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They spying on the enemy

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https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/museums/nmusn/explore/photography/wwi/wwi-submarines.html

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U.S. Navy Submarines
Before the war, submarines were viewed as a novelty. Germany changed this perception. During the war, the U.S. Navy had 72 submarines in service.

The B-class submarines served in the Philippines.

The C-class were the first U.S. Navy submarines to hold major trials with warships. This class served at Coco Solo, Panama Canal.

The F-class submarines were based in the Pacific, serving at Hawaii and off California. F-1 sank in December 1917 when she accidentally collided with F-3.

The H-class submarines, the majority of the submarines, served on the west coast while H-2 served in the Caribbean. The last boat of the class, H-9, was commissioned after the war.

In the Atlantic, the D-class submarines served off New York and Connecticut.

The E-class submarines served in the Azores and off the eastern coast of the United States in patrols against U-boats.

The G-class submarines were used in submarine school at Groton, Connecticut and played a role in sound detection with tests done off Long Island.

The K-class submarines, some saw service off the Azores, patrolling and protecting convoys. They also performed experimental work, notably in the areas of listening devices and in the storage of batteries and torpedoes.

The L-class submarines had 11 boats in the class. A notable action was an engagement between USS AL-2 and German submarine UB-65 on July 10, 1918. Many saw service while based in Ireland.

The M-class submarine only had one in service with the U.S. Navy. Other M-class submarines were purchased by the Russian Navy.

An interesting use of N-class submarines was with Q-ships.

The U.S. Navy purchased and employed vessels that were fitted out as a decoy ship, or "Q" ship as British called the vessels. These ships were intended to act as a decoy to attract German U-boats with their innocent and defenseless appearance. One Q-boat, Charles Whittemore, operated with the N-5, whose torpedoes could sink any U-Boat lured into range by the boat. The O-class submarine had 16 boats in the class. All were commissioned in 1918, departed in early November, but before any action Armistice was signed.

Image: 80-G-451709: USS K-2 (Submarine #33), off Pensacola, Florida, April 12, 1916. Official U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collection of the National Archives.

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U.S. Navy Submarines Before the war, submarines were viewed as a novelty. Germany changed this perception. During the war, the U.S. Navy had 72 submarines in service. The B-class submarines served in the Philippines. The C-class were the first U.S. Navy submarines to hold major trials with warships.

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Grim reality of WW1 is brought to life in 100 colourised images

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The incredible images include one of gunners pushing a truck filled with shells in 1917 and a British soldier helping a wounded German prisoner walk along a railway track in 1916 (pictured).

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Contributor:

KGPA Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo

File size:

19.1 MB (882.2 KB Compressed download)

Dimensions:

3071 x 2171 px | 26 x 18.4 cm | 10.2 x 7.2 inches | 300dpi

Date taken:

20 September 2013

More information:

This image could have imperfections as it's either historical or reportage.

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German infantry in trenches in WW1 Stock Photo - Alamy

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Contributor: KGPA Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo File size: 19.1 MB (882.2 KB Compressed download) Dimensions: 3071 x 2171 px | 26 x 18.4 cm | 10.2 x 7.2 inches | 300dpi Date taken: 20 September 2013 More information: This image could have imperfections as it's either historical or reportage.

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Poison gas from ww1

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Soldiers taking cover in the trenches

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Tech Developments of World War I | History

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On April 22, 1915, German forces shock Allied soldiers along the western front by firing more than 150 tons of lethal chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions at Ypres, Belgium. This was the first major gas attack by the Germans, and it devastated the Allied line.

Toxic smoke has been used occasionally in warfare since ancient times, and in 1912 the French used small amounts of tear gas in police operations. At the outbreak of World War I, the Germans began actively to develop chemical weapons. In October 1914, the Germans placed some small tear-gas canisters in shells that were fired at Neuve Chapelle, France, but Allied troops were not exposed. In January 1915, the Germans fired shells loaded with xylyl bromide, a more lethal gas, at Russian troops at Bolimov on the eastern front. Because of the wintry cold, most of the gas froze, but the Russians nonetheless reported more than 1,000 killed as a result of the new weapon.
WATCH: World War I: The First Modern War on HISTORY Vault
On April 22, 1915, the Germans launched their first and only offensive of the year. Known as the Second Battle of Ypres, the offensive began with the usual artillery bombardment of the enemy's line. When the shelling died down, the Allied defenders waited for the first wave of German attack troops but instead were thrown into panic when chlorine gas wafted across no-man's land and down into their trenches. The Germans targeted four miles of the front with the wind-blown poison gas and decimated two divisions of French and Algerian colonial troops. The Allied line was breached, but the Germans, perhaps as shocked as the Allies by the devastating effects of the poison gas, failed to take full advantage, and the Allies held most of their positions.

A second gas attack, against a Canadian division, on April 24, pushed the Allies further back, and by May they had retreated to the town of Ypres. The Second Battle of Ypres ended on May 25, with insignificant gains for the Germans. The introduction of poison gas, however, would have great significance in World War I.

Immediately after the German gas attack at Ypres, France and Britain began developing their own chemical weapons and gas masks. With the Germans taking the lead, an extensive number of projectiles filled with deadly substances polluted the trenches of World War I. Mustard gas, introduced by the Germans in 1917, blistered the skin, eyes, and lungs, and killed thousands. Military strategists defended the use of poison gas by saying it reduced the enemy's ability to respond and thus saved lives in offensives. In reality, defenses against poison gas usually kept pace with offensive developments, and both sides employed sophisticated gas masks and protective clothing that essentially negated the strategic importance of chemical weapons.
READ MORE: Tech Developments of World War I
The United States, which entered World War I in 1917, also developed and used chemical weapons. Future president Harry S. Truman was the captain of a U.S. field artillery unit that fired poison gas against the Germans in 1918. In all, more than 100,000 tons of chemical weapons agents were used in World War I, some 500,000 troops were injured, and almost 30,000 died, including 2,000 Americans.

In the years following World War I, Britain, France, and Spain used chemical weapons in various colonial struggles, despite mounting international criticism of chemical warfare. In 1925, the Geneva Protocol of 1925 banned the use of chemical weapons in war but did not outlaw their development or stockpiling. Most major powers built up substantial chemical weapons reserves. In the 1930s, Italy employed chemical weapons against Ethiopia, and Japan used them against China.

In World War II, chemical warfare did not occur, primarily because all the major belligerents possessed both chemical weapons and the defenses-such as gas masks, protective clothing, and detectors-that rendered them ineffectual. In addition, in a war characterized by lightning-fast military movement, strategists opposed the use of anything that would delay operations. Germany, however, did use poison gas to murder millions in its extermination camps.

