Trench Warfare In World War I

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Trench warfare in World War I is notorious for its death and wastefulness. Trench warfare was especially futile on the Western front in France, where the opposing sides fought on the same stretch of land for nearly four years, neither gaining nor losing ground. Some still take the case for trench warfare, arguing that it was a clever strategy and that it offered relative safety. However, others claim that trench warfare was useless and was a huge cause of death. Although there may appear to be some positives of trench warfare in World War I, they should be discounted because the trenches of World War I are dangerous, uninhabitable, and horrific. Some have in their heads the image of a heroic soldier firing at the enemy and ducking down into the safety of the trenches. However, this image is completely misconstrued as death by bullets and artillery occurred daily, even in the trenches. According to a web article from First World War, “Many men died on their first day in the trenches as a consequence of a precisely aimed …show more content…
Millions upon millions of soldiers were killed in World War I; and trench warfare, being a strategy of apparition, weakened the opposing sides until their resources were depleted and their spirits were broken. Also, survivors of the war didn’t return as they once were. Many were blinded by the use of chlorine gas and were mutilated by pests gnawing on their bodies. However, all the physical impairments also served as traumas to their minds. In a few years of battle, the soldiers had seen enough horror to last a lifetime. They had numbed their minds to the point of no return, and they had turned their hearts to stone. The trenches had changed the soldiers forever; rendering them incapable of fitting into civilian life, and crushing their dreams for a better future. These merciless, inhumane, and unforgiving trenches had thus doomed them to be the “lost