Before an infantry advance during the First World War, it was a common strategy to bombard enemy defences with all available heavy artillery. It was believed that preliminary bombardment would enable soldiers to capture enemy trenches. On the Western Front this strategy was largely unsuccessful and so in 1916 both sides began to use what became known as a creeping barrage.

First used at the Battle of the Somme, a creeping barrage involved artillery fire moving forward in stages just ahead of the advancing infantry. By the autumn the Allied forces developed a system where the barrage moved forward at 50 metres per minute. To work, the strategy required precise timing by both the heavy artillery and the infantry. Failure to do this would result in the artillery killing their own soldiers. Although creeping barrage was sometimes successful when the commander had limited objectives, it failed to provide the means to end the stalemate on the Western Front.

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