Life in the Trenches

When the Great War began, most people believed that it would be over in a few months, and that the war would be fought by huge armies sweeping across great battlefield in the traditions of Napoleon and much of the American Civil War. Early in the war, Germany had marched through Belgium and was on its way to Paris and to control the French ports. It looked like the war would indeed be quick. However, Allied troops stopped the German advances and made an offensive of their own in 1915, with both sides suffering heavy losses. In order to keep some of the remaining territory it gained, the Germans followed human nature and dug in, using small trenches as a base for attack. The Allies in turn dug their own trenches as a defensive measure. As the weaponry became more modern, the two sides dug in even deeper, creating a series of trenches that eventually extended for over 475 miles from Switzerland to the North Sea. The trenches became the home for many of the soldiers on the Western Front, and serve as one of the most common memories of the Great War. While the war was fought elsewhere (colonies, Middle East, Italy), the Western Front was therefore established, and troops would hardly move until 1918.

Trenches has been used in 19th century wars, but not as prevalent and not as permanent. Trenches came about because armies had better defensive weapons (machine guns) than offensive weapons. They started as ditches but they became much more elaborate as the war dragged on. German trenches were the best. Deep dugouts were excavated for protection from shells. Some eventually had electricity and running water. The British and French shells were basic and more temporary. Some leaders didnt want their soldiers to be too soft (they didnt even give helmets for the start of the war).

Trenches became like an underground city. Some long trenches were given names from home (Broadway, Piccadilly), or from the war (Suicide Corner). The trenches zigzagged so the enemy couldnt get a clear line of fire down the length of any trench and so the blast impact of a shell would be limited.

The trenches usually had three lines Reserve, support, and front line. The three lines were connected by communication trenches, and made it very difficult to overrun.

Saps were tiny holes dug closer to enemy line than front trench. They were mostly from craters created by artillery. They were as close to enemy line as commanders dared. Soldiers would be in the saps at night, listening to sounds from the enemy and trying to prevent a night attack or raid.

In between the trenches was a place called No Mans Land a shell torn ground between enemy trenches. It could be a few to a several hundred feet wide. Sometimes the area was still, while other times it was active. Barbed wire separated and protected the trenches. Razor blades would be attached to the wire, sharp enough to sever fingers.

American troops did not spend nearly as much time in the trenches as their Allies or their opponents on the Western Front. The arrival of the American Expeditionary Force in France in 1917 coincided with the beginning of change from the stalemate of trench warfare back to the war of movement originally visualized by Allied commanders. A.E.F. commander General John Blackjack Pershing strongly advocated a return to open warfare. He ordered the newly arrived U.S. troops to undergo training that focused on maintaining a vigorous offensive when they entered combat. Although technology initially forced soldiers to dig-in, it also came to eventually provide ways of effectively fighting outside of the protection offered by trenches.

Light machine guns, portable mortars, rifle grenades, aerial reconnaissance, and even the first tanks helped to break the stalemate of the trenches. These new advances in military technology effectively allowed soldiers to operate relatively protected on open ground or endowed them offensive capabilities that could readily overcome enemy defenses. Despite such advances and the movement away from the static fighting that characterized the early years of the Great War, trenches remained an integral part of the Doughboys experience, whether as a permanent defensive position or the launching point for a large-scale offensive.

A Modern WarWorld War presented the AEF with a new type of warfare, including modern weapons that they had never experienced before.

Heavy Artillery Heavy artillery was used throughout the war, mostly on the Western Front. Concentrated barrages would be delivered from behind lines onto the enemy about to be attacked. Field guns would be dug in and positioned to rain fire on enemy targets. Forward officers would be used to observe their fire and telephone reports of their accuracy so improvements could be made.

An increasing number of howitzers were used as the war progressed. Most howitzers were of 155 mm caliber, although some German ones held 420 mm caliber fire, capable of firing a 2,200 lb shell up to 9 miles in distance. Accuracy was continuously improved.

