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It wasn't all bad for the troops. I actually read recently how French troops were regularly rotated out of combat and even sent to the Mediterranean to rest up. A la guerre comme a la guerre
As far as tactics, they were primarily dictated by pre-war strategy. German strategy was the Schlieffen Plan, designed to destroy or at least cripple France in one single blow. A war of attrition was not in the interest of Germany who would be fighting on two fronts.
French plans were not specific and mainly involved countering the expected German offensive and possibly making a counterattack.
While there is some truth in this, the time in the trenches--especially for the ones that weren't German--were really horrible. British generals did not put the same effort into construction of the trenches that the Germans did because they felt it would lower moral by suggesting that they were in for the long haul.
The British trenches were like the ones you see in the movies. Filled with water, mud, human waste, and body parts. Disease ran through the ranks and moral was usually low.
The upside is that the troops did not spend the entire war in the trenches and were frequently rotated out and went on leave.
The British lines were often on lower ground than the German ones and often on poorly drained ground too. Conditions were poor but moral was usually pretty high and British troops fought doggedly and well. And of course the 1914 BEF was the finest body of troops fielded in the war, perhaps in history.
Vicksburg was a prepared fort GS not an earthwork prepared during the battle. The same is true of the other positions you mentioned other than Culps Hill. I was commenting on a poster who suggested that troops in the major battles prepared positions during those battles.
I totally disagree with your conclusions about Vicksburg and early civil war battles not using entrenchments. I've been to Vicksburg and toured the battlefield extensivly. You can still see remains of trenches. Besides that the caretakers have recreated a section of the confederate lines - earthwork walls, reinforced walls with branches and fence stakes, typical WW1 design.
Maybe it is confusion on your definition of entrench. Both sides would use sunken roads, stone walls, railroad cuts, and improve them with whatever they could find. Use bayonets, cups, canteens, whatever it would take to break up the earth and wood to use.
Fredricksburg, 1862 - surely you can't say that was not the union attacking an entrenched enemy.
Trashing all WW I generals is a popular sport, but condemning their absense of tactical imagination overlooks how limited their options were. It is not possible to make a brilliant flanking attack when no flanks exist. The entire western front was entrenched, from the Swiss Border to the English Channel, the choice was between frontal assaults and no assaults at all. All of the thinking had to go into how to make an assault which overcame entrenched, multi layered defenses. Most of the war was experimentation toward that end.....super preparatory bombardments....the elan of the attackers....poison gas.....walking barrages...no preliminary bombardment in order to achieve surprise...tanks...storm trooper tactics.
None of the above was ever more than partially successful, but what else was there for the generals to do?
Sorry Grandstander, but that apologia simply doesn't address the fact that the underlying adherence, or better yet, glorification of the bayonet charge, particularly by the French general staff completely ignored the lessons learned during the American Civil war. One would think that the europeans had never heard of Pickett's Charge!
Both sides would use sunken roads, stone walls, railroad cuts, and improve them with whatever they could find.
Which I already noted. What they did not do is dig trenches, build walls or abatis, lay wire etc, that is prepare meaningful fortifications. Exactly what they did do in 1864-65. They were always willing, to take advantage of natural features - but those in no way gave the protection that well prepared fortifications did. Most of the fighting took place in effectively open ground, only a minority of the troops fought behind such positions.
Which I already noted. What they did not do is dig trenches, build walls or abatis, lay wire etc, that is prepare meaningful fortifications. Exactly what they did do in 1864-65. They were always willing, to take advantage of natural features - but those in no way gave the protection that well prepared fortifications did. Most of the fighting took place in effectively open ground, only a minority of the troops fought behind such positions.
This is a silly discussion, but I assure you the soldiers ability to prepare fixed fortifications, using not only stone walls and sunken roads, but felling trees, putting out stakes, digging into the ground, was only limited by the time available. Abitis were used as early as the First Battle of Bull Run (hastily prepared to protect a stream crossing). If it was a meeting engagement, actually pretty rare, well then the opposing forces did not have time to entrench.
Forts, again, were a common feature in the early part of the war. The forts that challenged the union in Mississipi (Island 10, Fort Donelson, Fort Henry, Fort Pillow) were basically earthworks. The movie "Glory" gives an excellent portrayal of a typical civil war fort - that one built of sand.
Everyone mentions the Petersburg seige because it involved so many troops over a long length of time. But minature Petersburg's happened throughout the civil war. I agree however that troops got better at quick entrenchments the longer the war lasted.
Sorry Grandstander, but that apologia simply doesn't address the fact that the underlying adherence, or better yet, glorification of the bayonet charge, particularly by the French general staff completely ignored the lessons learned during the American Civil war. One would think that the europeans had never heard of Pickett's Charge!
Perhaps then you might suggest what would have been the winning strategy for overcoming the defense in depth of the entrenched western front positions. If these generals were foolish and did the wrong things, then it is logical to assume that there must have been right things which they should have been doing instead.
So, what were those things which would have made for a successful assault?
One would think that the europeans had never heard of Pickett's Charge!
Pickett's Charge taught to not make rash assaults, not to not make assaults. Note that Lee's army made several assualts that worked well the first 2 days of the battle.
Since the Great War was fought with far more advanced weapons than the American Civil War was it's hard to see what lessons Europeans should've learned. And besides, the Europeans had their own black powder rifle wars to learn from. And the Boer War and Russo-Japanese War were more valuable lessons as far as the Great War is concerned as they were fought with modern high explosive cannon and smokeless powder magazine rifles and machine guns. And the British learned a great deal from the Boer War.
Getting back to the original topic, no one has yet pointed out that the American Civil War was not really a redefinition of strategy and tactics for Europeans. Certainly both sides had European military observers and they looked in interest at new innovations like the usage of the railroad, ironclads, mines, etc. But the rifle had already made it's way to European armies.
It might be a case of European snobbery for an upstart nation still seen as full of backwoodsmen, Indians, and renegades. I read an account of one European leader of the time calling the civil war a war between two mobs. That's how they saw it. They learned very little they didn't already know.
The Prussians, for one, were already improvising small fire team tactics and using breech-loading needle guns with rifled barrels. They were decades ahead of US tactics. This is in contrast - the US basis of military tactics and strategy was Napolean. His methods were taught at west point (minus the cavalry charges, which the Europeans also saw as a travesty) in the military textbooks. US generals studied Napolean, European generals would be laughed at if they studied the uncivilized tactics of Grant and Lee.
European generals would be laughed at if they studied the uncivilized tactics of Grant and Lee.
The guy who might've been worth studying was Wilson; his large late war mounted force armed totally with repeating rifles was kind of a 19th panzer grenadier force.
Paddy Griffith's insight not mine.
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