Surviving Trench Warfare: Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914-1918, Second Edition

By Bill Rawling

Book Overview

The horrors of the First World War were the product of a new and unprecedented type of industrial warfare. To survive and win demanded not just new technology but the techniques to use it effectively. In Surviving Trench Warfare, Bill Rawling takes a close look at how technology and tactics came together in the Canadian Corps.

Drawing on a wide range of sources, from interviews to staff reports, Rawling describes the range of new weapons that the Canadians adopted, including tanks, trench mortars, and poison gas, making it clear that the decisive factor in the war was not the new technology itself but how the Canadians responded to it. Only through intensive training, specialization, and close coordination between infantry and artillery could the Canadians overcome the deadly trinity of machine-guns, barbed wire, and artillery. Surviving Trench Warfare offers a whole new understanding of the First World War, replacing the image of a static trench war with one in which soldiers actively struggled for control over their weapons and their environment, and achieved it.

Released to coincide with the centenary of the First World War, this edition includes a new introduction and afterword reflecting the latest scholarship on the conduct of the war.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 144262678X
• ISBN13: 9781442626782
• Release Date: August 2014
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 8.9"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

The Evolution of Infantry Tactics

Dr. Bill Rawling's highly original "Surviving Trench Warfare" is groundbreaking; it is a thorough and original analysis of how the Canadian Corps reacted to the challenges of the war of attrition on the Western Front from 1915 to 1918. It is a welcome rebuttal to the view that infantry tactics in the Great War was no more than a series of advances of lines of mindless but brave infantry marching into the enemy's machine guns. In fact the leaders of the Canadian Corps took useful lessons not only from their own experiences, but also from their allies. They were thus able to develop tactics involving all-arms cooperation along with fire and movement to break the deadlock of the trenches. In the process, the Corps became, in Jack English's phrase, "the shock troops of the Empire". This book is highly recommended for any student of military history. It is also useful for serving Army officers, who can learn much from Rawling about how tactics can evolve in the face of huge combat challenges.