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Canadian History 1201
November 18, 2004
Opening Moves
•In August 1914, Germany attempted to quickly knock France out of the war & capture Paris before British & Russia forces could be mobilized.
•To accomplish this Germany had to invade neutral Belgium in order to get to northeastern France
•In September 1914, British & French forces stopped the Germans just outside of Paris and both sides began to dig in……TRENCH WARFARE had arrived!!!!
Trench Warfare
Trench Warfare
•Both sides began to construct deep trenches protected by machine guns & barbed wire.
•Parallel lines of trenches soon stretched from the English Channel to Switzerland
•Opposing forces were only separated by 25m in some areas.
•Trench warfare dominated the battlefields of WWI.
•During WWI, the soldiers in the trenches used a wide variety of weapons, these included:
Rifles and pistolsMachine gunsArtilleryBayonetsTorpedoesFlame throwersMustard and chlorine gases &Smokeless gunpowder.
World War I Trench Weapons
Weapons
•Machine guns could fire more than up to 400 rounds per minute and had the fire power of 100 guns, so as soon as the men came out of the trench they would be cut down by a storm of machine gun bullets.•They needed 4-6 men to man
•On one side you had men under cover in trenches using heavy machine guns & on the other side men with just rifles running across the open battlefield with no protection at all.
•It very soon became clear that the attackers would lose many more troops, and most times the attack would fail.
Weapons
•Barbed wire had been invented for cattle fences but it was now used in warfare.
•By putting barbed wire fences up in front of the trench the soldiers could make a surprise attack impossible.
•If the enemy had to climb over a barbed wire fence there was plenty of time to machine gun him.
•Rusty old tin cans were hung on the wire so they would jangle if anyone tried to sneak under it in the dark.
No-Man's Land
•The space between the trenches was called "No-man's Land" because it did not belong to either side.
•Most of the time the soldiers could only peep at it through tiny holes in defences. It was a horrible sight with dead bodies stuck in the barbed wire, broken trees and big holes caused by explosions.
Sergeant Harry Roberts, Lancashire Fusiliers, interviewed after the war.
• If you have never had trench feet described to you. I will tell you. Your feet swell to two or three times their normal size and go completely dead. You could stick a bayonet into them and not feel a thing. If you are fortunate enough not to lose your feet and the swelling begins to go down. It is then that the intolerable, indescribable agony begins. I have heard men cry and even scream with the pain and many had to have their feet and legs amputated
•Soldiers experienced very little variety with respect to food. Most meals consisted of:
*Bully Beef (tinned corned beef)
*Bread or hard biscuits
*Tea
*Some vegetable stew, which contained little meat
•Soldiers often received packages from family & friends in Canada containing chocolate, fruit cakes, & tins of jam.
