Tom Tulloch-Marshall Military Genealogy & Operational Records Of The Great War

The British Army 1914 ~ 1919

"Trench", and other Military Maps

what is a trench map ?	During the course of the Great War  the British Army created an extremely comprehensive mapping system for the main theatres of operations. Various scales of map were used for different purposes, but the most common were the 1:20,000 series which were mainly used by the Artillery and the 1:10,000 scale for the infantry. With respect to investigations of the movements and actions of individuals and units these two series (together with occasional 1:5,000 scale maps and sketches which were produced for "local operations") are a prime research tool, and whenever relevant examples are found amongst the diaries, and are relevant to the enquiry, they will be copied and incorporated with the report.
are there many of them ?	These maps were updated regularly and their issue was prolific, - by the end of 1918 more than 34 million had been produced for the Western Front alone; distributions for other theatres of war were less extensive, however most areas where the British and Dominion Armies saw action are covered to some extent or another.
where are they found, and an example	The "main" series of trench maps at The National Archives are held separately from the unit war diaries, however "marked-up" maps referring to specific actions are often to be found in the war diary files, though rarely at Battalion level, - the best "finds" are normally in the Brigade, Divisional, and Corps files. Where appropriate map copies will be taken from either / and / or the diaries or the main map series and incorporated into your report. Please be aware that due to increasingly stringent copying regulations at TNA it may be that the best map copies appropriate to your enquiry will have to be supplied in digital format on CD (though in some respects that format is superior to photocopying - particularly when trenches etc are shown in colour or a zoom-in / out facility is desirable).

At the beginning of WW1 the British Army was still using the  18th Century "Bingo" system for giving map references, and for much of 1914 French and Belgian civil maps were used for military operations. This was all rather imprecise as the maps were often pretty innacurate, and "Bingo" relied on fairly vague instructions such as "shell the cottage near the H in Harp Wood" or "Infantry will advance to 150 yards north of the T in Fish Stream".  By early 1915 the army was getting on top of the mapping situation on the Western Front (civilian maps being abandoned) and an entirely new and much more precise grid-reference system had been introduced. These are the "Trench Maps" which we are most familiar, with locations on these maps always being given in the diaries, orders, reports, etc., in a standardised "code", this allowing positions on the maps to be plotted extremely accurately, as the example in the page link here will demonstrate. Click on the image on the right to get to the sub-page.