Since World War II, chemical weapons have only been used in a handful of conflicts-the Yemeni conflict of 1966-67, the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88-and always against forces that lacked gas masks or other simple defenses. In 1990, the United States and the Soviet Union signed an agreement to cut their chemical weapons arsenals by 80 percent in an effort to discourage smaller nations from stockpiling the weapons. In 1993, an international treaty was signed banning the production, stockpiling (after 2007), and use of chemical weapons. It took effect in 1997.

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On April 22, 1915, German forces shock Allied soldiers along the western front by firing more than 150 tons of lethal chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions at Ypres, Belgium. This was the first major gas attack by the Germans, and it devastated the Allied line.

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WWI The First Modern War: The Germans Release the First WMD | History

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A list of some of the most common and innovative weapons of the First World War.

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Britain's blockade across the North Sea and the English Channel cut the flow of war supplies, food, and fuel to Germany during World War I. Germany retaliated by using its submarines to destroy neutral ships that were supplying the Allies. The formidable U-boats ( unterseeboots) prowled the Atlantic armed with torpedoes. They were Germany's only weapon of advantage as Britain effectively blocked German ports to supplies. The goal was to starve Britain before the British blockade defeated Germany.

On May 7, 1915, German submarine U-20 torpedoed the Lusitania, a Cunard passenger liner, off the coast of Ireland. Nearly 1,200 men, women, and children, including 128 Americans, lost their lives. The Allies and Americans considered the sinking an act of indiscriminate warfare. The Germans asserted the Lusitania was carrying war matériel and was therefore a legitimate target.

Faced with the possibility that the U.S. might go to war over the incident, Germany backed down and ordered its U-boat fleet to spare passenger vessels. The order, however, was temporary.

Germany built new and larger U-boats to punch holes in the British blockade, which was threatening to starve Germany out of the war. In 1914, Germany had just 20 U-boats. By 1917, it had 140 and the U-boats had destroyed about 30 percent of the world's merchant ships.

At the dawn of 1917, the German high command forced a return to the policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, engineering the dismissal of opponents of the policy that aimed to sink more than 600,000 tons of shipping a month. Germany was already experiencing food shortages and had imposed unpopular compulsory service either in armed forces or war industries. They hoped to break the British stranglehold blockade of crucial German supply ports and knock Britain out of the war within the year.

U-boats resumed unrestricted attacks against all ships in the Atlantic, including civilian passenger carriers. Although concerned the U.S. might react with intervention, German military leaders calculated they could defeat the allies before the U.S. could mobilize and arm troops to land in Europe.

Although President Wilson formally broke diplomatic relations in February 1917 when the unrestricted submarine warfare resumed, he was still unsure how far public support had moved. He declined to ask Congress for a declaration of war at that time, arguing that Germany had still not committed any "actual overt acts" warranting a military response.

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Britain's blockade across the North Sea and the English Channel cut the flow of war supplies, food, and fuel to Germany during World War I. Germany retaliated by using its submarines to destroy neutral ships that were supplying the Allies. The formidable U-boats ( unterseeboots) prowled the Atlantic armed with torpedoes.

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German submarine from ww1

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Ww1: someone using a machine gun

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World War I changed everything. From new countries to literature, from tanks to treaties and from flamethrowers to fashion, the conflict is still writ large on our lives 100 years on.

It gave birth to violent dictators and their ideologies but extended the electoral franchise to millions. It ushered in the era of mechanised warfare whilst laying the foundations for modern medicine. Empires crumbled, borders were redrawn, art movements flowered and women won the vote (even if you still had to be over 30 in some countries). Poets committed some of the most memorable imagery in modern verse to paper while a generation of writers would descend on Europe's war-torn cities and fashion a new style of literature.

After millions of men gave their lives on the battlefields of Europe, it was doubly tragic that a deadly influenza would claim up to 50 million more deaths in the conflict's immediate aftermath. World War I has given us daylight saving time, Dada, triage, chemical weapons, plastic surgery, fascism and, of course, another war. It invented new forms of killing and unearthed miraculous ways to save lives.

Wall Street Journal editors from around the world have selected 100 legacies that still shape our lives today. History is always open to interpretation, but as the war to end all wars retreats from living history, it feels more important than ever to remember its impact. It is everywhere you look.

Writers

Nathan Hodge, Art Patnaude, Tommy Stubbington, Andrew Peaple, Tom Mudd, Peter Evans, Sarah Sloat, Rory Jones, Alexis Flynn, Fiona Matthias, Harriet Torry, Alen Mattich, Chase Gummer, Laurence Eyton, Peter Stiff, Paul Hannon, Laurence Witherington, Gautam Naik, Christopher Lawton, Michael Wright, Neetha Mahadevan, Laurence Norman, Caitlan Reeg, Jovi Juan, Liza Hearon, Inti Landauro, Thomas Varela, Marcus Walker, Jake Lee, Shirley Wang, Stephen Fidler, Juhana Rossi, Will Lyons, Monica Houston-Waesch, Francesca Freeman, Peter Nurse, James Leigh, Max Colchester, Todd Buell, Frances Robinson, Adam Najberg, Matthew Walls, Yuka Hayashi, Jose DeCordoba, Selina Williams, Naftali Bendavid, David Winning, Geoffrey T. Smith, Charles Hutzler, Matina Stevis, Ayla Albayrak, Charles Forelle, Perry Cleveland-Peck

Editors

Tom Mudd, Laurence Eyton, Sheila Courter, Margaret de Streel, Matthew Walls, Adrian Kerr, Peter Stiff, Perry Cleveland-Peck, Sofia McFarland, Tina Fuhr, Lydia Serota, Ese Erheriene, Jon Sindreu, Yvonne Dennis, John Crowley

Multimedia Producers

Dipti Kapadia, Mark Kelly, Parminder Bahra, Miho Inada, Menglin Huang, Ayla Albayrak, Monika Vosough, Billy Higgins, Beckey Bright, Tom DiFonzo, George Downs, Pat Minczeski, Michael Ovaska

Designers & Developers

Jovi Juan, Renee Lightner, Elliot Bentley

Consultant

David Tattersfield from the Western Front Association

Published June 28, 2014 | Updated October 31, 2018

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World War I changed everything. From new countries to literature, from tanks to treaties and from flamethrowers to fashion, the conflict is still writ large on our lives 100 years on. It gave birth to violent dictators and their ideologies but extended the electoral franchise to millions.

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German ww1 tank

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The trench warfare of the Western Front resembled a siege, where enemy forces, shielded by trenches and fortifications, were difficult to see or to shoot with direct-fire weapons such as rifles. In close quarters fighting, especially in trenches, it was also difficult to inflict casualties on the enemy without exposing one's self in order to fire.

