How did the Germans, French and British manage to dig and build trenches under the fire of artiller during WW1

Question

Edit : How did the Germans, French and British manage to dig and build trenches under the fire of ARTILLERY during WW1?

Answer 1

Much of the trench sytem was in place before the heavy artillery could be mobilised in the right areas.
Artillery was always very exposed to counter battery fire so in the early days they had to be careful not to be spotted by the other side.
Later on they had better methods of concealing their positions.

Answer 2

Its amazing how fast one can dig under a barrage of artillery and machine gun fire, its certainly focuses the mind into trying to get into a state of cover!!! Interestingly, whilst the French and British (and not forgetting ALL the allied nations) dug the trenches by hand, the Germans developed small mechanised digging processes similar to todays JCBs, only armored.

Answer 3

Because the trenches came first, sustained artillery fire not until later when the infantry were all dug in. And then it was pretty ineffective as it took a long time for the techniques of creeping barrages, supporting advancing infantry, to be learned.

Answer 4

The firing was sporadic, not continuous. They dug between attacks.

Answer 5

very quickly