Geology and the war on the Western Front, 1914-1918

The First World War started a hundred years ago this year. On 4 August 2014 the United Kingdom marks the anniversary of involvement in this war with a remembrance event at Mons, and over the next four years there will be new museums and exhibitions, services and events, conferences and colloquia worldwide. The aim of this collective recognition of a major event in world history is to pick over the impact and effects, innovations and consequences of a war that claimed the lives of at least 16 million people and left the world with geopolitical consequences that still reverberate today. One of these is the use of geology in warfare. As is well known, compared with the open war fought against the Russians on the eastern front, the war in the west very quickly became positional, with opposing trench lines locked into position that would dictate the war’s approach. And with trench warfare, came the need to understand the geology of the land over which the men were fighting.