The way trench battles were fought contributed greatly to the slaughter of men. This was partly because men were used up in numbers rather than individuals. The biggest problem though, was that the generals had no idea how to organise a successful battle and hadn't even visited the battle site before hand. "He didn't ever go up to the front line. He didn't go into the trenches and dirty his boots. Haig had no comprehension of what he was sending men into.".
(A soldier describes the field marshal (Haig) who was responsible for planning the battle of Somme).
Aswell as this very few generals realised that the weapons used in warfare had changed and hand to hand, combat was outdated. Instead of sending out machine guns they would often send out cavalry in its place which resulted in even bigger losses. .
The five biggest battles during the first world war were :.
The Battle of Verdun, 1916.
The Battles of Marne, 1914, 1918.
The Battles of Ypres 1914, 1915, 1917.
The Battle of the Somme, 1916.
The Battle of Cambrai, 1917.
However, the typical trench attack would usually follow the same pattern. First of all the enemy would be softened up with artillery. This alerted them to the fact that an attack was coming, so during the night work parties would remove the barbed wire in front of their own trenches. Before dawn the attackers would then gather at the front line, bayonets fixed. A whistle would blow and the men would go "over the top" often into a hail of machine gun fire. Next a second wave of attackers might be sent over tackle the reserve trench while the first wave attempted to excavate a fire step on the rear wall of the captured trench. .
This however, was never as easy as it sounded, the enemy would bombard the oncoming troops with gun fire etc and men would be slaughtered by the thousands. Aswell as this a counter attack would frequently restore the trench to its original owners leaving the whole attack a waste of lives.