Artillery shot three types of weapons chemical shells, explosive shells, and shrapnel (like buckshot). By 1916, it was common for a bombardment of 2,000 guns and howitzers to go on for days before an infantry assault began. The results were usually mixed. Overall, however, the artillery was the greatest killer of men in the war 59% of the casualties from the war came from artillery.

Machine Guns In 1884 Hiram Maxim invented the world's first automatic portable machine-gun. Maxim used the energy of each bullet's recoil force to eject the spent cartridge, insert the next and fire it. The machine-gun would therefore fire until the entire belt of bullets was used up. The Maxim Gun could fire 400-600 rounds of small-caliber ammunition per minute. Each gun had the firepower of about 100 rifles. The German Army's Maschinengewehr and the Russian Pulemyot Maxima were both based on the same design. The American Army tended to use the Browning Machine-Gun whereas the French Army preferred the Hotchkiss. Machine-guns were positioned all along the Western Front.

The machine-guns in use in 1914 required a crew of three to six men and were positioned on a flat trajectory tripod. For added protection, German machine-guns were often housed inside concrete blockhouses. Both sides also used smaller machine-gun posts. Germans built the best machine guns, and they used them in large numbers all along the line at Ypres and Messines. Machine-gunners were deeply hated by the infantry and they were more likely to be killed when captured than other soldiers. Some of the powers-that-be opposed the machine guns, but not for humanitarian reasons, but because of the amount of money spent on shells.

Flamethrowers The German Army first began experimenting with flame-throwers in 1900 and were issued to special battalions eleven years later. The flame-thrower used pressurized air, carbon dioxide or nitrogen to force oil through a nozzle. Ignited by a small charge, the oil became a jet of flame liquid fire.

Flame-throwers were first used by the French at the Western Front in October 1914. Operated by two men, they were mainly used to clear enemy soldiers from front-line trenches. Most of the flamethrowers were crewed by former firemen. At first they had a range of 25 meters but later this was increased to 40 meters. This meant they were only effective over narrow areas of No Man's Land.

Another problem was that the flame-thrower was difficult to move around and only contained enough oil to burn 40 seconds at the time. Soldiers who operated flame-throwers had a short-life span because as soon as they used them they were the target of rifle and machine-gun fire.

The British Army also experimented with flame-throwers. However, they found short-range jets inefficient. They also developed four 2-ton thrower that could send a flame over 30 yards. These were introduced in July 1916 but within a couple of weeks two had been destroyed. Although these large flame-throwers initially created panic amongst German soldiers, the British were unable to capture the trenches under attack. With this failure, the British generals decided to abandon the use of flame-throwers. The United States did not use flamethrowers, though they did feel the heat from them in the battlefields.

Airplanes Airplanes were one of the least effective aspects of the new technological warfare, and the American contributions were almost insignificant. The early airplanes were so flimsy that at first both sides limited their use to reconnaissance, or scouting. After a while, the two sides used tanks to fire at enemy planes that were gathering information. Early dogfights, or individual air combats, resembled duels. Pilots sat in their open cockpits and shot at each other with pistols. Because it was hard to fly a plane and shoot a pistol at the same time, planes began to carry mounted machine guns - but the planes propeller blades kept getting in the way of the bullets (kind of a funny thought). A Dutch inventor named Fokker (who was working for Germany) developed an interrupter gear that permitted a steady stream of bullets to avoid whirring propeller blades, and air fights became more common. As the war progressed, planes became faster and stronger, able to carry heavy bomb loads. By 1918 the British had built up a strategic bomber force of 22,000 planes to bomb German war plants and army bases.

The most successful fighter pilots who took part in aerial battles during the First World War were called flying aces. The term first appeared in 1915 when French newspapers described Adolphe Pegoud as a flying ace after he became the first pilot to shoot down five German aircraft. In 1916 during the Battle of Verdun the French fighter units began publishing the scores of individual pilots. German Air Service followed the example of France but their pilots were only listed when they had achieved eight confirmed 'kills'. The publication of these figures helped to build up morale during the war.

