ABSTRACT
The First World War calls to mind many images, none as indelible as those of the trenches. The trench maps are more of a work in progress in terms of data acquisition and presentation; rather than representing what was known after the war ended in 1918, the maps show what was known during the actual campaigns, a knowledge that was often perilously incomplete and available only to a small percentage of those on the front lines. The purpose of trench maps was to identify the German trenches and gun placements. The story of the design of the trench maps emerges from three directions: the established design of Ordnance Survey maps; the overlaying of existing maps from France and Belgium; and the necessities of war resulting in the need for developing a large corps of surveyors and mapmakers in France. The trench maps of the First World War provided a specific type of intelligence to commanders and combatants.
