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Trench Warfare Essay

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Each side has their evidence as to why they believe what they believe. The continuation camp believes that trench warfare was a result of warfare over the past wars eventually evolving into what became trench warfare. On the other side, the break or transition camp believes that there was an event or other circumstance that caused warfare to completely change and become trench warfare. The first camp believes that there was no major break in the way warfare was fought and that trench warfare was the same as previous wars just fought in the trenches. In the second camp, the scholars believe the exact opposite of the first camp in that there was an event or idea that completely changed World War I warfare and created the new system of trench …show more content…

World War I saw several different weapon advancements that would literally change the way the war would be fought. The biggest and probably most significant weaponry advancement was the creation of the machine gun at the beginning of the war in 1914. Even though the machine gun had its problems with overheating and jamming, it was still a major killer on the battlefield. The machine gun could fire massive quantities of bullets in just a short amount of time and across a wide area. Unfortunately, the machine gun early on, required teams of men to use it which made the soldiers operating them more exposed to enemy gunfire because they were responsible for reloading and making sure the gun did not malfunction. The machine gun was a significant player in trench warfare and the shift towards it, in that it made defending trenches from enemy soldiers very easy for the defending troops because of the high fire rate and wide range of fire the machine gun had. The invention of the machine gun was a factor for the break of conventional warfare in World War I and for the emergence of trench warfare. The usual strategy that was used in prior wars was no good in World War I. Soldiers could no longer run at the enemy head on and attack them because the machine gun was too quick to out maneuver or ambush. With this advance in weaponry, there needed to be an advancement in mobility to counter or at least match the ferocity of the machine gun. Unfortunately, there was no advancements in mobility and the machine gun was able to tear through enemy forces with ease as there was a lack of mobility to provide protection for the defending forces. This caused troops to dig into the earth and build trench walls in order to defend themselves from the hail of machine gun

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