The Trenches 1
Created | Updated Jan 26, 2004
The opening weeks of fighting had given the false impression of a war of movement.
But in September 1914, as each side tried to outflank the other in the 'Reacce to the sea', the first trenches - initially mere scraps in the groud - they had prodused on the Aisne spread down the 500-mile battle line from the North Sea to the Swiss frontier.
At first the picture they presented on the long, congealed front was by no means uniform. The Germans packed troops into the front line with little immediate support beyond some machine-gun positions.
In contrast, the British, in the low-lying, frequently flooded coastal plain of the Yser, quickly dug a three-line system of front, support and reserve trenches linked by zig-zag communications trenches.
The British system set the basic pattern which troops endured for the next four years, from Flanders to the wooded terrain of the Vosges.
