This investigation has considered the tremendous cost in human lives arising from trench warfare. It is now possible to summarise the threads that have emerged from this investigation. There are four main – but inter-linked - reasons for the horrific numbers of soldiers killed and wounded:

                ● The tactics used and the War of Attrition

The shocking use of men as a resource, rather than as human beings, led to the acceptance of huge casualties. Since huge casualties were expected, nothing very different was tried to remedy the situation.

● The new weaponry

Inventions such as the machine gun made cavalry obsolete. They also shifted the advantage from the attacker to the defender. This meant that the attacker would suffer huge casualties and, more often than not, the whole attack would fail anyway.

● The effectiveness of trench design, and the conditions and hardship suffered by the troops

Trench design evolved to make them into highly efficient defences, resulting in maximum casualties for the attacker for the minimum possible gain. Conditions in the trenches were also appalling. Disease, infestations and contaminated wounds killed more soldiers than any weapon.

● The generals

Old fashioned commanders with out of date ideas did not employ the tactics needed. Commanders were generally resistant to change and thus new ideas took a long time to come into battle use. A combination of false intelligence information and the Commander in Chief’s persistence meant that attacks were not called off when they were already clearly failures.