A trench war or position war is a war in which both parties have buried themselves opposite each other in trenches and other fortified positions, with the aim of stopping the advance of the enemy, which has resulted in a stalemate in which neither party succeeds through the enemy lines to break. In fact, a trench war is a situation where both sides besiege each other. Normally in the case of a siege there is an attacking party besieging the defending party, but in a trench war both parties are besiegers and besieged at the same time.
The best known trench war is the First World War (1914-1918), but wars such as the Civil War (1861-1865) and the Russian-Japanese War (1904-05) also exhibited characteristics of trench wars.
Nowadays trench wars only occur in the Third World, where the warring parties have modern firearms but hardly any vehicles such as tanks and planes. In the conflicts between Ethiopia and Eritrea at the end of the 20th century, trench wars were also waged.
