#NIMonDisplay M1910 Entrenching Tools and Cover The greatest life-saving tools of World War I, the humble entrenching tool and pick, often created the only refuge from the hellish battlefields of the Western Front. Digging In – Except for times when maneuver was possible, fighting took place in and around two trench systems stretching nearly 400 miles across Europe from the coast of Belgium to the Swiss border. Normally about seven feet in depth and four-five feet in width, there were “dugouts”