War Diaries Talk

Consolidating

  • Stork by Stork

    This page is in the midst of an assault, and it mentions consolidating lines and consolidating positions. What does that mean?

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    It means they were making the positions defensible and mopping up any remaining local resistance, so they could hold onto them.

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  • David_Underdown by David_Underdown moderator

    Apart from anything else you had to turn the trenches around, the sandbags etc piled up on the side of the trench facing the enemy were higher than those behind, so once you captured a trench you needed to build up what had been the back of the trench. Consolidation also just refers to the general process of getting everything in order, so you're properly organised, with platoons back together, and all those from the same company together too, as everyone would tend to get a little mixed up in the attack, also bringing up trench stores, more grenades etc etc.

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  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    Does consolidating also refer to the process of linking up and fortifying a series of craters that might be used as part of the line?

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  • David_Underdown by David_Underdown moderator

    Potentially, yes

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