World War ITrench Warfare

Opening Drill

• What are positives and negatives towards trench warfare?

The Trench: Important points

Advantages:

• easy to make• easy to defend• cheap to build• You don’t need a lot of men

to defend them.

Disadvantages:

• wet, cold• hard to get in and out of

without being seen by the enemy.

• Trenches were very dirty there was no running water or flushing toilets.

• Created a stalemate

Stalemate

Trench Warfare

• Dug themselves into the ground

• Horrible conditions– Dead bodies– Rats– Lice Trench Fever

• Caused the war to drag on

Soldiers fought from within the trenches It was usually tight quarters

An aerial photograph of the trenches First line of defense

In the trenches

Not all trenches were deep. Many nations fought together

Fighting

Sometimes an easy target

Dangers of Trench life

Trenchfoot

From having wet feet most of the time and nowhere to dry them out

Dead bodies….

Left to rot in the trenches because of the machine gun fire that kept the soldiers in the trenches

An easy food source for rats and a place to breed disease

Trench Fever

• Disease spread by lice • Fever, Pain in your legs, soreness• A month or more to recover

RATS!!!!!!

Soldiers of all nations hunted the rats– sometimes rations were short and meat was added to their diet

Exit Drill

• As you watch the clip list the expressions of the soldiers and the type of living conditions they had.