Barrage

A standing barrage was laid in front of one's own trenches or on the enemy's approaches to break up an attack or cut off reinforcements; it fell on targets registered in advance, on a signal from the front line. A creeping barrage moved forward at a set pace, typically about 100 metres every few minutes, and the infantry followed close behind it so as to reach the enemy trenches before the defenders could come up from their dugouts.

The British used the word barrage in their orders for the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in 1915. On the Somme in 1916 attacking behind a creeping barrage became standard practice in the British Army, while the Germans used their own Feuerwalze, refined in 1918 by Colonel Georg Bruchmüller. The method demanded strict timing: infantry too far behind the barrage lost its protection, and infantry too close was hit by its own shells.