Dangerous Early Grenades

In attempting to fight through enemy trenches, or to defend against attack, all armies came to rely heavily on grenades. These simple, hand-thrown weapons had been invented hundreds of years before, but had not been widely used since the Napoleonic era. Reinvented by the requirements of trench warfare, the first grenades in 1914 were often hand-made, consisting of old cans filled with nails and bits of metal and packed with gunpowder. They often proved as dangerous to their makers as to their intended targets, due to the risk of premature explosion.

Dozens of Types of Grenades

By the end of 1915, all armies were being supplied with hand bombs. Rifle grenadiers fired specifically modified grenades from rifles, while the infantry on both sides carried dozens of different types. The Germans tended to prefer the stick bomb, which could be thrown farther but had a smaller explosive charge. The British and Canadians used egg-shaped hand grenades, which could be thrown about 30 metres (10 metres fewer than the German sticks), but carried a larger explosive charge.

Essential by 1917

By 1917, all infantry carried grenades. All major assaults required attacking troops to carry extra grenades to capture their objectives and then hold them against enemy counterattack.

Keep exploring with these topics:

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Weapons on Land - Grenades | Canada and the First World War

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The trench warfare of the Western Front resembled a siege, where enemy forces, shielded by trenches and fortifications, were difficult to see or to shoot with direct-fire weapons such as rifles. In close quarters fighting, especially in trenches, it was also difficult to inflict casualties on the enemy without exposing one's self in order to fire.

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by A. Torrey McLean
Reprinted with permission from Tar Heel Junior Historian, Spring 1993.
Tar Heel Junior Historian Association, NC Museum of History

See also: WWI: Life on the Western Front

One of the saddest facts about World War I is that millions died needlessly because military and civilian leaders were slow to adapt their old-fashioned strategies and tactics to the new weapons of 1914. New technology made war more horrible and more complex than ever before. The United States and other countries felt the effects of the war for years afterwards.

The popular image of World War I is soldiers in muddy trenches and dugouts, living miserably until the next attack. This is basically correct. Technological developments in engineering, metallurgy, chemistry, and optics had produced weapons deadlier than anything known before. The power of defensive weapons made winning the war on the western front all but impossible for either side.

When attacks were ordered, Allied soldiers went "over the top," climbing out of their trenches and crossing no-man's-land to reach enemy trenches. They had to cut through belts of barbed wire before they could use rifles, bayonets, pistols, and hand grenades to capture enemy positions. A victory usually meant they had seized only a few hundred yards of shell-torn earth at a terrible cost in lives. Wounded men often lay helpless in the open until they died. Those lucky enough to be rescued still faced horrible sanitary conditions before they could be taken to proper medical facilities. Between attacks,the snipers, artillery, and poison gas caused misery and death.

Airplanes, products of the new technology, were primarily made of canvas, wood, and wire. At first they were used only to observe enemy troops. As their effectiveness became apparent, both sides shot planes down with artillery from the ground and with rifles, pistols, and machine guns from other planes. In 1916, the Germans armed planes with machine guns that could fire forward without shooting off the fighters' propellers. The Allies soon armed their airplanes the same way, and war in the air became a deadly business. These light, highly maneuverable fighter planes attacked each other in wild air battles called dogfights. Pilots who were shot down often remained trapped in their falling, burning planes, for they had no parachutes. Airmen at the front did not often live long. Germany also used its fleet of huge dirigibles, or zeppelins, and large bomber planes to drop bombs on British and French cities. Britain retaliated by bombing German cities.

Back on the ground, the tank proved to be the answer to stalemate in the trenches. This British invention used American-designed caterpillar tracks to move the armored vehicle equipped with machine guns and sometimes light cannon. Tanks worked effectively on firm, dry ground, in spite of their slow speed, mechanical problems, and vulnerability to artillery. Able to crush barbed wire and cross trenches, tanks moved forward through machine gun fire and often terrified German soldiers with their unstoppable approach.

Chemical warfare first appeared when the Germans used poison gas during a surprise attack in Flanders, Belgium, in 1915. At first, gas was just released from large cylinders and carried by the wind into nearby enemy lines. Later, phosgene and other gases were loaded into artillery shells and shot into enemy trenches. The Germans used this weapon the most, realizing that enemy soldiers wearing gas masks did not fight as well. All sides used gas frequently by 1918. Its use was a frightening development that caused its victims a great deal of suffering, if not death.

Both sides used a variety of big guns on the western front, ranging from huge naval guns mounted on railroad cars to short-range trench mortars. The result was a war in which soldiers near the front were seldom safe from artillery bombardment. The Germans used super-long-range artillery to shell Paris from almost eighty miles away. Artillery shell blasts created vast, cratered, moonlike landscapes where beautiful fields and woods had once stood.

Perhaps the most significant technological advance during World War I was the improvement of the machine gun, a weapon originally developed by an American, Hiram Maxim. The Germans recognized its military potential and had large numbers ready to use in 1914. They also developed air-cooled machine guns for airplanes and improved those used on the ground, making them lighter and easier to move. The weapon's full potential was demonstrated on the Somme battlefield in July 1916 when German machine guns killed or wounded almost 60,000 British soldiers in only one day.

At sea, submarines attacked ships far from port. In order to locate and sink German U-boats, British scientists developed underwater listening devices and underwater explosives called depth charges. Warships became faster and more powerful than ever before and used newly invented radios to communicate effectively. The British naval blockade of Germany, which was made possible by developments in naval technology, brought a total war to civilians. The blockade caused a famine that finally brought about the collapse of Germany and its allies in late 1918. Starvation and malnutrition continued to take the lives of German adults and children for years after the war.

The firing stopped on November 11, 1918, but modern war technology had changed the course of civilization. Millions had been killed, gassed, maimed, or starved. Famine and disease continued to rage through central Europe, taking countless lives. Because of rapid technological advances in every area, the nature of warfare had changed forever, affecting soldiers, airmen, sailors, and civilians alike.
A. Torrey McLean, a former United States Army officer who served in Vietnam, studied World War I for more than thirty years, personally interviewing a number of World War I veterans.

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by A. Torrey McLean Reprinted with permission from Tar Heel Junior Historian, Spring 1993. Tar Heel Junior Historian Association, NC Museum of History See also: WWI: Life on the Western Front One of the saddest facts about World War I is that millions died needlessly because military and civilian leaders were slow to adapt their old-fashioned strategies and tactics to the new weapons of 1914.

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Title: What was life like in a World War One trench? - BBC Bitesize

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The planning and conduct of war in 1914 were crucially influenced by the invention of new weapons and the improvement of existing types since the Franco-German War of 1870-71. The chief developments of the intervening period had been the machine gun and the rapid-fire field artillery gun. The modern machine gun, which had been developed in the 1880s and '90s, was a reliable belt-fed gun capable of sustained rates of extremely rapid fire; it could fire 600 bullets per minute with a range of more than 1,000 yards (900 metres). In the realm of field artillery, the period leading up to the war saw the introduction of improved breech-loading mechanisms and brakes. Without a brake or recoil mechanism, a gun lurched out of position during firing and had to be re-aimed after each round. The new improvements were epitomized in the French 75-millimetre field gun; it remained motionless during firing, and it was not necessary to readjust the aim in order to bring sustained fire on a target.

