Hey Reddit. I need some help. As my title states, Why was Trench Warfare Significant? What was it? How did it affect the world and warfare? Where did it originate? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you! :)
/r/homeworkhelp
The FAQs section should provide some answers. Myself, /u/elos_ and a number of paired users have answers to similar questions in our profiles. As /u/KaseyB noted below, /r/homeworkhelp is a better location for such questions.
In short?
what was trench warfare / where did it originate
It was the style of warfare which dominated the Franco-Belgian, or the Western, Front from 1915 through 1916/18 (depending on the military historian :) but for the sake of your class say 1918). It was defined by war not fought over swathes of land but over attrition; killing more enemies and making them expend more resources.
Men would spend little time on the front being constantly cycled out but the time on the front would be in hellish conditions for the uninitiated. Giant plague rats, disease, knee high muddy and bloody water, corpses and constant manual labor to maintain trenches all whilst under fire.
Trench warfare has its roots to Homer in ancient Greece and would be a major part of warfare throughout history, notably with respect to siege craft. In WW1 however it took on a greater beast; after the French counter attack on the Marne river the Germans were in precarious positions. They chose to retreat to the most defensive high ground positions in France and Belgium and then dig in; the point to hold off the West while they dealt with the East.
France and Britain played ball because they had to. The ore and iron rich regions of France were all held behind German lines, every day in German hands it makes them stronger and themselves weaker. Further considerations were that if they stopped the attack and the Germans gained tempo they could split the French and British lines in two and decimate them individually.
why was it significant
Because it was the first time the rural, literate middle class experienced war on that scale for thay duration. It was the first time that war, as a whole, had such an enormous amount written about it firsthand.
WW1, honestly, could have its accounts interchanged with ones from WW2 and ones from say the Crimean War in 1853 and you couldn't tell the difference. The thing was, again the duration of the war and simply how many people wrote about it firsthand. It was the first time the upper and middle rural classes truly experienced war and it shocked them to their core.