Billy Mitchell was the largest proponent of air warfare. In fact, the air war for the US was mostly romance, with great stories about the dogfights and legendary aces like Eddie Rickenbacker (An ace was a pilot with 5 kills German aces had to have 10 kills, with the Red Baron being the most successful ace with 80 kills.) They were also used to persuade young men to join the armed forces and to encourage experienced pilots to compete with their comrades. The figures published in the newspapers were not always accurate. Dogfights often involved large numbers of aircraft and it was not always clear who was really responsible for the actual 'kill'. To obtain a 'confirmed' victory involved the inspection of the wreckage, and this was of course impossible when the aircraft had come down behind the enemy front-line

ZeppelinsNamed for Count Ferdinand Zeppelin, a German army officer, the Zeppelin airship was first developed in 1897. The first Zeppelin flew on 2nd July 1900 and by the start of the First World War the German Army had seven military Zeppelins.The Zeppelin developed in 1914 could reach a maximum speed of 136 kph and reach a height of 4,250 meters. The Zeppelin had five machine-guns and could carry 2,000 kg (4,400 lbs) of bombs. In January 1915, two Zeppelin navel airships flew over the east coast of England and bombed great Yarmouth and King's Lynn. The first Zeppelin raid on London took place on 31st May 1915. The raid killed 28 people and injured 60 more.

Zeppelins could deliver successful long-range bombing attacks, but were extremely vulnerable to attack and bad weather. British fighter pilots and anti-aircraft gunners became very good at bringing down Zeppelins. A total of 115 Zeppelins were used by the German military, of which, 77 were either destroyed or so damaged they could not be used again. In June 1917 the German military stopped used Zeppelins for bombing raids over Britain. Overall, their most important impact was in reconnaissance.

Armored TanksThe tank, an armored vehicle capable of crossing difficult terrain, was conceived by a British Army journalist as a means of breaking the stalemate that existed on the Western Front following the onset of trench warfare in 1914. The British employed tanks for the first time in 1916, but with inexperienced crews and impossible ground to cover, their effect was minimal. They were mot war winners, since they were clumsy, lumbering, and broke down a lot. The French, Germans, and eventually Americans developed tanks of their own (although the U.S. never used them in battle), and the tank became increasingly successful in a limited role.

The British Mark V tank was the most successful armored vehicle used in the war. It was used in a successful offensive against the German line in 1918 that finally sealed the fate of the German army. While tanks did not win the war, they did provide an answer to the stalemate of trench warfare.

GAsChlorine gas destroyed the respiratory organs of its victims and this led to a slow death by asphyxiation (suffocation). One nurse described the death of one soldier who had been in the trenches during a chlorine gas attack. He was sitting on the bed, fighting for breath, his lips plum colored. He was a magnificent young Canadian past all hope in the asphyxia of chlorine. I shall never forget the look in his eyes as he turned to me and gasped: I cant die! Is it possible that nothing can be done for me? It was a horrible death, but as hard as they tried, doctors were unable to find a way of successfully treating chlorine gas poisoning.

The oncoming yellow cloud would be accompanies by a smell, similar to a mixture of pepper and pineapple. A metallic taste stung their throats and chests.

At Ypres, a yellow-green cloud, coming from German lines, advanced at French troops. It was 168 tons of chlorine was used to make the gas, pushed by prevailing winds. Since it is heavier than air, the gas hugged the ground, seeping into trenches and foxholes. The cloud covered 4 miles of trench lines, leading to the death of 10,000 troops, half of which died in 10 minutes.

It was important to have the right weather conditions before a gas attack could be made. When the British Army launched a gas attack on 25th September in 1915, the wind blew it back into the faces of the advancing troops. This problem was solved in 1916 when gas shells were produced for use with heavy artillery. This increased the army's range of attack and helped to protect their own troops when weather conditions were not completely ideal.