See how No Man's Land between World War I trenches led to the use of chemical weapons, tanks, and warplanes

Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. See all videos for this article

Machine guns and rapid-firing artillery, when used in combination with trenches and barbed-wire emplacements, gave a decided advantage to the defense, since these weapons' rapid and sustained firepower could decimate a frontal assault by either infantry or cavalry.

There was a considerable disparity in 1914 between the deadly effectiveness of modern armaments and the doctrinal teachings of some armies. The South African War and the Russo-Japanese War had revealed the futility of frontal infantry or cavalry attacks on prepared positions when unaccompanied by surprise, but few military leaders foresaw that the machine gun and the rapid-firing field gun would force armies into trenches in order to survive. Instead, war was looked upon by many leaders in 1914 as a contest of national wills, spirit, and courage. A prime example of this attitude was the French army, which was dominated by the doctrine of the offensive. French military doctrine called for headlong bayonet charges of French infantrymen against the German rifles, machine guns, and artillery. German military thinking, under the influence of Alfred, Graf von Schlieffen, sought, unlike the French, to avoid frontal assaults but rather to achieve an early decision by deep flanking attacks; and at the same time to make use of reserve divisions alongside regular formations from the outset of war. The Germans paid greater attention to training their officers in defensive tactics using machine guns, barbed wire, and fortifications.

The initial stages of the war

Initial strategies

Years before 1914, successive chiefs of the German general staff had been foreseeing Germany's having to fight a war on two fronts at the same time, against Russia in the east and France in the west, whose combined strength was numerically superior to the Central Powers'. The elder Helmuth von Moltke, chief of the German general staff from 1858 to 1888, decided that Germany should stay at first on the defensive in the west and deal a crippling blow to Russia's advanced forces before turning to counterattack the French advance. His immediate successor, Alfred von Waldersee, also believed in staying on the defensive in the west. Alfred, Graf von Schlieffen, who served as chief of the German general staff from 1891 to 1905, took a contrary view, and it was the plan he developed that was to guide Germany's initial wartime strategy. Schlieffen realized that on the outbreak of war Russia would need six full weeks to mobilize and assemble its vast armies, given the immense Russian countryside and population, the sparsity of the rail network, and the inefficiency of the government bureaucracy. Taking advantage of this fact, Schlieffen planned to initially adopt a purely defensive posture on the Eastern Front with a minimal number of troops facing Russia's slowly gathering armies. Germany would instead concentrate almost all of its troops in the west against France and would seek to bypass France's frontier fortifications by an offensive through neutral Belgium to the north. This offensive would sweep westward and then southward through the heart of northern France, capturing the capital and knocking that country out of the war within a few weeks. Having gained security in the west, Germany would then shift its troops to the east and destroy the Russian menace with a similar concentration of forces.

By the time of his retirement in 1905, Schlieffen had elaborated a plan for a great wheeling movement of the right (northern) wing of the German armies not only through central Belgium but also, in order to bypass the Belgian fortresses of Liège and Namur in the Meuse valley, through the southernmost part of the Netherlands. With their right wing entering France near Lille, the Germans would continue to wheel westward until they were near the English Channel; they would then turn southward so as to sever the French armies' line of retreat from France's eastern frontier to the south; and the outermost arc of the wheel would sweep southward west of Paris, in order to avoid exposing the German right flank to a counterstroke launched from the city's outskirts. If the Schlieffen Plan succeeded, Germany's armies would simultaneously encircle the French army from the north, overrun all of northeastern France, and capture Paris, thus forcing France into a humiliating surrender. The large wheeling movement that the plan envisaged required correspondingly large forces for its execution, in view of the need to keep up the numerical strength of the long-stretched marching line and the need to leave adequate detachments on guard over the Belgian fortresses that had been bypassed. Accordingly, Schlieffen allocated nearly seven-eighths of Germany's available troop strength to the execution of the wheeling movement by the right and centre wings, leaving only one-eighth to face a possible French offensive on Germany's western frontier. Thus, the maximum of strength was allocated to the wheel's edge-that is, to the right. Schlieffen's plan was observed by the younger Helmuth von Moltke, who became chief of the general staff in 1906. Moltke was still in office when war broke out in 1914.

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World War I - Military technology and initial strategies

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The modern machine gun and the rapid-fire field artillery gun changed how warfare was conducted, and existing military plans did not always reflect this fact. Initially Germany followed the Schlieffen Plan, which called for a defensive posture on the Eastern Front and launching a massive offensive attack on France.

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History >>World War I

Aviation and Aircraft of WWI

World War I was the first major war where airplanes were used as a significant part of the military. The airplane was invented by the Wright Brothers in 1903, just 11 years before the start of World War I. When the war first began, aircraft played a small role in warfare, but, by the end of the war, the air force had become an important branch of the armed forces.

German Albatros by a German official photographer
German fighter planes lined up for takeoff

Reconnaissance

The first use of airplanes in World War I was for reconnaissance. The airplanes would fly above the battlefield and determine the enemy's movements and position. One of the first major contributions of airplanes in the war was at the First Battle of the Marne where Allied reconnaissance planes spotted a gap in the German lines. The Allies attacked this gap and were able to split the German armies and drive them back.

Bombings

As the war progressed, both sides began to use aircraft to drop bombs on strategic enemy locations. The first planes used for bombings could only carry small bombs and were very vulnerable to attack from the ground. By the end of the war, faster long-range bombers were built that could carry a much larger weight of bombs.

Machine Guns and Dogfights

With more planes taking to the skies, enemy pilots began to fight each other in the air. At first, they tried throwing grenades at each other or shooting with rifles and pistols. This didn't work very well.

Pilots soon found that the best way to shoot down an enemy plane was with a mounted machine gun. However, if the machine gun was mounted at the front of the plane, the propeller would get in the way of the bullets. An invention called an "interrupter" was invented by the Germans that allowed the machine gun to be synchronized with the propeller. Soon all fighter planes used this invention.

With mounted machine guns, pilots often fought enemy pilots in the air. These fights in the air were called dogfights. The best of the pilots became famous and were nicknamed "aces."

The British Sopwith Camel fighter plane

Types of WWI Aircraft

Each side used a number of different airplanes throughout the war. Constant improvements were made in the design of the planes as the war progressed.

Bristol Type 22 - British two-seater fighter plane.

Fokker Eindecker - Single-seat German fighter plane. The Fokker was perhaps the most famous fighter plane during WWI as it introduced the synchronized machine gun and provided Germany with air superiority for a period of time during the war.

