The two sides continued by shouting Christmas greetings to each other. The British responded by singing carols of their own. The Germans placed candles on their trenches and on Christmas trees, then continued the celebration by singing Christmas carols. The first truce started on Christmas Eve 1914, when German troops decorated the area around their trenches in the region of Ypres, Belgium and particularly in Saint-Yvon (called Saint-Yves, in Plugstreet/Ploegsteert – Comines-Warneton). Roughly 100,000 British and German troops were involved in the unofficial cessations of hostility along the Western Front. However, this has been criticised by some other academics, with Gavin McLean noting that 'Māori had certainly adapted pā to suit the musket, but others dismissed Belich’s claim as baseless post-colonial revisionism.' There has been an academic debate surrounding this since the 1980s, when in his book The New Zealand Wars, historian James Belich claimed that Northern Māori had effectively invented Trench warfare during the first stages of the New Zealand Wars. British casualty rates of up to 45 percent, such as at Gate Pa in 1844 and the Battle of Ohaeawai in 1845, suggested that contemporary firepower was insufficient to dislodge defenders from a trench system. These systems included firing trenches, communication trenches, tunnels, and anti-artillery bunkers. In the New Zealand Wars (1845–1872), the indigenous Maori developed elaborate trench and bunker systems as part of fortified areas known as pā, employing them successfully as early as the 1840s to withstand British cannon, muskets, and an experimental poison-gas mortar.
The French built the Lines of Ne Plus Ultra (Latin for 'no further') during the winter of 1710–1711, which have been compared to the trenches of World War I.By 1870 the Lines no longer existed, but the two central forts in the towns of Wissembourg and Altenstadt still possessed fortifications that proved useful defensive positions during the Battle of Wissembourg. These were to remain in existence for just over 100 years and were last manned during Napoleon's Hundred Days (1815). The French built the 19-kilometre-long (12 mi) Lines of Weissenburg during the War of the Spanish Succession under the orders of the Duke of Villars in 1706.The French captured these lines in 1707 and demolished them.
They played a pivotal role in manoeuvring that took place before the Battle of Blenheim (1704). The works ran for about 15 km (10 mi) from Stollhofen on the Rhine to the impenetrable woods on the hills east of Bühl.
In the early-modern era troops used field works to block possible lines of advance.
Roman legions, when in the presence of an enemy, entrenched camps nightly when on the move.