A horrific form of warfare in which combatants dig trenches to protect themselves. The trenches are then foritified with machine guns, sometimes more powerful weapons, barbed wire, etc. When one side tries to attack (by going over the top) they usually suffer very high casualties. Since the two sides are fairly close to each other, as soon as men start leaving their trench they are chewed up by the defender's firepower. Most of the attackers end up dead in the area between the trenches called the no-man's land. Many attacks never even got as far as the defender's trenches. Even when the attack is succesful the defenders simply move back to the next trench and it all starts over again. For the gains of sometimes less than one hundred yards many men were killed and wounded. This leads to a stalemate and a war of attrition.