Life in the
Trenches
Trenches were not nice places to live. They were often
waterlogged, and had little if any comforts such as heating and toilets. Much
of the time the trenches were as little as 40 metres
away from the enemy and the method of attack was to 'go over the top' of the
trench and charge at the opposing trench. Millions died as machine guns cut
through most soldiers well before they reached the trenches
Much of the land where the trenches were dug was either clay
or sand. The water could not pass through the clay and because the sand was on
top, the trenches became waterlogged when it rained. The trenches were hard to
dig and kept on collapsing in the waterlogged sand. As well as trenches the
shells from the guns and bombs made big craters in the ground. The rain filled
up the craters and then poured into the trenches.
At the beginning of the war British soldiers were given 10
ounces of meat and 8 ounces of vegetables a day. However, as the war dragged on
supplies began to run short and troops not on the front-line only received meat
on nine out of every thirty days. The bulk of their diet in the trenches was canned
corned beef, bread and biscuits. By the winter of 1916 flour was in such short
supply that bread was being made with dried ground turnips. The main food was
now a pea-soup with a few lumps of horsemeat. Kitchen staff became more and
more dependent on local vegetables and also had to use weeds such as nettles in
soups and stews even worse, because the kitchens were far away from the front
line by the time the food reached the soldiers it was always cold.
Trench Foot:
Many 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. During the winter
of 1914-15 over 20,000 men in the British Army were treated for trench foot.
Lice:
Men in the trenches also 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.
Poison Gas:
The French Army were the first to
employ poison gas as a weapon in the first month of the war when they fired tear-gas
grenades at the Germans. However, the use of poison gas began in earnest in April
1915 when the German Army used chlorine gas cylinders against the French Army at
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 poison. Other soldiers preferred
to use handkerchiefs or a sock dampened with a solution of bicarbonate of soda,
and tied across the mouth and nose until the gas passed over. It was not until
July 1915 that soldiers were given efficient gas masks and anti-asphyxiation
respirators.
It has been estimated that the Germans used 68,000 tons of
gas against Allied soldiers. This was more than the French Army (36,000) and
the British Army (25,000). An estimated 91,198 soldiers died as a result of
poison gas attacks and another 1.2 million were hospitalized. The Russian Army,
with 56,000 deaths, suffered more than any other armed force
Suicide:
Faced with the prospect of being killed or permanently
disabled, soldiers sometimes hoped that they would receive what was known as a blighty wound, and be sent back home. There were some cases
where soldiers shot themselves in an attempt to end their time on the frontline.
Self-inflicted wounds was a capital offence and if
discovered, a man found guilty of this faced execution by firing squad. A total
of 3,894 men in the British Army were convicted of SIW. None of these men were
executed but they all served periods in prison.