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( Trench warfare)
Trench warfare is a form of warfare where both combatants have fortified positions and fighting lines are static. Trench warfare arose when a revolution in firepower was not matched by similar advances in mobility. The result was a slow and grueling form of defense-oriented warfare in which both sides constructed elaborate and heavily armed trench and dugout systems opposing each other along a front, with soldiers in both trench lines largely defiladed from the other's small arms fire and enclosed by barbed wire. The area between opposing trench lines (known as "no man's land") was fully exposed to small-arms and artillery fire from both sides. Attacks, even successful ones, often sustained severe casualties as a matter of course. Periods of trench warfare occurred during the American Civil War and the Russo-Japanese War and reached peak bloodshed on the Western Front of World War I. Trench warfare is often a sign of attrition warfare. Trench warfare is nearly as old as warfare itself; however, because of the relatively small size of the armies and the lack of range of the weapons, it was traditionally not possible to defend more than a short defensive line or isolated strong point. Although both the art of fortification and the art of weaponry advanced a great deal as time went on, the traditional rule remained; a fortification required a large body of troops to defend it. Small numbers of troops simply could not maintain a volume of fire sufficient to repel a determined attack. Trenches did impede an attacking enemy's movement and provided a psychological benefit for the men manning them. With this in mind, it became common practice for Roman legions to entrench their encampments every night. A fortified camp was extremely hard to assault directly, and a Roman commander who did not wish to engage an enemy could often simply remain encamped. Once siege engines (such as the trebuchet) were developed, the techniques involved in assaulting a town or a fortress became well known and ritualised—the siège en forme. The attacking army would surround a town. Then the town would be asked to surrender. If it did not comply, the besieging army would invest (surround) the town with temporary fortifications to stop sallies from the stronghold or relief getting in. The attackers would then build a length of trenches parallel to the defences and just out of range of defending artillery. They would then dig a trench towards the town in a zigzag pattern so that it could not be enfiladed by defending fire; it also created a good vantage point from which to survey the enemy. Once within artillery range another parallel trench would be dug with gun emplacements. If necessary using the first artillery fire for cover, this process would be repeated until the guns were close enough to be laid accurately to make a breach in the fortifications. In order that the "forlorn hope" and their support troops could get close enough to exploit the breach, more zigzag trenches could be dug even closer to the walls with more parallel trenches to protect and conceal the attacking troops.
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