After the first German chlorine gas attacks, Allied troops were supplied with masks of cotton pads that had been soaked in urine. It was found that the ammonia in the pad neutralized the chlorine. These pads were held over the face until the soldiers could escape from the poisonous fumes. Other soldiers preferred to use handkerchiefs, a sock, a flannel body-belt, dampened with a solution of bicarbonate of soda, and tied across the mouth and nose until the gas passed over. Soldiers found it difficult to fight like this and attempts were made to develop a better means of protecting men against gas attacks. By July 1915 soldiers were given efficient gas masks and anti-asphyxiation respirators.

One disadvantage for the side that launched chlorine gas attacks was that it made the victim cough and therefore limited his intake of the poison. Both sides found that phosgene was more effective than chlorine. Only a small amount was needed to make it impossible for the soldier to keep fighting. It also killed its victim within 48 hours of the attack. Advancing armies also used a mixture of chlorine and phosgene called 'white star'.

Mustard Gas (Yperite) was first used by the German Army in September 1917. The most lethal of all the poisonous chemicals used during the war, it was almost odorless and took twelve hours to take effect. Yperite was so powerful that only small amounts had to be added to high explosive shells to be effective. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several weeks.

The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, the eyes became very sore and they began to vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful and most soldiers had to be strapped to their beds. It usually took a person four or five weeks to die of mustard gas poisoning. One nurse, Vera Brittain, wrote: "I wish those people who talk about going on with this war whatever it costs could see the soldiers suffering from mustard gas poisoning. Great mustard-coloured blisters, blind eyes, all sticky and stuck together, always fighting for breath, with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke."

Gas was not the most effective weapon. It accounted for 30,000 combat deaths (out of 5 million), but it was very symbolic of the cruelty and indiscriminate killing of modern warfare. It was usually used to incapacitate troops and remove them from the front line.

LIFE IN THE TRENCHES

Stand To and the Morning HateThe daily routine of life in the trenches began with the morning 'stand to'. An hour before dawn everyone was roused from slumber by the company orderly officer and sergeant and ordered to climb up on thefire stepto guard against a dawn raid by the enemy, bayonets fixed.This policy of stand to was adopted by both sides, and despite the knowledge that each side prepared itself for raids or attacks timed at dawn, many were actually carried out at this time.Accompanying stand to, as the light grew, was the daily ritual often termed the 'morning hate'. Both sides would often relieve the tension of the early hours with machinefire, shelling and small arms fire, directed into the mist to their front: this made doubly sure of safety at dawn.

Rum, Rifles and the Breakfast TruceWith stand to over, in some areas rum might then be issued to the men. They would then attend to the cleaning of theirrifle equipment, which was followed by its inspection by officers.Breakfast would next be served. In essentially every area of the line at some time or other each side would adopt an unofficial truce while breakfast was served and eaten. This truce often extended to the wagons which delivered such sustenance.Truces such as these seldom lasted long; invariably a senior officer would hear of its existence and quickly stamp it out. Nevertheless it persisted throughout the war, and was more prevalent in quieter sectors of the line.

Inspection and ChoresWith breakfast over the men would be inspected by either the company or platoon commander. Once this had been completed NCOs would assign daily chores to each man (except those who had been excused duty for a variety of reasons).Example - and necessary - daily chores included the refilling ofsandbags, the repair of the duckboards on the floor of the trench and the draining of trenches. Particularly following heavy rainfall, trenches could quickly accumulate muddy water, making life ever more miserable for its occupants as the walls of the trench rapidly became misshapen and were prone to collapse. Pumping equipment was available for the draining of trenches; men would also be assigned to the repair of the trench itself. Still others would be assigned to thepreparation of latrines.

Daily BoredomGiven that each side's front line was constantly under watch by snipers and look-outs during daylight, movement was logically restricted until night fell. Thus, once men had concluded their assigned tasks they were free to attend to more personal matters, such as the reading and writing of letters home.Meals were also prepared. Sleep was snatched wherever possible - although it was seldom that men were allowed sufficient time to grab more than a few minutes rest before they were detailed to another task.

