Public invited to presentation on WWI trench warfare

The Department of Military History of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth invites the public to attend the second in a series of lectures intended to educate the public about World War I during its 100-year commemoration. – Dr. Shawn Faulkner, a professor of military history at CGSC, will present “Devil’s Dilemma: Trench Warfare on the Western Front” in the Marshall Auditorium of the Lewis and Clark Center on Fort Leavenworth, Dec. 4 at 6:30 p.m. Guests are also invited to the reception that begins at 6 p.m. The Frontier Army Museum will provide a machine gun display as part of the presentation. Attendance is free and open to the public.

In this presentation, Dr. Faulkner will examine the factors that led to the creation of approximately 25,000 miles of trenches stretching from the English Channel to Switzerland and how this trench warfare evolved during the conflict, leaving leaders and soldiers in a set of military problems with few feasible military solutions. The dirty secret of warfare is that sometimes there are military problems with no viable and acceptable military solutions. At times soldiers are faced with realities on the battlefield where no matter how much they change their doctrine, organization and technology, they are stuck in a devil’s dilemma in which the solution to one set of problems merely creates or worsens other problems. This was the situation that confronted the armies on the Western Front between the late fall of 1914 and the spring of 1918, and perhaps confronts the U.S. military today.

The CGSC Department of Military History will host this lecture with support from the CGSC Foundation as part of the General of the Armies John J. Pershing Great War Centennial Series. The lecture series intended to foster understanding of this world-changing conflict during its 100-year commemoration. More than any other single event, World War I was the decisive, shaping experience of the Twentieth Century. It was a brutal war that brought down four empires, led to revolution in Russia, and eventually brought the United States onto the world stage as a major power. We live with its results to this day. All lectures in the series are free and open to the public.

For more information on this or other lectures in the series contact Dr. Richard V. Barbuto at the CGSC Department of Military History: email– richard.v.barbuto.civ@mail.mil or phone– 913-684-2074.