Siemens-Schuckert - Single-seat German fighter plane.

Sopwith Camel - Single-seat British fighter plane.

Handley Page 0/400 - Long range British bomber.

Gotha G V - Long range German bomber.

WWI Airplane Markings

When the war first started, the planes were just regular planes without any military markings. Unfortunately, ground troops would try to shoot down any plane they saw and sometimes shot down their own plane. Eventually, countries began to mark their planes under the wing so that they could be identified from the ground. Here are some of the markings used during the war.

Airships

Floating airships were also used during World War I for both reconnaissance and bombings. Germany, France, and Italy all used airships. The Germans made the most use of airships, using them extensively in bombing campaigns over Britain. Airships were often used in naval battles as well.

Famous WWI Fighter Pilots

The best fighter pilots in World War I were called "aces." Every time a fighter pilot shot down another plane, he claimed a "victory." Aces kept track of their victories and became heroes in their respective countries. Here are a few of the most decorated and famous fighter pilots.

Manfred von Richthofen: German, 80 victories. Also known as the Red Baron.

Ernst Udet: German, 62 victories. Famous for using a parachute to survive getting shot down.

Werner Voss: German, 48 victories.

Edward Mannock: British, 73 victories. The most victories of any British ace.

William A. Bishop: Canadian, 72 victories.

Rene Fonck: French, 75 victories. The most victories of any Allied ace.

Georges Guynemer: French, 53 victories.

Eddie Rickenbacker: American, 26 victories. The most victories of any American ace.

Interesting Facts about the Aviation and Aircraft of WWI

The Fokker Eindecker airplane became known as the Fokker Scourge when it was first used against the Allies by the Germans.

The Germans called their airships Zeppelin's after their builder Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin.

The first aircraft carriers were constructed during World War I. The first time a carrier-based airplane attacked a land target was in July of 1918 near the end of the war.

The planes used in WWI were much slower than the planes used today. Top speeds were usually just over 100 miles per hour. The Handley Page bomber topped out at about 97 miles per hour.

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History >>World War I

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Learn about aviation and aircraft of World War I. Airplanes were first used in WW1 for reconnaissance and bombings. Famous fighter pilots called aces fought each other in the sky.

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World War I was less than one year old when British writer H. G. Wells lamented the fate of humanity at the hands of "man's increasing power of destruction" (H. G. Wells, "Civilization at the Breaking Point," New York Times, May 27, 1915, 2). Although considered a father of science fiction, Wells was observing something all too real-technology had changed the face of combat in World War I and ultimately accounted for an unprecedented loss of human life.

[Detail] "Huge siege guns of the Central Powers used in the smashing of forts." War of the Nations, 110.

Infantry warfare had depended upon hand-to-hand combat. World War I popularized the use of the machine gun-capable of bringing down row after row of soldiers from a distance on the battlefield. This weapon, along with barbed wire and mines, made movement across open land both difficult and dangerous. Thus trench warfare was born. The British introduced tanks in 1916; they were used with airplanes and artillery to advance the front. The advent of chemical warfare added to the soldier's perils.

"French, British, and German Types of Battle Tanks." War of the Nations, 167.

Sea and airborne weapons made killing from a distance more effective as well. Guns mounted on ships were able to strike targets up to twenty miles inland. The stealth and speed of German submarines gave Germany a considerable advantage in its dominance of the North Sea. Although airplanes were technologically crude, they offered a psychological advantage. Fighter pilot aces such as Manfred von Richthofen, Germany's "Red Baron," became celebrities and heroes, capturing the world's imagination with their daring and thrilling mid-air maneuvers.

[Detail] "The Insidious and Deadly Gas That Creeps Noiselessly Down Toward the Foe." War of the Nations, 210.

Newspapers charted the public's reaction-horror and vengeance-to these technological advancements. A few weeks after the Germans first used poison gas in Ypres, Belgium, on April 22, 1915, a London newswire to the New York Times described the brutal details of the attack and the immediate effects on the soldiers, concluding: "It is without doubt the most awful form of scientific torture." Yet a Daily Chronicle [London] editorial urged Britain to retaliate with poison gas use of its own (quoted in New York Times, May 7, 1915, 2). In fact, Germany claimed that the Allies were already using mines charged with poison gas. So horrified were people by chemical warfare that the use of poison gases was banned for future wars, although not until 1925.

When Germany's plan for a swift military victory went unrealized, the pace of war bogged down. Both sides tried to break this stalemate through the use of force. In previous wars, victory was achieved through territorial supremacy; in World War I it was accomplished by simply outlasting the opponent-a "war of attrition." When fighting first broke out in August 1914, many hoped the war would be short-lived; few predicted a conflict that would last for more than four years and scar an entire generation with its unprecedented brutality.

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Military Technology in World War I | Articles & Essays | Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures, 1914-1919 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

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World War I was less than one year old when British writer H. G. Wells lamented the fate of humanity at the hands of "man's increasing power of destruction" (H. G. Wells, "Civilization at the Breaking Point," New York Times, May 27, 1915, 2).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
World War I was less than one year old when British writer H. G. Wells lamented the fate of humanity at the hands of "man's increasing power of destruction" (H. G. Wells, "Civilization at the Breaking Point," New York Times, May 27, 1915, 2). Although considered a father of science fiction, Wells was observing something all too real-technology had changed the face of combat in World War I and ultimately accounted for an unprecedented loss of human life.

[Detail] "Huge siege guns of the Central Powers used in the smashing of forts." War of the Nations, 110.

Infantry warfare had depended upon hand-to-hand combat. World War I popularized the use of the machine gun-capable of bringing down row after row of soldiers from a distance on the battlefield. This weapon, along with barbed wire and mines, made movement across open land both difficult and dangerous. Thus trench warfare was born. The British introduced tanks in 1916; they were used with airplanes and artillery to advance the front. The advent of chemical warfare added to the soldier's perils.

"French, British, and German Types of Battle Tanks." War of the Nations, 167.

Sea and airborne weapons made killing from a distance more effective as well. Guns mounted on ships were able to strike targets up to twenty miles inland. The stealth and speed of German submarines gave Germany a considerable advantage in its dominance of the North Sea. Although airplanes were technologically crude, they offered a psychological advantage. Fighter pilot aces such as Manfred von Richthofen, Germany's "Red Baron," became celebrities and heroes, capturing the world's imagination with their daring and thrilling mid-air maneuvers.

[Detail] "The Insidious and Deadly Gas That Creeps Noiselessly Down Toward the Foe." War of the Nations, 210.

