Modern tactics: trenches, guerrilla and beyond
The Western Front: Why Trenches?
When war broke out in August 1914, both sides expected a short conflict decided by rapid movement. By late 1914, neither the Allied nor the German armies had achieved a decisive breakthrough, and both dug in along a line stretching approximately 700 kilometres from the North Sea to Switzerland. This trench system arose because modern firepower — magazine rifles, machine guns, and artillery — had made frontal infantry assaults enormously costly, while neither side could outflank the other.
A typical section of the British trench system included a front-line trench, a support trench, and a reserve trench, all connected by communication trenches running at right angles. Between the opposing front lines lay No Man’s Land — a strip of torn earth, barbed wire and shell craters. Attacking across No Man’s Land exposed men to machine gun fire with almost no cover.
Trench warfare developed on the Western Front by late 1914 because modern firepower — particularly the machine gun and artillery — made the open offensive tactics of the nineteenth century suicidal. Neither side could easily advance; neither could be outflanked. The result was four years of largely static warfare.
Tactics on the Western Front
British commanders tried many methods to break the deadlock. The creeping barrage was a significant tactical development: artillery fire would move forward in timed lifts, and infantry would advance as close as possible behind it, hoping to catch defenders before they could man their machine guns. This method was used in the later stages of the Battle of the Somme (1916) and refined at the Battle of Arras (1917).
Combined arms — the coordination of artillery, infantry, tanks and, later, aircraft — gradually replaced the early-war practice of using single arms in isolation. The Hundred Days Offensive (August–November 1918) used genuine combined arms tactics, integrating tanks, artillery, aircraft and infantry to achieve breakthrough. This shift from the static slaughter of 1916 to the mobile victories of 1918 represents one of the most significant tactical developments in British military history.
Soldiers in the trenches faced constant dangers beyond combat. Artillery bombardment could begin without warning. ‘Trench foot’ — caused by standing in water-logged trenches — disabled thousands of men. Rats, lice and mud were constant companions. Psychological strain, then called ‘shell shock’ and now recognised as a form of post-traumatic stress, affected large numbers of soldiers. The British army suffered approximately 420,000 casualties (killed, wounded, missing) during the Battle of the Somme alone (July–November 1916), with nearly 58,000 on the first day. These figures must be used carefully: contemporary sources differ, and exact casualty numbers remain contested by historians.
The Rise of Guerrilla Warfare
Guerrilla warfare is not a modern invention — the word itself comes from the Spanish resistance to Napoleon (meaning ‘little war’) — but it became an increasing challenge for British forces in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The key characteristic is asymmetry: a small, mobile force avoids pitched battles, targeting the enemy’s logistics, morale and political will rather than its main army.
During the Second Boer War (1899–1902) in South Africa, British forces initially defeated the Boer republics in conventional battles, but the Boer commandos then switched to guerrilla tactics: small mobile units attacked British supply lines, railways and isolated garrisons, then melted back into the countryside. Britain’s eventual response included a controversial policy of burning farms and interning Boer civilians in concentration camps, which caused significant civilian suffering and generated criticism both in South Africa and at home.
Guerrilla warfare poses a particular challenge to conventional armies because it denies them a fixed enemy to defeat in battle. British forces faced guerrilla campaigns in the Boer War (1899–1902), against the Mau Mau in Kenya (1952–1960), during the Troubles in Northern Ireland (1969–1998) and in the Falklands (1982), where Argentine forces briefly used terrain and weather to slow British advances.
Guerrilla Tactics in the Twentieth Century
The Mau Mau uprising in Kenya (1952–1960) saw British forces facing an insurgency fought in dense forest using ambush, assassination and local population support. British counter-insurgency methods included the use of ‘screening’ to identify insurgents, forced resettlement of villages, and the deployment of local informers. The conflict raised serious questions about the limits of military force in response to political grievances.
In Northern Ireland, the Provisional IRA conducted a sustained urban guerrilla campaign from 1969 to 1998. The British army faced the challenge of operating within the legal framework of a democratic state while countering bombings, ambushes and assassinations. ‘Hearts and minds’ operations — winning civilian support — were recognised as essential but difficult to implement alongside military operations. The Northern Ireland experience profoundly shaped British army doctrine on counter-insurgency.
The Falklands War of 1982 combined conventional military operations with elements of asymmetric warfare. Argentine forces held prepared defensive positions on the islands. British forces conducted night assaults using superior training, night-vision equipment and fire support to overcome well-defended positions at Goose Green, Mount Longdon and Wireless Ridge. The campaign demonstrated that well-trained conventional forces, with good leadership and combined arms support, could overcome defenders even in difficult terrain. It also showed the continued importance of logistics — sustaining forces 8,000 miles from Britain required extraordinary naval and supply organisation.