What was the point of trench warfare in WW1? Both sides probably knew that they were losing way more troops than was worth the small amount of land they gained. Why would they stay in the trenches when the troops there could be utilized much better in other situations for the war effort?

What was the point of trench warfare in WW1? Both sides probably knew that they were losing way more troops than was worth the small amount of land they gained. Why would they stay in the trenches when the troops there could be utilized much better in other situations for the war effort? So, this is a multi-part question so I’ll try and answer it in each part and then wrap it all up. And my experience is primarily with the British armies so I’ll be exploring British ideas to the war, which while similar to other nations, did differ from their enemies and allies.

First off, trench warfare was primarily a response to the new firepower of the early 20th century. Magazine fed rifles, machine guns and artillery meant that closing with the enemy was both difficult and costly. The best way of keeping soldiers alive was to dig trenches and stay in them. The trenches themselves and the idea of trench warfare came as a reaction to firepower, not as a tactical or strategic doctrine or plan.

When it comes to big battles up to 1917 on the Western Front the idea remained that battle could still be decisive in the way it had been before 1914. British commanders believed a single or a small number of large battles would be the deciding factor in any war. The goal was to defeat the enemy’s main army and then march on their capital, much as Napoleon had done a century earlier. British military thought pre-1914 had been centred on what historians have called The Cult of the Offensive. The idea here being to take the offensive from the earliest moment and attack. The focus was on shock action by infantry and cavalry to close with the enemy, breaking their morale with a devastating attack. Once the enemy’s morale was shattered they could be pursued, turning a retreat into a rout and allowing cavalry to exploit the success, further destabilising the enemy. This also demonstrates the pre-war idea of an ordered battle that took place in predictable phases. Douglas Haig, British commander-in-chief wrote of the decisive battle in 1907. ”The sudden decisive blow on the enemy’s centre of gravity, then the breakdown of the enemy, whose will-power starts to fail and who must be pressed until overthrown and demoralized.”

This whole concept of decisive battle and ordered battlefield ran into problems when trench warfare developed. New technology, namely barbed wire, machine guns and above all artillery, meant that the final distance to be covered in order to close with the enemy would be murderous. The British response to this was to fall back on psychological qualities, namely discipline and morale. Technical and tactical methods to overcome the firepower problem would be what won the war, but in the early part of the war discipline was the order of the day. Training troops to stand and advance under devastating fire was difficult and the results were extremely costly.

But it was believed that this was what was required for victory. Recent experience in the Russo-Japanese was demonstrated, or so the British thought, that any sufficiently motivated attacking force could successfully defeat an entrenched defender, although at some cost. And that this victory, once gained, would prove decisive in the whole war. Trench warfare proved both of these notions wrong.

Both sides probably knew that they were losing way more troops than was worth the small amount of land they gained. Both sides certainly knew that their casualties were enormous and that they only became worse as the war ground on. However, the battles they fought weren’t specifically to gain just some few kilometres of mud. They were to defeat the enemy and break their will to resist. Battles would have goals of taking some trenchline or ridge, but this had to be viewed in its larger strategic context. Holding a ridge or pushing the enemy from a defensive position had operational consequences for each side, giving them a local advantage or weakness. Sometimes it was to acquire a better jumping off point for another offensive or to threaten a weak part of the enemy’s line, but always with the end goal of being able to launch an attack that would lead to the enemy’s defeat. Once a local battle had been successful, the idea went, that it could be exploited in enough width and depth to break open the enemy’s front and cause it to collapse. This isn’t to say that every single attack was perfectly planned in accordance with the strategic goal or that pointless and wasteful attacks never took place. Many attacks were ill conceived, such as Fromelles in 1916 or Bullecourt in 1917, and served no great purpose, but the big offensives had a larger goal in mind.

Why would they stay in the trenches when the troops there could be utilized much better in other situations for the war effort? What sort of situations do you have in mind here? The Entente forces were in a much better position from 1917 onwards in terms of materiel and supply. The British blockade and support from two empires and the US meant that in terms of food, equipment, ammunition and manpower the Entente were much better off than the Germans. And despite all these handicaps Germany was able to resist the Entente very strongly until the end of 1918.

But it’s two big military reasons that kept soldiers in France. The need to hold the front line first and the fact that Germany was still on French and Belgian soil. The British and French had to attack to regain this lost territory. The Germans weren’t going to just pack up and leave, they had to be defeated.

And what does actually defeat the German army in 1918 was new tactics, technology and a superior operational strategy. Haig had already realised that attrition was needed to grind down the manpower and willpower of Germany, but he still hoped and planned for a single large offensive that would lead to defeat and collapse. When the French commander Foch was appointed to supreme allied command in 1918 he put forward a slightly different plan. Instead of one almighty blow, what was needed was a steady hammering. Overwhelming artillery could be employed to win local victories and push German forces back, killing and capturing thousands, but not affecting the overall German line. To succeed the British and French would launch alternating offensives at different points along the line, overwhelming the German ability to respond with reserves and artillery. Each battle would reach its limit early and shut down, skipping the terrible struggles of the Somme and Ypres. And with every offensive that stopped, another would start up hundreds of kilometres away.

Battles were still extremely costly, but the idea of the single decisive battle was left behind and the attritional hammer blows of late 1918 proved the path to victory.