Newspapers charted the public's reaction-horror and vengeance-to these technological advancements. A few weeks after the Germans first used poison gas in Ypres, Belgium, on April 22, 1915, a London newswire to the New York Times described the brutal details of the attack and the immediate effects on the soldiers, concluding: "It is without doubt the most awful form of scientific torture." Yet a Daily Chronicle [London] editorial urged Britain to retaliate with poison gas use of its own (quoted in New York Times, May 7, 1915, 2). In fact, Germany claimed that the Allies were already using mines charged with poison gas. So horrified were people by chemical warfare that the use of poison gases was banned for future wars, although not until 1925.

When Germany's plan for a swift military victory went unrealized, the pace of war bogged down. Both sides tried to break this stalemate through the use of force. In previous wars, victory was achieved through territorial supremacy; in World War I it was accomplished by simply outlasting the opponent-a "war of attrition." When fighting first broke out in August 1914, many hoped the war would be short-lived; few predicted a conflict that would last for more than four years and scar an entire generation with its unprecedented brutality.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Military Technology in World War I | Articles & Essays | Newspaper Pictorials: World War I Rotogravures, 1914-1919 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
World War I was less than one year old when British writer H. G. Wells lamented the fate of humanity at the hands of "man's increasing power of destruction" (H. G. Wells, "Civilization at the Breaking Point," New York Times, May 27, 1915, 2).

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World War I was a war of trenches.

After the early war of movement in the late summer of 1914, artillery and machine guns forced the armies on the Western Front to dig trenches to protect themselves. Fighting ground to a stalemate. Over the next four years, both sides would launch attacks against the enemy's trench lines, attacks that resulted in horrific casualties.

Inside a trench, all that is visible is just a few feet on either side, ending at the trench walls in front and back, with a patch of leaden sky visible above. Trenches in WWI were constructed with sandbags, wooden planks, woven sticks, tangled barbed wire or even just stinking mud.

Despite the use of wooden plank 'duckboards' and sandbags to keep out the water, soldiers on the front lines lived mired in mud. "The mud in Belgium varies in consistency from water to about the thickness of dough ready for the oven," one British infantry soldier wrote. The constant damp often led to a condition known as 'trenchfoot,' which if left untreated, could require amputation to stave off severe infection or even death.

Trenches became trash dumps of the detritus of war: broken ammunition boxes, empty cartridges, torn uniforms, shattered helmets, soiled bandages, shrapnel balls, bone fragments. Trenches were also places of despair, becoming long graves when they collapsed from the weight of the war.

'No-man's land,' was an ancient term that gained terrible new meaning during WWI. The constant bombardment of modern artillery and rapid firing of machine guns created a nightmarish wasteland between the enemies' lines, littered with tree stumps and snarls of barbed wire. In battle, soldiers had to charge out of the trenches and across no-man's land into a hail of bullets and shrapnel and poison gas. They were easy targets and casualties were enormously high. By the end of 1914, after just five months of fighting, the number of dead and wounded exceeded four million men.

The trench systems on the Western Front were roughly 475 miles long, stretching from the English Channel to the Swiss Alps, although not in a continuous line. Though trenches offered some protection, they were still incredibly dangerous, as soldiers easily became trapped or killed because of direct hits from artillery fire.

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World War I was a war of trenches. After the early war of movement in the late summer of 1914, artillery and machine guns forced the armies on the Western Front to dig trenches to protect themselves. Fighting ground to a stalemate.

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Conditions in Trenches - Dan Snow's Battle of the Somme

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What were the trenches?

Although most of us think primarily of the Great War in terms of life and death in the trenches, only a relatively small proportion of the army actually served there. The trenches were the front lines: the most dangerous places. But behind them was a mass of supply lines, training establishments, stores, workshops, headquarters and all the other elements of the 1914-1918 system of war, in which the majority of troops were employed. The trenches were the domain of the infantry, with the supporting arms of the mortars and machine-guns, the engineers, the medics and the forward positions of the artillery observers.

Why were the trenches there?

The idea of digging into the ground to give some protection from powerful enemy artillery and small arms fire was not a new idea or unique to the Great War. It had been widely practiced in the US Civil War, the Russian-Japanese war and other fairly recent wars. Trench warfare of the First World War can be said to have begun in September 1914 and ended when the Allies made a breakthrough attack that began in late July 1918. Before and after those dates were wars of movement: in between it was a war of entrenchment. The massive armies of both sides dug in to take cover and hold their ground. By November 1914 there was a continuous line of trenches covering some 400 miles from Switzerland to the North Sea. There was no way round.

What were the trenches like?

The type and nature of the trench positions varied a lot, depending on the local conditions. For example, in the area of the River Somme in France the ground is chalky and is easily dug. The trench sides will crumble easily after rain, so would be built up ('revetted') with wood, sandbags or any other suitable material. At Ypres in Belgium the ground is naturally boggy and the water table very high, so trenches were not really dug, but more built up using sandbags and wood (these were called 'breastworks'). In parts of Italy, trenches were dug in rock; in Palestine in desert. In France the trenches ran through towns and villages, through industrial works, coalmines, brickyards, across railway tracks, through farms, fields and woods, across rivers, canals and streams. Each feature presented its own set of challenges for the men who had to dig in and defend. In the major offensives of 1915, 1916 and 1917 many trench positions were only held for a few days at a time before the next advance moved them on into what had been no man's land or the enemy position. These trenches were scratch affairs, created as the advancing troops dug in, and were sometimes little more than 18 inches deep.

Imperial War Museum image Q62. British troops asleep in a support trench during the preliminary bombardment, previous to the attack on Beaumont Hamel, 1st July 1916. Note scaling ladders (duckboards) across trench. By most standards this would have been regarded as useful shelter but a poor trench: it has no dugouts, does not seem to have any duckboarding or revetment, and has no bays. An enemy shell bursting in this trench would give the men little chance of survival.

From simple hole in the ground to formidable defensive systems

The bird's-eye view (above, from an official infantry training manual of March 1916) shows a typical but very stylised trench layout. There is a front line, or "Main Fire Trench" facing the enemy. It is not straight, but follows contours or other natural features allowing good defence or a view over the enemy lines. Thousands of men became casualties in fighting for, or making small adjustments to their lines, to give this cover or observation. It also is dug in sections rather than a straight line, so if a shell explodes inside one of these 'bays' (also called 'traverses'), or an enemy gets into one, only that section is affected.

Behind it is another line, similarly made, called a support line. In this would be found 'dugouts' cut into the side of the trench wall, often very small but with room for perhaps three or four men to squeeze in for shelter, or for a telephone position for a signaller, or for a Platoon or Company HQ. Communication trenches linked the rear areas with both lines, and it was along these that all men, equipment and supplies had to be fetched, by hand. Probing out from the front line were trenches usually called 'saps', which often went beyond the protective belts of barbed wire, terminating somewhere in 'no man's land' between the two opposing front lines in a listening post, manned by one or two infantrymen. The cross-section shows how the front and rear of the trench was ideally protected and built up using sandbags at the front and rear, or 'parapet' and 'parados'.

