![]() ![]() ![]() Ruapekapeka is often considered to be the most sophisticated and technologically impressive by historians. These systems included firing trenches, communication trenches, tunnels, and anti-artillery bunkers. According to one British observer, "the fence round the pa is covered between every paling with loose bunches of flax, against which the bullets fall and drop in the night they repair every hole made by the guns". In the New Zealand Wars (1845–1872), the Māori developed elaborate trench and bunker systems as part of fortified areas known as pa, employing them successfully as early as the 1840s to withstand British artillery bombardments. Examples include the Lines of Stollhofen, built at the start of the War of the Spanish Succession of 1702–1714, the Lines of Weissenburg built under the orders of the Duke of Villars in 1706, the Lines of Ne Plus Ultra during the winter of 1710–1711, and the Lines of Torres Vedras in 18. In early modern warfare troops used field works to block possible lines of advance. An interesting read is about the Eucharistic Miracle of Turin, Italy, on May 12, 1640. Eventually, on the third attempt, the French broke through and the defenders were forced to flee with the civilian population, seeking the sanctuary of the local Catholic church, the Santa Maria al Monte dei Cappuccini, in Turin, also known at that time as the Capuchin Monastery of the Monte. There are examples of trench digging as a defensive measure during the Middle Ages in Europe, such as during the Piedmontese Civil War, where it was documented that on the morning of May 12, 1640, the French soldiers, having already captured the left bank of the Po river and gaining control of the bridge connecting the two banks of the river, and wanting to advance to the Capuchin Monastery of the Monte, deciding that their position wasn't secure enough for their liking, then choose to advance on a double attack on the trenches, but were twice repelled. The architect of the plan was Salman the Persian who suggested digging a trench to defend Medina. Trench warfare was also documented during the defence of Medina in a siege known as the Battle of the Trench (627 AD). The Roman general Belisarius had his soldiers dig a trench as part of the Battle of Dara in 530 CE. Roman legions, when in the presence of an enemy, entrenched camps nightly when on the move. ![]() Precursors įield works have existed for as long as there have been armies. ![]() Following World War I, "trench warfare" became a byword for stalemate, attrition, sieges, and futility in conflict. The development of armoured warfare and combined arms tactics permitted static lines to be bypassed and defeated, leading to the decline of trench warfare after the war. Attacks, even if successful, often sustained severe casualties. The area between opposing trench lines (known as " no man's land") was fully exposed to artillery fire from both sides. On the Western Front in 1914–1918, both sides constructed elaborate trench, underground, and dugout systems opposing each other along a front, protected from assault by barbed wire. Trench warfare proliferated when a revolution in firepower was not matched by similar advances in mobility, resulting in a grueling form of warfare in which the defender held the advantage. It became archetypically associated with World War I (1914–1918), when the Race to the Sea rapidly expanded trench use on the Western Front starting in September 1914. Trench warfare is the type of land warfare using occupied lines largely comprising military trenches, in which troops are well-protected from the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |