why did trench warfare develop on the western front?

Question

hi if anyone has any info on this it would be great i'm really struggling with some history homework!! and i have tried looking at lots of sites and books but there are no specific answers to this question.

Answer 1

at the start of world war I people still fought the old ways, with a line of soldiers firing and the line behind them shooting as the line in front of them loaded and so on. with the coming of automatic weapons this translated to a slaughter on the battlefield which meant changing tactics. trench warfare actually developed in the CIVIL war, and the general who tried getting his men to do it was laughed at until they saw the value in ducking into a hole once the bullets started flying. this was still resisted after the civil war until the gatling gun and other automatic guns came along. as long as both sides were dug in no one could move so you get a stalemate until someone decides to move.

the eastern parts of europe were still bogged down in tradition and stuck to using cavalry until they got the hint. it's the reason the ottoman empire went down. they and the eastern areas were the least resistant to change.

Answer 2

It basically developed because neither army (German v French/British) could beat the other at a 'traditional' set piece battle. The Germans were driving for the French Channel ports and the French/British wanted to stop them - the French because they knew that if they were taken, then France would in all likelihood fall, and the British as it was feared that if they were taken then invasion would follow. The Germans were stopped in Flanders, but could not be pushed back, whilst the Allies could not be pushed into the Channel by the Germans. So stalemate ensued with the line of trenches from Belgium to the Swiss border.

Trench warfare was not, however, an invention of WWI - its use went back for centuries.

Answer 3

Because, unlike the Eastern Front where the Russians were forced to retreat and the Germans were thus able to move and manoeuver, in the Western Front neither army was able to dislodge the other or to gain immediately a huge advantage. So the "war of movement" theorised by the German strategists became a "war of positions", i.e. a war with established and very slow-moving battlelines.

Answer 4

Trench warfare was NOT developed on the western front, it started in the Civil war in the battles around Richmond.
Technological advances in weapons made it necessary...instead of inaccurate muskets, they now had rifles, then repeating rifles, then machine guns, explosive artillery rounds, (artillery exploding in the air was dangerous to people just in a trench- they needed bunkers) barbed wire, etc.
Anyone above ground was killed, so they dug deep, added bunkers and redundant trench lines, etc.

Answer 5

its because of all the new techs and weapons, all the troops were getting mashed from the invention of the machine gun and the like. so the leaders decided to dig trenches to both protect their soldiers against getting shot as well as to prevent the enemy from advancing. it worked in not letting the enemy advance but caused a lot of other problems like sanitation issues as well as having a stalemate in the war.