Brain Bucket: A Brief History of Industrialized Warfare

Part 2 in a series on the American game of war

Trenches at Petersburg. Note the obstacles to slow down infantry assault; barbed wire would not be invented for another nine years. Via Library of Congress

Contrary to popular understanding, “trench warfare” was not new to the world in 1914. Entrenchment had always played a role in war, especially sieges, and the advent of industrial era technologies in …