Western Front Trench Map Overlay

[Nigel99]

Good Morning

 

I hope someone can help. I saw a map a few years ago depicting the WF trench system overlaid onto a map of England (using a 1920’s map I think) to show its scale and size. 
I’m doing some lockdown classes and I’m trying to get my hands on it as a teaching tool as it is easier to get children’s attention if you show them something they can relate to. 
Hope someone can help

thanks

N

[WhiteStarLine]

Hi N,

 

I saw where you had posted this some months ago and nothing came to mind.  Are you really looking for an intricate layer of trenches, that evolved over the length of the war, from Belgian to Switzerland?  That would not reveal a lot of detail until you zoomed right in.

 

Anyway, to start with something crude to give some perspective, here is a scaled representation of the 1918 front line from Belgium, running along the sector generally held by the British, as far as Paris.  It is roughly at the same scale and superimposed over a Times Survey Atlas of the World 1920 from the National Library of Scotland.

 

Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland:

 

 

Here is the copyright notice from the National Library of Scotland and this overlay appears to be in compliance.

 

1. Commercial, non-commercial, educational and private use of some map images

You are welcome to use some images displayed on the Maps website for commercial, non-commercial, educational and private purposes under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence.

Use is conditional on provision of attribution. Please apply the credit line 'Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland' wherever you re-use map images. If you create derivative work, the documentation of your work must contain this attribution.

For online publications, we request that your attribution includes a link to our Map images website.

[WhiteStarLine]

Here is a different approach, overlaying the WW1 trench line from Dunkerque to Basel onto Google Earth.  I've treated it as a plate carrée transformation from Dover to Carlisle, which would have me thrown out of any serious group but illustrates the point you are trying to teach.  This was a truly massive war and we are only looking at the Western Front.

 

I've included the KML and the transformed co-ordinates in case you want to put them on a 1920s map yourself.  Google Earth's rubber-band is superb for this.  If you get stuck sing out and I can do this for you.

 

WF Transposed.kml

 

 

Lat, Lon

54.855232, -3.036938

54.71721, -2.894116

54.606497, -3.003979

54.561444, -2.817212

54.488575, -2.86665

54.408634, -2.872144

54.370354, -2.817212

54.314617, -2.817212

54.269283, -2.850171

54.23438, -2.921582

54.185474, -3.113843

54.069993, -3.09187

54.031436, -3.025952

53.933152, -3.086377

53.894485, -3.19624

53.802964, -3.30061

53.718329, -3.251172

53.697147, -3.141309

53.63708, -3.075391

53.545068, -3.058911

53.491904, -3.053418

53.403168, -3.009473

53.399615, -2.998486

53.40672, -3.003979

53.228774, -2.850171

53.20381, -2.86665

53.139557, -2.696362

53.096675, -2.718335

53.110973, -2.44917

53.057334, -2.394238

53.007217, -2.339307

53.068066, -2.152539

53.0931, -2.042676

53.077008, -1.968518

52.978557, -1.737805

52.845784, -1.636182

52.804444, -1.257153

52.804444, -1.262646

52.840393, -0.847913

52.858359, -0.622693

52.892474, -0.562268

52.906832, -0.507336

52.903243, -0.446912

52.903243, -0.449658

52.890679, -0.370007

52.903243, -0.323315

52.908626, -0.246411

52.903243, -0.216199

52.824219, -0.147534

52.791855, -0.164014

52.772067, -0.210706

52.69824, -0.235425

52.636935, -0.213452

52.638739, -0.109082

52.654974, 0.0255

52.69824, 0.297412

52.678414, 0.366077

52.543028, 0.464954

52.340169, 0.599536

52.291143, 0.772571

52.172921, 0.879688

52.172921, 0.876941

51.992331, 1.195544

51.992331, 1.190051

51.774409, 1.275195

51.737692, 1.242236

51.70095, 1.286182

51.675214, 1.316394

51.653145, 1.324634

51.135519, 1.400165

51.130874, 1.400165

51.646706, 1.328754

51.590564, 1.365833

51.502087, 1.394672

51.473483, 1.391925

51.430087, 1.374072

51.389428, 1.407031

51.332082, 1.401538

51.295977, 1.415271

51.264481, 1.401538

51.225547, 1.409778

51.19772, 1.422137

51.140164, 1.429004

[Nigel99]

Wow. Just wow. Thanks ever so WSL, that is not only kind, but quick and just what I was after. 
I live online mostly on Twitter, so if you’ve an account I’d like to credit you if I put it up there,  ut I will be making the point of the kindness of strangers to the kids in the neighbourhood block I’m doing some history teaching for, while the schools are off-line.

Thanks a  million again. 
Nigel