“You must dig in; it’s the only way of staying out of sight and cutting losses.”

– General Ferdinand Foch (France)

French Trenches on the Meuse RiverFrench Trenches on the Meuse River

Aerial view of trench network near Villecey

Water-filled trench at Passchendaele

The trench system of the Western Front stretched for 400 miles from the North Sea on the coast of

Belgium to the Alps of Switzerland.

Animated Map of the Western FrontAnimated Map of the Western Front

“See that little stream – we could walk to it in two minutes. It took the British a month to walk to it – a whole empire walking very slowly, dying in front and pushing forward behind. And another empire walked

very slowly, backward a few inches a day. Leaving the dead like a million bloody rugs.”

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Tender is the Night”

No Man’s Land

Twenty-five man team moving heavy gun

Dummy French 240mm gun made of paper

Austrian Skoda 305mm howitzer

Krupp railroad gun

British tank breaking through barbed wire

British tank crossing a trench

Lewis light machine gun team

Vickers machine gun

French poison gas dispenser

Gas shells exploding in No Man's Land

British soldier wearing gas mask Gas masks for man and horse demonstrated by American soldier

French grenade-launching crossbow

French flamethrowers

British field phone German telescoping searchlight

French soldiers constructing barbed wire entanglements outside of Salonika

US electric generator

French wire-cutting automobile

Salmson observation plane going over German lines under escort

Reconnaissance camera attached to the side of a British plane

Handley-Page bomber

German observation balloon leaving its hangar at Metz

Albatross D (German)

Australian anti-aircraft gun position

Concept Map of New TechnologyTrench System

New Technology

Lead to

Stalemate

Lead to