918 by the germans which allowed them to break the allied line.however they did not have a plan after the breakout and with the help of the newly arrived americans the british and french broke the advance.