Issue 1

The Germans retreated until they found good defensive positions where they

could ‘dig in’ and build defensive trenches.

A basic trench was simply a deep ditch dug by soldiers to protect themselves.• It was also used to make it easier to defend

their position.

Officers dugout

When the British and French forces met the German defences , they to

dug trenches to protect themselves.

• The trench line eventually went for 600 miles from the English channel to the Swiss border.

As the winter dragged on into 1915 the Western Front became bogged

down in trench warfare

• Each side pounded the other with artillery.• The ground became boggy and hard to get

over.• Barded wire and machine guns made defence

easier.

For most of the next four years neither side managed a decisive

breakthrough.

What was trench warfare like?

Letters home from soldiers all report living with noise, itching,

boredom and mud.

• Most letters do not describe the possibility of death at any moment from a mortar shell or sniper fire.

Soldiers did not live in the trenches throughout the war week after

week.• Most Scottish soldiers were used in a rotation

system.• If a Jock (Scottish soldier) was in a front line

trench on a Monday he would be ‘rotated’ back to a reserve and then rest and recovery position by the following weekend.

• By the next weekend he would have been reserve and then rotated back to the front line.

When troops were moved back from the front line..

• Uniforms were debugged of lice, washed, ironed and exchanged if too badly infested.

• Troops were eating, sleeping , fighting and dying in muddy holes in the ground.

Soldiers realised that the war would not be over by Christmas,

nor probably the next one..• The Western Front was a deadlock!• This meant that troops would be sent ‘over

the top’ in attempts to break the enemy trenches.

• Until 1918 these attacks mainly ended in high casualties.