The enemy had a very similar system of trenches. The distance between the two lines varied from as little as 30 yards (just under 30m) to several hundred yards. The space between the two opposing lines was called no man's land. It was difficult to consolidate a captured enemy trench - in effect it had to be turned round as you now needed to have a protected front at what had been the unprotected rear when the enemy held it.

As defensive and offensive tactics developed later in the war, trench positions became formidable fortresses with barbed wire belts tens of yards deep in front of them, with concrete shelters and emplacements, often below ground level. Machine guns would be permanently trained on gaps deliberately left in the wire, and the artillery would also have the positions registered for firing at short notice.

A typical trench system eventually consisted of three main fire or support trenches, connected by communication trenches and with various posts, strong points and saps. By 1916, the German system of defence had three or four such trench systems layered back over a distance of a couple of miles. By 1917, the system had deepened even further so that the Allied assaults of 1918 faced complex defensive systems that were several miles deep.

Living conditions

Trench conditions varied widely between different theatres of war, different sectors within a theatre, and with the time of year and weather. Trench life was however always one of considerable squalor, with so many men living in a very constrained space. Scraps of discarded food, empty tins and other waste, the nearby presence of the latrine, the general dirt of living half underground and being unable to wash or change for days or weeks at a time created conditions of severe health risk (and that is not counting the military risks). Vermin including rats and lice were very numerous; disease was spread both by them, and by the maggots and flies that thrived on the nearby remains of decomposing human and animal corpses. Troops in the trenches were also subjected to the weather: the winter of 1916-1917 in France and Flanders was the coldest in living memory; the trenches flooded in the wet, sometimes to waist height, whenever it rained. Men suffered from exposure, frostbite, trench foot (a wasting disease of the flesh caused by the foot being wet and cold, constrained into boots and puttees, for days on end, that would cripple a man), and many diseases brought on or made worse by living in such a way.

Where possible, the floor of the trench was made by using wooden duckboards. One of the features the diagrams above do not show is the latrine, which had to be dug somewhere close to hand. This was generally as deep a hole in the ground as possible, over which was mounted a plank to sit on. Men would, with permission, leave their post to use the latrine. This rough form of sanitation was often a target for enemy snipers and shellfire and was also a considerable smell and health hazard for the men in the trenches.

How long would a man have to be in a trench?

A general pattern for trench routine was for a man and his section to spend 4 days in the front line, then 4 days in close reserve and finally 4 at rest, although this varied enormously depending on conditions, the weather and the availability of enough reserve troops to be able to rotate them in this way. In close reserve, men had to be ready to reinforce the line at very short notice. They may have been in a trench system just behind the front system or in the dubious shelter of a ruined village or wood. The relief of a unit after its time in the front by a fresh one was always an anxious time, as the noise and obvious activity increased the risk of attracting enemy attention in the form of shelling, machine-gun fire or even a raid at the very time when the manning of the position was changing. Once the incoming unit had relieved the outgoing one, various precautionary actions would be taken. At least one man in four (at night, and perhaps one in ten by day) were posted as sentries on look-out duty, often in saps dug a little way ahead of the main fire trench. They would listen for sounds that might indicate enemy activity, and try to observe such activity across no man's land. The other men would be posted into the fire trench or support trench, in sections. Unless they were a specialist such as a signaller or machine-gunner, men would inevitably be assigned to carrying, repair or digging parties, or sent under cover of dark to put out or repair barbed wire defences.

Other than when a major action was underway, trench life was usually very tedious and hard physical work. Officers had to ensure that there was if possible a balance between the need for work against the enemy, on building and repairing trench defences and for rest and sleep. This could only be done by a good system with a definite system of rotas and a work timetable. Obviously, in times of battle or extended alerts, such a routine would be broken, but such times were a small proportion of the time in the trenches. The main enemies were the weather and boredom. The loss of concentration - leaving oneself exposed to sniper fire, for example - could prove deadly. At dawn and dusk, the whole British line was ordered to 'Stand To!' - which meant a period of manning the trench in preparation for an enemy attack.

All of the men posted to the fire trench and most of those in the support trench had to wear their equipment at all times. Men in the front line had to keep their bayonets fixed during hours of darkness or mist, or whenever there was an alert of enemy activity. A man could not leave his post without permission of his immediate commander, and an officer had to approve him leaving the trench. One officer per Company was on trench duty at all times, and his NCOs had to report to him hourly. He was under orders to move continually up and down his assigned trenches, checking that the equipment was in good state, that the sentries were alert and that the men were as comfortable as the conditions allowed. The NCOs had to inspect the men's rifles twice daily and otherwise ensure that fighting equipment and ammunition was present and in good order. From mid-1915, every trench had some form of warning of gas attack. Often this was an empty shell casing, held up by wire or string, that would be hit (like a gong) with a piece of wood or similar. If the gas gong was heard, all officers and men would know that they had to put on their gas masks as soon as they could. Some of the gasses used were invisible, and if their delivery by gas shells popping on impact with the ground had not been heard, they could sometimes be detected by their distinctive smell. Every day, the battalion holding the line would request from the nearby Brigade workshop a list of stores it needed. Some special items such as wire 'knife rests' (a wooden support for a barbed wire entanglement), signboards, boxes, and floor gratings would be made up at Brigade and brought to the trenches ready to use. Sandbags, wood, cement, barbed wire, telephone cable, and other supplies would also be sent up as needed. Men would be sent back to Brigade as a carrying party to fetch it.

Rations and other supplies were invariably brought up at night, under cover of darkness. This was of course known to the enemy, who would shell and snipe at the known roads and tracks leading up to the front. The units holding the front would try to position their mobile field cookers so that the men could be provided with a hot meal, but this was not always possible. The men in the trenches would also cook - especially breakfast - using braziers in the trenches and dugouts. It was important that smoke from fires was masked so as not to give away a position.

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A soldier's life in the British Army

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Life in the trenches of the First World War

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Although most of us think primarily of the Great War in terms of life and death in the trenches, only a relatively small proportion of the army actually served there. The trenches were the front lines: the most dangerous places.

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World War I was a war of trenches.

After the early war of movement in the late summer of 1914, artillery and machine guns forced the armies on the Western Front to dig trenches to protect themselves. Fighting ground to a stalemate. Over the next four years, both sides would launch attacks against the enemy's trench lines, attacks that resulted in horrific casualties.

Inside a trench, all that is visible is just a few feet on either side, ending at the trench walls in front and back, with a patch of leaden sky visible above. Trenches in WWI were constructed with sandbags, wooden planks, woven sticks, tangled barbed wire or even just stinking mud.

