Talk:Trench warfare

World War I focus?
Why does this article only talk about trench warfare in WWI, and no mention of its history or development? It seems like this will mislead a lot of people into thinking trench warfare only occured in WWI. Only lightly touches on the Korean war. --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 04:21, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * To answer this, yet again... The page isn't History of entrenchment (which WP appears to need, since this keeps coming up here...), it's Trench Warfare. This is limited to WW1, because no other war has used it so extensively. The U.S. Civil War used entrenchment. So did WW2. So did the Iran-Iraq War. They aren't examples of trench warfare, either.  TREKphiler   any time you're ready, Uhura  16:39, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yup, it's time for someone to write the article about the history of trenches in warfare. Certainly, the only war which involved the specific concept of "trench warfare" was the Great War. Binksternet (talk) 18:05, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Except, trench warfare DID occur beforehand. Most sources I have consulted have considered the Siege of Petersburg to be an early example. If you are not familiar with it, basically, it was a nine month battle/campaign that consisted of two lines of opposing heavy trench complexes that gradually stretched roughly some 20-30 miles long on each side of a no-man's land of varying widths (often more than one mile), with "bombproofs" (heavy bunkers) and forts all along the way; one side even had a purpose-built railroad to shuttle troops and supplies along their trench front (as well as railroad artillery). One of the most infamous actions in the campaign was an attempt to mine and detonate a tunnel under the lines (what became known as "the Crater"). Scholars have even compared the psychological effects between the soldiers at Petersburg and in WWI (see, e.g., this thesis). Yes, it was on a much smaller scale than World War I, but as it also appears to meet the definition given in the article, either sources need to be provided that claim that it wasn't trench warfare to counter the reliable sources that it was, and the definition needs changing/clarifying, or it should rightfully be included as part of the history. (I don't have many history books with me at the moment, but a a quick Google search reveals quite a number of results. Cheers.Morgan Riley (talk) 02:41, 15 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Morgan Riley is correct. Capitalismojo (talk) 03:22, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Further examples of trench warfare would include the Russo-Japanese war of 1905, the Crimean war and the siege of Sevastopol, and as I think has been remarked the Korean war. I'm not sure how any one else thinks of the phrase 'trench warfare' but the better histories of the warfare of the period 1914-1918 take time to explain that trench warfare wasn't new and the best comparison I have read describes it in terms of the use of siege warfare practices that have been around longer than firearms. Most of the terminology - trenches, saps, bunkers etc pre-exists 1914.

Accounts of other conflicts eg in WWII will describe periods of trench warfare where both sides assume static positions either as a result of defensive strategy or the inability of the attacker to make a break through. Therefore I can't really see an issue with expanding this article beyond 1914-1918. Nomisnotlaw (talk) 11:45, 28 June 2014 (UTC)


 * It seems some are saying trench warfare means WWI only, and not other wars, because the other wars may have had notable trench lines for notable times, but it wasn't inclusive of the entire war. But such "trench warfare" wasn't entirely inclusive of WWI; the Eastern front of WWI didn't involve such a strict "trench warfare", or at least involved it less than some of the other wars mentioned.  I don't see any source that says "Trench warfare=WWI, and no other".  Besides, it's "trench warfare", not "war" --A D Monroe III (talk) 17:15, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Resurrecting this discussion
I'm gonna be trying to significantly refocus this article on WW1 going forward. I call this the curse of COMMONNAME: people assume that the title of an article (which is designed simply to be the one most commonly used for its subject) is the subject, and so "trench warfare" (which is the COMMONNAME we assign to "the system of fighting which evolved in the early 20th century when firepower technology temporarily held a massive advantage relevant to other aspects of warfare") becomes an article about "any form of fighting involving trenches".

Arguably the current split between this article and Western Front (World War I) doesn't work. What we need to do is make this about the specific doctrine of the era. There is room for some precursor stuff. There is room for some material on later wars that happened to include trenches. But wandering all over the place doesn't work.

Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:46, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Citation SUMMARY incorrect, text is correct.
A citation in the section "World War 1: Death And Disease In The Trenches" points towards The Journal of Wilderness and Environmental Medicine (https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(06)70334-9/fulltext) and the article "Trench Foot: The Medical Response in the First World War 1914–18". On that external website, there is a summary or abstract at the top of the webpage that says there were "... 75 casualties [from trench foot] in the British and 2000 in the American forces". The British number is off by three orders of magnitude. This incorrect number was used in the Wikipedia article. If one reads the actual journal article, the correct number is found in the 'Threat' section and states "... The total number of admissions during the war was calculated as 74 711 with 41 deaths". As Lynx the web browser tells me often, I 'cannot currently edit remote websites', so I can't fix the WEM webpage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.28.66.163 (talk) 05:37, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

"Trenchmen"
Is this section, at the head of the article, in the correct place? JF42 (talk) 07:30, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Fixed, Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 03:03, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 12:08, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Iranian Troops in Forward Trenches during Iran Iraq War.jpg