How close were ww1 trenches?

The enemy trenches were generally around 50 to 250 yards apart. The typical trench was dug around twelve feet deep into the ground. There was often an embankment at the top of the trench and a barbed wire fence. Some trenches were reinforced with wood beams or sandbags.

According to John Hamilton in "Trench Fighting of World War I", (ABDO, 2003), the shortest recorded distance between German and British trenches was near Zonnebeke in Belgium. The opposing trenches were separated by a distance of approximately 7 metres (23 feet).

WW1 battlefields today

However, there are many sections of preserved trenches, such as those at Vimy near the Vimy Ridge Memorial, that stand as monuments to the fighting. They're great educational tools, giving some insight into the places men of many nations fought, lived, and died.

Barrages of immense artillery shells snuffed out lives by the thousands, trenches filled with water and rats and worse were home for months on end to weary soldiers, and geographical orientation was often impossible.

Soldiers rotated into and out of the front lines to provide a break from the stress of combat. They spent four to six days in the front trenches before moving back and spending an equal number of days in the secondary and, finally, the reserve trenches.

Mechanization, improved use of artillery, better communications, ground attack aircraft and improved battlefield intelligence all contributed but it was the way they were used, not the individual pieces of equipment that made trench warfare, an inherently non-agile defensive technique, less useful.

A soldier wounded in no-man's land would be left until it was safe to bring him back to his trench, usually at nightfall. Sadly, some soldiers died because they could not be reached soon enough. Sickness was also a major cause of casualty, and in some areas, more than 50 percent of deaths were due to disease.

Clearing the Battlefields

After 1918 the immense task of “clearing up” was carried out by the military and the civilians who were returning to their shattered communities. The landscape in the fighting lines had been smashed to pieces. Roads, woods, farms and villages were often no longer recognisable.

Google mapped Vimy Ridge on foot in 2016 and 2017, and now viewers can have a first-person perspective of the trenches, tunnels, and the iconic Canadian National Memorial at Vimy overlooking the battlefield. In Google Maps satellite view, the pock-marked battlefield is still visible today.

If walking through original trenches is what you really want to do, you can't miss Verdun. The region is peaceful now, but it is almost like nothing has changed here. There is so much to see! Trenches, bunkers, tunnels and large fortifications are all still here to be explored.

Following his death and funeral, there were two surviving World War I veterans, British-born Florence Green and British Australian citizen Claude Choules, both of whom served in the British Armed Forces. Choules died on May 5, 2011; Green died on February 4, 2012.

World War II was more brutal, and bloodier than anyone who survived the Great War could have imagined. The Second World War caused the deaths of around 60 million soldiers and civilians.

By far, artillery was the biggest killer in World War I, and provided the greatest source of war wounded.

Then there was the smell. Stinking mud mingled with rotting corpses, lingering gas, open latrines, wet clothes and unwashed bodies to produce an overpowering stench. The main latrines were located behind the lines, but front-line soldiers had to dig small waste pits in their own trenches.

The mud of the Great War was the remnants of human beings and of murdered nature, the by-product of modern industrial warfare fought on a scale that had never before been thought possible. It is not the same mud we know of today. The trenches of the Western Front were always “muddy”, even when it was dry.

More than nine million soldiers, sailors and airmen were killed in the First World War. A further five million civilians are estimated to have perished under occupation, bombardment, hunger and disease.

In their spare time, soldiers wrote letters and diaries, drew sketches, read books and magazines, pursued hobbies, played cards or gambled. There were also opportunities for more-organised social activities.

The German trenches were typically deeper and more heavily reinforced than British trenches. They were also designed with greater attention to detail, with features such as drainage systems to prevent flooding and machine gun emplacements strategically placed for maximum effectiveness.

France sought to take the offensive while Germany defended the occupied territories. Consequently, German trenches were much better constructed than those of their enemy; Anglo-French trenches were only intended to be “temporary” before their forces broke through the German defenses.

The Gallipoli campaign began with the Allied bombardment of Turkish defences on 19 January 1915, followed a few months later by the landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula early on 25 April. The campaign lasted until January 1916 and was a costly failure for the Allies, with heavy losses (44, 000 dead) and no gains made.

After a few months in crowded conditions on the peninsula, soldiers began to come down with dysentery and typhoid because of inadequate sanitation, unburied bodies and swarms of flies. Poor food, water shortages and exhaustion reduced the men's resistance to disease.

The Gallipoli campaign was intended to force Germany's ally, Turkey, out of the war. It began as a naval campaign, with British battleships sent to attack Constantinople (now Istanbul). This failed when the warships were unable to force a way through the straits known as the Dardanelles.

The Treaty of Versailles, signed following World War I, contained Article 231, commonly known as the “war guilt clause,” which placed all the blame for starting the war on Germany and its allies.

France and Belgium is still contaminated by remnants of war, UXOs and toxic chemical compounds. There is an area a few kilometers out of Verdun where trees do not grow. Only a few lichens and musks survive there. The few in the know call it “La Place à Gaz” (the Gas Place).

Ideally shower, clothing exchange, and repair were combined into a single operation to support the front line Soldiers. About once every week to ten days, Soldiers would go to the rear for their shower.

1919. Harris & Ewing Collection. Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division. The Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division has more than 76,000 images depicting World War I.

Overall, there are approximately 1,500 reels of significant World War I footage preserved in over 30 different collections in the film vaults of the National Archives. There are scenes from before the war and wartime action before America's involvement.