No man's land is a term for land that is not occupied or more specifically land that is
under dispute between countries or areas that will not occupy it because of fear or uncertainty. During
war (especially
World War I), it is a term used as the area of land between two enemy trenches that neither side wishes to openly move on or take control of due to fear of being attacked by the enemy in the process. It is also a term for the stretch of land between two
border posts, when one exits one country at their border post and when one enters the next country at their border post, usually just a few metres away,
[citation needed] though at some (usually remote) border crossings it can be measured in kilometers.
Although usually associated with World War I, the term no-man's-land goes back to the early 14th century. The term was first used for a vast wasteland outside the north walls of London where criminals were executed.[citation needed] Often the rotting bodies of these hanged, impaled, and beheaded criminals were left in the open in full display, as a warning to potential lawbreakers. This area came to be known as no-man's land since no one would seek to claim this land for ownership. Roughly 400 years later, the term was applied to a little-used area on ships called the forecastle, a place where various ropes, tackle, block, and other supplies were stored.[citation needed] In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, No Man's Land was the name of a disputed unincorporated area on the shore of Lake Michigan between the Chicago suburbs of Evanston and Wilmette, Illinois.[1]
The term was first applied in a military sense in about 1900 where its meaning referred to the area between hostile entrenched lines. The phrase probably gained wide usage during World War I after it was used in a dispatch that was printed in the Times newspaper by (Colonel) E Swinton, who was writing under the pseudonym "Eyewitness." No man's land would be one of the definitive phrases that characterized the horrors of World War I, a "neutral" area between opposing trenches that saw fierce fighting and large scale human carnage.
No man's land was often a hellish experience for soldiers, ranging from several hundred yards to in some cases as short as 15 yards. Heavily defended by machine guns and riflemen on both sides, it was often riddled with land mines and barbed wire, as well as corpses and wounded soldiers who were not able to make it back to their own trenches. Intense bombing and artillery often blanketed the no man's land in a sea of explosions and fire. The area was usually devastated by the warfare, leaving little to no foliage or cover of any sort. The artillery left only disturbed ground, craters, carnage and remains of the artillery. It was open to fire from the opposing trenches and hard going generally slowed down any attempted advance. However, not only were soldiers forced to cross no man's land when advancing, and as the case might be when retreating, but after an attack the stretcher bearers would need to go out into it to bring in the wounded.
