Recruitment, Trench Warfare & Gallipoli

By the end of WWI, almost 420,000 Australians had volunteered for service

Over 220,000 Australians were wounded, killed or missing. This is a casualty rate of 65 %, the highest of any country participating in WWI

By December 1914, over 50,000 Australians had enlisted in the AIF, they enlisted for a variety of reasons

Both sides believed that the war would be over before Christmas.

Both sides also believed that they would win a “war of movement”

Unfortunately, both sides were fairly evenly matched. By December 1914 the war had become a “stalemate”

Both sides then began a “war of attrition” – this means their strategy relied on killing and wounding as many of their enemy as possible.

• Frontline trenches were about 6 feet deep and 6 feet wide

• It was impossible to see over the top– So a ledge known as a fire-step,

was added

• Trenches were not dug in straight lines

• Soldiers made dugouts and funk holes in the side of the trenches to give them some protection

• Behind the front-line trenches were support and reserve trenches

Communication trenches, were dug and used to transport men, equipment and food supplies

Communication Trenches to move men and supplies to the front lines

Concrete block housing for machine guns

Communication Trenches to move men and supplies to the front lines

Reserve Trench

Support TrenchFront-line trench

Barbed wire; was feet deep and impossible for troops to pass

No man’s Land (the stretch of land between the trenches of the opposing side). The area has already be churned up by shell fire. In wet weather it becomes a mass of mud, even more impossible to pass.

Front-line dugouts; provide protection but not against a direct hit from an artillery shell

A deep dug out: Some dugouts could be so far below ground and too well constructed to be destroyed by an artillery shell

The Ottoman Empire was seen as Germany’s weakest ally

Britain sought to “kick the weakest prop out from under Germany”

Britain began planning a huge sea and land assault on the Gallipoli peninsula in order to force the Ottoman Empire. If they withdrew from the war, then Britain and her allies might be able to break the stalemate.

Imagine that you are an Australian who lived through the outbreak of WWI. Explain, in either a letter or a diary entry, your opinion of the war.