Dusk: Stand To, Supply and MaintenanceWith the onset of dusk the morning ritual of stand to was repeated, again to guard against a surprise attack launched as light fell.This over, the trenches became a hive of activity. Supply and maintenance activities could be undertaken, although danger invariably accompanied these as the enemy would be alert for such movement. Men would be sent to the rear lines to fetch rations and water.Other men would be assigned sentry duty on the fire step. Generally men would be expected to provide sentry duty for up to two hours. Any longer and there was a real risk of men falling asleep on duty - for which the penalty was death by firing squad.

Patrolling No Man's LandPatrols would often be sent out into No Mans Land. Some men would be tasked withrepairing or adding barbed wireto the front line. Others however would go out to assignedlistening posts, hoping to pick up valuable information from the enemy lines.Sometimes enemy patrols would meet in No Man's Land. They were then faced with the option of hurrying on their separate ways or else engaging in hand to hand fighting.They could not afford to use theirhandgunswhile patrolling in No Man's Land, for fear of the machine gun fire it would inevitably attract, deadly to all members of the patrol.

Shell Shock

By 1914 British doctors working in military hospitals noticed patients suffering from "shell shock". Early symptoms included tiredness, irritability, giddiness, lack of concentration and headaches. Eventually the men suffered mental breakdowns making it impossible for them to remain in the front-line. Some came to the conclusion that the soldiers condition was caused by the enemy's heavy artillery. These doctors argued that a bursting shell creates a vacuum, and when the air rushes into this vacuum it disturbs the cerebro-spinal fluid and this can upset the working of the brain.

Some doctors argued that the only cure for shell shock was a complete rest away from the fighting. If you were an officer you were likely to be sent back home to recuperate. However, the army was less sympathetic to ordinary soldiers with shell shock. Some senior officers took the view that these men were cowards who were trying to get out of fighting.

Between 1914 and 1918 the British Army identified 80,000 men (2% of those who saw active service) as suffering from shell shock. A much larger number of soldiers with these symptoms were classified as 'malingerers' and sent back to the front-line. In some cases men committed suicide. Others broke down under the pressure and refused to obey the orders of their officers. Some responded to the pressures of shell shock by deserting. Sometimes soldiers who disobeyed orders got shot on the spot. In some cases, soldiers were court-martialled.

FoodFood (or the lack of it) was constantly on the minds of soldiers in the trenches, and it was also the source of many jokes. Even though they were told that the army was spending millions per day, there was never enough to eat. Soldiers typically had two meals a day. Rolling kitchens behind the lines prepare hot food to send it up. Most meals were usually served cold, since fires were limited on the front no one wanted to give away their position. They were supposed to get a daily ration of 1 ponds canned meat, hard tack, beans, potatoes, dried fruit, coffee, sugar, salt, and pepper. In reality, they usually received canned salmon (called goldfish), canned tomatoes, powdered eggs, and corn syrup. Later in the war, the supplies had to be reduced in order to send more troops. Soldiers called the canned, fatty corned beef monkey meat and the basic stew was slumgullion. Amazingly, members of the AEF were supposedly the best fed in on the Western Front.

RatsMany men killed in the trenches were buried almost where they fell. If a trench subsided, or new trenches or dugouts were needed, large numbers of decomposing bodies would be found just below the surface. Rats were attracted by these corpses, as well as the food scraps that littered the trenches. One pair of rats can produce 880 offspring in a year and so the trenches were soon swarming with them.

Some of these rats grew extremely large. One soldier wrote: "The rats were huge. They were so big they would eat a wounded man if he couldn't defend himself." These rats became very bold and would attempt to take food from the pockets of sleeping men. Two or three rats would always be found on a dead body. They usually went for the eyes first and then they burrowed their way right into the corpse.

One soldier described finding a group of dead bodies while on patrol: "I saw some rats running from under the dead men's greatcoats, enormous rats, fat with human flesh. My heart pounded as we edged towards one of the bodies. His helmet had rolled off. The man displayed a grimacing face, stripped of flesh; the skull bare, the eyes devoured and from the yawning mouth leapt a rat."

