Questa è una delle foto scattate da me sul campo di battaglia di Petersburg,certo davvero nulla a che vedere con l'ambientazione ricreata in Romania,per girare Ritorno a Cold Mountain 
La notte del 14 giugno 1864,i soldati dell'Armata del Potomac attraversarono il fiume James inconsapevoli dell'incubo che li attendeva.Erano già esausti dopo un mese di combattimenti,da quando cioè il generale Ulysses S. Grant li aveva guidati verso la capitale Confederata Richmond.Avevano affrontato l'Armata della Virginia settentrionale guidata da Robert E. Lee nelle battaglie di Wilderness,Spotsylvania Court House ,North Anna e Cold Harbor.Nonostante l'esito infruttuoso di questi scontri,l'avanzata dell'armata unionista era proseguita verso Sud.Il 14 giugno gli Yankees avevano attraversato the James River in order to circumvent the enemy armies and conquer the city of Petersburg, a vital component of the rail system in Virginia, given that there will join five lines, carrying supplies from across the federal government, especially by ports of Charleston and then Wilmington.In therefore Petersburg was the main base for supplies that were supposed to arrive in Richmond: If the Army of the Potomac was able to take it, would soon caduta.Dopo Richmond four days of fighting, from 14 to June 18, Grant was forced to lay siege Petersburg.I soldiers of both armies had to start digging holes and began a long and exhausting war trincea.Fu only il 2 aprile del 1865,che le truppe dell'Unione riuscirono a scacciare i Confederati dalle loro difese.Cinquanta anni dopo e a molte miglia di distanza,venne prese un'altra decisione di cominciare a scavare trincee.Dai primi giorni di agosto del 1914,fino alla prima settimana del mese di settembre,l'esercito tedesco aveva attraversato il Belgio e la Francia settentrionale arrivando praticamente alle porte di Parigi.All'apice del successo,l'avanzata tedesca venne arrestata quando la vittoria finale sembrava ormai imminente.Il 5 settembre affrontarono un grosso contingente di truppe francesi provenienti da Parigi.Sul fiume Marna i Tedeschi andarono incontro al disastro e furono costretti a ritirarsi.Giunti sulle rive del fiume Aisne il VII corpo tedesco della riserva cominciò to dig trenches blocking the way to the I Corps English: Allied counteroffensive had exhausted its momentum. In mid-October, a long line of trenches stretching from the Swiss border to the Sea Nord.La trench warfare on the Western Front had had inizio.I soldiers of the Western Front and the Northerners and Southerners in Petersburg had not been the first ever use of artillery fortificazioni.Gli developments in the late fifteenth century had rendered obsolete the medieval castles and fortifications that were needed in designing new able to cope with the threat of artillery, incorporating the same in an effective defensive structure. In the first half of the 500, the introduction of the bastion in the wars fought in Italia e i lenti progressi conseguiti dall'artiglieria avevano cristallizzato un pò la situazione che solo nel XVII secolo avrebbe cominciato di nuovo a fare progressi.Fu infatti nel 1600 che l'arte delle fortificazioni divenne una scienza e il principale artefice di questo cambiamento fu Sebastian le Prestre de Vauban,ingegnere francese vissuto tra il 1633 e il 1707,che fu il capo del genio militare di Luigi XIV.Vauban fu il primo a comprendere l'importanza del genio in guerra e creare un corpo di genieri militari.Sotto il suo impulso molte città francesi furono fortificate e ben presto le sue tecniche di costruzione sarebbero divenute un'autorità nel campo delle fortificazioni.Il contributo di Vauban destinato a lasciare una duratura impronta nel tempo fu però developing a systematic approach for the sieges, which was the foundation of what would later be manifested in the war of trincea.Basti think that the vocabulary used to describe the basic elements of trench warfare was in use among the military engineers to the 1st World War. An excellent example of Vauban's thinking and its techniques occurred in the siege of Yorktown in 1781, near the end of the American Revolution, which ended with the surrender of the garrison, commanded by British General Cornwallis, by troops of Washington.Fu But with the Napoleonic period that the tradition of Vauban zenith.Le reached the victories of Napoleon, in turn, inspired Antoine Henri Jomini, an officer of his staff that refused's emphasis on the Vauban fortifications instead giving more emphasis to the frontal attack en masse, as defeating an enemy with maneuver was extremely difficult for an army of large and required a genius like Napoleone.Gli Jomini's teachings became the method dominance of the conduct of the war until the Franco-Prussian War, were supplanted by Clausewitz.Negli United States, the thought of Jomini was the standard reading for students of West Point, but the 800 already in the 30s, an engineer Army of Dennis Hart Mahan had begun to challenge the thinking of Jomini.Dopo graduating from West Point in 1824 and spent several years at the prestigious school of engineering specializing in artillery Metz, had returned home in 1830 was appointed headmaster of his Alma Mater.Mahan rifutava offensive spirit of the thought of Jomini, considering it unsuitable for the U.S. Army, which consists of a body of professional officers and a 'undisciplined militia could not be wasted in futile frontal assaults, rather ought to prefer an active defense based on Mahan fortificazioni.A this purpose was based on very Vauban, updating his techniques that became "fortifications pitched" and that would have forced the enemy to launch massive frontal assault against the trenches that soon it would destroy the abundance, giving the victory to whoever was on the defensive.
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