– Given that marching across no-man’s land was virtually a death sentence, why did nations with parallel trenches not just start digging trenches forward towards each other, to avoid going over the top?

Question

For instance, given kilometres of trench networks which ran close to each other, sometimes only hundreds of meters apart, why did soldiers from each side not just begin digging new trenches towards the enemy from places across the length of their existing trench, so that they could eventually break through without sacrificing thousands of lives running across open killing fields?

In: 3

Answer 1

You are still exposed to artillery fire if you do that. When you are very close you are exposed to hand grenades too. There is also the risk that the enemy let you dig forward and attack the trench and then use the trench to attack you.

You can’t do that in secret and a narrow trench that can protect you from artillery fire is very narrow so the amount of people that can move along it is limited. You can also fire along the trench and throw grenades. The one that defends on a pendular trench has a advantages

There is an alternative to building tunnels but even then the number of people you can move forward is low so it was used to place explosives below the enemy line so you can destroy them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_warfare

Marching across no-mans land like was done in WWII is not as stupid as it looks. That was done with a creeping barrage that move forward slowly, we talk about 50-100 meters every few minutes. Your side marches forward to be just outside the lethal range of the artillery that covers the enemy trenches. The moment is slow you can time it with the artillery. It is pre planed so you time your moment to stay just outside lethal range.

The idea is that you can suppress the enemy and keep them away from the trenches in an underground shelter and they do have not enough time to emerge to defend it before your troops are in there too.

It is not the case the enemy can just go out when the artillery no longer hits on top of them. You can have it moving back and forward so that if they emerge the artillery move back over them again. Only your side knows the plan so you can move forward the last time the artillery hits the enemy trench.

You do not march forward if there is no moving barrage you move forward quickly to minimize exposure time.