The rats are pretty well unimaginable too, and, wherever you are, if you have any grub about you that they like, they eat straight through your clothes or haversack to get at it as soon as you are asleep. I had some crumbs of army biscuit in a little calico bag in a greatcoat pocket, and when I awoke they had eaten a big hole through the coat from outside and pulled the bag through it, as if they thought the bag would be useful to carry away the stuff in. But they don't actually try to eat live humans.

Rats bred by the tens of thousands and lived on the fat of the land. When we were sleeping in funk holes the things ran over us, played about, copulated and fouled our scraps of food, their young squeaking incessantly. There was no proper system of waste disposal in trench life. Empty tins of all kinds were flung away over the top on both sides of the trench. Millions of tins were thus available for all the rats in France and Belgium in hundreds of miles of trenches. During brief moments of quiet at night, one could hear a continuous rattle of tins moving against each other. The rats were turning them over. What happened to the rats under heavy shell-fire was a mystery, but their powers of survival kept place with each new weapon, including poison gas.

For many veterans who were asked to recall their memories of life in the trenches the overriding feature that lingered in the mind was the problem - and horror - of trench rats.

Rats - brown and black - thrived literally in their millions among trenches in most Fronts of the war, be it Eastern, Italian, Gallipoli - but primarily the Western Front. Trench conditions were ideal for rats. Empty food cans were piled in their thousands throughout No Man's Land, heaved over the top on a daily basis.

Aside from feeding from rotting food littered in such cans, rats would invade dug-outs in search of food and shelter. Most soldiers who served on the Western Front would later recall how rats grew in boldness, stealing food that had been lain down for just a few moments. Rats would also crawl across the face of sleeping men.As they gorged themselves on food so they grew, with many rats reportedly growing to the size of cats. George Coppard, writing in With a Machine Gun to Cambrai (1969), recalled the ceaseless rattling of tin cans during the night, the sound of rats constantly ferreting in No Man's Land.

However the feature which caused revulsion among soldiers was the knowledge that rats openly fed on the decaying remains of comrades killed while advancing across No Man's Land. Attacking - and eating - the eyes of corpse first, rats would steadily work their way through the remainder of the body in a short space of time.

Disgusted and often feeling a horror of their presence, soldiers would devise various means of dealing with the rat problem. Although shooting at rats was strictly prohibited - it being regarded as a pointless waste of ammunition - many soldiers nevertheless took pot shots at nearby rats in this manner. Attacking rats with bayonets was also common. However the rat population was not noticeably diminished by such techniques - a pair of rats were capable of producing some 800 offspring within a single year.

The dirt and unclean conditions bred disease in the trenches. The close quarters led to spread of contagious disease, as did the poor medical treatment on the front. We only had primitive drugs with which to get by. In fact, more American boys lost their lives to disease than to bullets and shells in the war.

Lice

Men in the trenches suffered from lice. One soldier writing after the war described them as "pale fawn in colour, and they left blotchy red bite marks all over the body." They also created a sour; stale smell. Various methods were used to remove the lice. A lighted candle was fairly effective but the skill of burning the lice without burning your clothes was only learnt with practice. Where possible the army arranged for the men to have baths in huge vats of hot water while their clothes were being put through delousing machines. Unfortunately, this rarely worked. A fair proportion of the eggs remained in the clothes and within two or three hours of the clothes being put on again a man's body heat had hatched them out.

As well as causing frenzied scratching, lice also carried disease. This was known as pyrrexhia or trench fever. The first symptoms were shooting pains in the shins and were followed by a very high fever. Although the disease did not kill, it did stop soldiers from fighting and accounted for about 15% of all cases of sickness in the British Army.

This usually involved running a lighted candle down the seam of ones clothes, where the lice were most often located. Another method was to soak clothes in naphthalene. De-lousing was a social activity: it gave the soldiers an opportunity to get together and talk while working on a common goal.Unfortunately, as soon as the lice were dead their eggs would hatch and their offspring would simply take their place. Since each female louse could produce up to 12 eggs per day, it was generally a losing battle.Beyond the maddening itching and futile scratching, the lice produced blotchy red marks across the body and left a faintly sour smell. Furthermore, lice were responsible for the spread of trench fever and typhus. Once a louse had sucked the blood of one infected soldier, it spread disease to all subsequent hosts. Due to the very close proximity of the soldiers in the trenches and their poor sanitation, these diseases were rampant, eventually leading to a 15% trench casualty rate.

