War of Words – ‘trench warfare’

Combat on the Western Front during World War One is justly infamous for its grim lethality. Soldiers on both sides dug deep trenches in the earth to escape murderous enemy fire. With a reported first appearance as a term in 1887, ‘trench warfare’ was being used to describe Western Front fighting before 1914 was out. ‘This trench warfare in which we are now engaged,’ observed one British general that December, ‘is causing a demand for all sorts of things which are not recognised by regulation.’ Because of the unrelenting ferocity of trench warfare, the term has also come to mean a fierce, grinding contest of a non-military nature. ‘This … law was … struck down after