The First World War took place from 1914 to 1918, trench warfare took place mainly on the Western front, in France-Belgium from 1915 to 1917. The principle was to dig networks of trenches, from the English Channel to Switzerland, by fortifying them and making them impregnable with the material available: wood, sandbags, steel, sheet metal, concrete, etc. The part between the two enemy front line trenches was called "no man's land", a place strewn with barbed wire and anything that could prevent the enemy from passing. To take the enemy trench, powerful artillery barrages were put in place to destroy the enemy fortifications in no man's land and in the trench, but generally this was not effective enough and the assault quickly turned into a slaughterhouse without having been able to take the opposing trench.

A more promising technique was developed, mine warfare, which involved digging tunnels to the underside of the enemy trench, laying explosives and detonating them shortly before the start of the latter planned assault. This technique was used in large quantities, for example at Vauquois, in the Meuse, in the French sector, or at La Boisselle, in the Somme, in the British sector.