Dysentery

Dysentery is a disease involving the inflammation of the lining of the large intestines. The inflammation causes stomach pains and diarrhea. Some cases involve vomiting and fever. The bacteria enters the body through the mouth in food or water, and also by human feces and contact with infected people. The diarrhea causes people suffering from dysentery to lose important salts and fluids from the body. This can be fatal if the body dehydrates. This disease struck the men in the trenches as there was no proper sanitation. Latrines in the trenches were pits four to five feet deep. When they were within one foot they were supposed to be filled in and the soldiers had the job of digging a new one. Sometimes there was not time for this and men used a nearby shell-hole.

One of the most common and painful afflictions was dysentery. The condition was marked by severe stomach pains and diarrhea, and in some cases vomiting and fever. It was caused by bacteria that entered the body through the mouth in food or water, and also by human feces or contact with infected people. Since we had no proper sanitation, we often drank impure ditch water which would make the situation even more severe.

Dysentery caused by contaminated water was especially a problem in the early stages of the war. The main reason for this was that it was some time before regular supplies of water to the trenches could be organized. Soldiers were supplied with water bottles that could be refilled when they returned to reserve lines. However, the water-bottle supply was rarely enough for their needs and soldiers in the trenches often depended on impure water collected from shell-holes or other cavities. Later, to purify it, chloride of lime was added to the water. This was not popular with the soldiers as they disliked the taste of the purified water.

The one thing of which no description given in England any true measure is the universal, ubiquitous muckiness of the whole front. One could hardly have imagined anybody as muddy as everybody is.

Trench footMany soldiers fighting in the First World War suffered from trench foot. This was an infection of the feet caused by cold, wet and unsanitary conditions. In the trenches men stood for hours on end in waterlogged trenches without being able to remove wet socks or boots. The feet would gradually go numb and the skin would turn red or blue. If untreated, trench foot could turn gangrenous and result in amputation. Trench foot was a particular problem in the early stages of the war. For example, during the winter of 1914-15 over 20,000 men in the British Army were treated for trench foot.

The only remedy for trench foot was for the soldiers to dry their feet and change their socks several times a day. By the end of 1915 British soldiers in the trenches had to have three pairs of socks with them and were under orders to change their socks at least twice a day. As well as drying their feet, soldiers were told to cover their feet with a grease made from whale-oil. It has been estimated that a battalion at the front would use ten gallons of whale-oil every day.

Whether we were wounded in battle or fell prey to disease, our medical treatment on the front was both minimal and not very effective. The basic medical care provided in the support trench could help in the short term, with anesthetics and bandages applied when necessary. However, the casualty clearinghouses behind the lines were abysmal. The medical tents had dim light, a small and under-trained staff, and crowded numbers of soldiers. The medical knowledge of the time led to many unnecessary amputations, and some patients were given overdoses of anesthesia. Many soldiers did survive their injuries thanks to the hard working doctors and surgeons, but the medical conditions were a challenge.

SmellFinally, no overview of trench life can avoid the aspect that instantly struck visitors to the lines: the appalling reek given off by numerous conflicting sources. Rotting carcasses lay around in their thousands. For example, approximately 200,000 men were killed on the Somme battlefields, many of which lay in shallow graves. Overflowing latrines would similarly give off a most offensive stench. Men who had not been afforded the luxury of a bath in weeks or months would offer the pervading odor of dried sweat. The feet were generally accepted to give off the worst odor. Trenches would also smell of creosol or chloride of lime, used to stave off the constant threat of disease and infection. Add to this the smell of cordite, the lingering odor of poison gas, rotting sandbags, stagnant mud, cigarette smoke and cooking food... yet men grew used to it, while it thoroughly overcame first-time visitors to the front.