Despite the use of wooden plank 'duckboards' and sandbags to keep out the water, soldiers on the front lines lived mired in mud. "The mud in Belgium varies in consistency from water to about the thickness of dough ready for the oven," one British infantry soldier wrote. The constant damp often led to a condition known as 'trenchfoot,' which if left untreated, could require amputation to stave off severe infection or even death.

Trenches became trash dumps of the detritus of war: broken ammunition boxes, empty cartridges, torn uniforms, shattered helmets, soiled bandages, shrapnel balls, bone fragments. Trenches were also places of despair, becoming long graves when they collapsed from the weight of the war.

'No-man's land,' was an ancient term that gained terrible new meaning during WWI. The constant bombardment of modern artillery and rapid firing of machine guns created a nightmarish wasteland between the enemies' lines, littered with tree stumps and snarls of barbed wire. In battle, soldiers had to charge out of the trenches and across no-man's land into a hail of bullets and shrapnel and poison gas. They were easy targets and casualties were enormously high. By the end of 1914, after just five months of fighting, the number of dead and wounded exceeded four million men.

The trench systems on the Western Front were roughly 475 miles long, stretching from the English Channel to the Swiss Alps, although not in a continuous line. Though trenches offered some protection, they were still incredibly dangerous, as soldiers easily became trapped or killed because of direct hits from artillery fire.

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World War I was a war of trenches. After the early war of movement in the late summer of 1914, artillery and machine guns forced the armies on the Western Front to dig trenches to protect themselves. Fighting ground to a stalemate.

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The Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF) Trenches exhibit is a general representation of several of the types of trenches American Soldiers encountered during their time in Europe during World War I. As you walk through the trench, many of the features of the defensive fortification are on display to present the daily experiences of Doughboys during the war. Some of the important sections of a large trench network are portrayed, such as an aid station, a headquarters, a mortar pit, and the deadly front lines. In front of the exhibit is No-Man's Land, complete with barbed-wire entanglements and pocked with artillery craters. In addition, signboards throughout the exhibit share the experiences of an AEF Soldier, Private Donald D. Kyler of Company G, 16th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division. Sections of his memoir accent gritty photography taken at the front during the battles in Western Europe.

The trenches crisscrossing Western Europe during World War I were not a new invention. Trench warfare was already in heavy use during the American Civil War, half a century before. World War I, however, brought the trench to maturity. When the deep hardened trench works combined with machine guns and increasingly efficient and deadly artillery, the only real fighting became devastating rushes and attacks by waves of Soldiers who either ended up slaughtered or only in possession of a few more yards of territory. Trench warfare was not in the original plans of the military powers prior to hostilities in 1914. Instead, the generals planned on a short, decisive war that would "be over by Christmas." The generals were sorely mistaken; Soldiers on the front lines during the first years of fighting found themselves facing machine guns and artillery that made offensive maneuver practically impossible. The tactical answer to these weapons was to use farm ditches and shell craters to take hasty positions of safety against the onslaught of lead and steel. Captured German Trench Click Picture for More Time and brutal fighting transformed the field-expedient positions into refined trench systems. Soon both sides had trenches running parallel to each other.

The induction centers themselves represented a significant accomplishment of planning and engineering. The Army used empty land in strategic locations all over the country to erect, in some cases in only a few short weeks, training facilities built of plywood, tar paper, and clap boards. Mess halls, vehicle garages, and barracks sprang up from nowhere, ready to accept the recruits and turn them into Soldiers The rudimentary buildings, built in a "modular" design, could be used for any purpose from sleeping quarters to training rooms. In addition, the simple constructions broke down easily and shipped anywhere, even to the United Kingdom or islands in the Pacific.

By the time the Americans entered the war, the trenches had been in use for years. The major features of the trenches were based around minimizing casualties from artillery bombardment and enemy raids. The trenches were built in a zig-zag pattern to keep raiding enemies from firing down the full length of the fortification. In the most developed trenches, dugouts for sleeping and protection from artillery, concrete reinforcement, and blind alleys for confusing penetrating enemies were common. The floors of the trenches were either mud and muck or, for the lucky Soldiers, made of wooden planks called "duckboards."

The trenches were, of course, for defense. Sections of trench line had machine gun emplacements set to cover any advances by the enemy, while other areas had specially camouflaged positions for snipers to hide in, taking aim at any Soldier who might stick his head up at the wrong time. Mortar pits, aid stations, and simple firing positions for riflemen dotted the front line, ready for the next fight. Connecting all of these positions to the command and control elements in the rear was another set of trenches in which Soldiers could move back and forth from the front lines in relative safety. Even behind the front, all movement outside the trench was dangerous due to the great range of enemy artillery.

Riflemen and machine gun crews faced the enemy trenches over a desolation known as "No-Man's Land." Each side placed increasingly complicated networks of barbed wired in front of their trench lines to slow down and stop advancing troops. In addition, batteries of artillery were registered specifically to pound No-Man's Land with massive barrages of shells should any attack be launched. Finally, the machine gun positions were ready to mow down any troops who made it past the artillery and barbed wire. The awful result of many failed attempts on this trifecta of murderous defense was the constant stench of dead and rotting enemy corpses floating into the trenches from the No-Man's Land.

The trench fortifications in Western Europe were by far the most visible geographical feature of the war. They were built in the first place because of the weapons systems developed before and during the war. The advent of machine guns, used in the tactical manner of the day, precipitated their primary position as a defensive weapon. Their extreme rate of fire and general mechanical reliability made them the primary force to be dealt with during any engagement, and were nearly impossible to attack against in an open field of battle. Artillery, the king of battle since the invention of gunpowder, also reached new levels of effectiveness.

Artillerymen had made an art out of the mathematics and engineering required to fire effective and deadly strikes against enemies, forcing the other side to dig in. It was common for batteries of artillery to fire millions of shells over the course of days at the enemy trenches to "soften the defenses" in preparation for an attack. The shells served to destroy the targeted trenches, force the enemy Soldiers into their dugouts and shelters, and cut the tangles of wire in front of their defenses. Machine guns and artillery were combined with poison gas attacks, sniper posts, and countless other horrors to make the Soldier's experience in the trenches utterly miserable.

The Americans entered the trench environment in 1917 with very little understanding of what awaited them. The Doughboys arrived in the front line trenches with French arms and untried commanders, but quickly became a premier fighting force. The addition of the American troops broke the stalemate and pushed the Germans back into Germany, forcing them into the armistice that ended the devastation of the First World War. Information about the American experience in World War I is available in countless biographies, autobiographies, and researched books available at any public library. The collections at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center feature the World War I veterans surveys and the unpublished memoirs and papers of many of our brave Soldiers who fought, and died, in the Great War.

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The Allied Expeditionary Force (AEF) Trenches exhibit is a general representation of several of the types of trenches American Soldiers encountered during their time in Europe during World War I. As you walk through the trench, many of the features of the defensive fortification are on display to present the daily experiences of Doughboys during the war.