Death In The Trenches During Ww1

Death and disease were omnipresent in the trenches. The health and the living conditions in the trenches were one of the biggest issues faced in World War one. Diseases in the trenches killed more soldiers than bombardment or bullets. Scraps of discarded food, empty tins and other waste, the nearby presence of the latrine, the general dirt of living half underground and being not able to wash or change for a considerable length of time or weeks on end created conditions of severe health risk (1914-1918.net, 2014). The unsanitary living conditions not only caused several health problems but this caused vermin and parasites to be very commonly present in the trenches. The rats were known to grow ‘as big as domestic cats’ according to soldiers fighting in the

The diseases soldiers tended to face were small pox, measles, mumps, dysentery, and so on. The list is endless. Dysentery was by far the most lethal during the Civil War (Civil War Diseases 1). There was a 75% chance that if a soldier was injured, an amputation would occur (Civil War Medicine 1). This led to a tremendous death toll due to the bacteria into the wound. There were plentiful reasons as why a soldier contracted these diseases other than a gunshot wound. These reasons included, poor physical upon entering the army, the doctors lack of knowledge when it came to medical information, terrible hygiene, disease causing parasites, and lack of the basic necessities for survival. As you can see, this is a recipe for failure and death. For example, in order to

World War I was known for its very slow-paced battle and the stage of stalemate. After advancing from Germany on France, battle turned into trench warfare. Trench Warfare is a defensive strategy in a field where the army stays in rows of trenches that were placed along the Western Front during the war. The use of trenches during the Great War was a very significant tactic during battle, by making soldiers hidden but exposed just enough to be able to attack the enemy. On a daily basis, life in the trenches was very scary and filled with horror. Death was upon the soldiers even if there was nobody attacking them. There was a continuous shell fire that would randomly take the lives of many. Some men died on their first day in the trenches, and very few were lucky to make it out unharmed. Shell fire was not the only issue in the trenches. There were plenty of diseases and infections spreading around like a wildfire. Many soldiers got infections and diseases that could not be treated such as Trench Foot or Trench Fever. Although trench warfare acts as a great defensive and offensive measure, it became very dangerous because of the many different causes of death including shell fire, diseases, and infections.

These endless zigzag trails were the soldiers’ home for as long as they were assigned duty to them. The trenches were often infested with “rats and lice… ‘There are millions! Some are huge fellows, nearly as big as cats…’ The soldiers often went weeks without washing or changing clothes, and most were infested with body lice” (Newman 141). Conditions were so wet and dirty and the men had to live with it. As a result of the wet and dirty conditions, many soldiers got ‘trench foot’. “Their feet swelled up to two or three times their normal size and went numb…but when the swelling went down, the pain was agonizing.

In World War One, about ten million soldiers lost their lives. Many of these men died in Trench Warfare, due to the constant enemy fire. Also rats, sometimes the size of cats, infested the trenches leading to the spread of infections. One sickness that spread throughout the Trenches was Trench Fever, caused by lice. The three causes of World War One were alliances, militarism, and imperialism.

World War I was known for its very slow-paced battle and the stage of stalemate. After advancing from Germany on France, battle turned into trench warfare. Trench Warfare is a defensive strategy in a field where the army stays in rows of trenches that were placed along the Western Front during the war. The use of trenches during the Great War was a very significant tactic during battle, by making soldiers hidden but exposed just enough to be able to attack the enemy. On a daily basis, life in the trenches was very scary and filled with horror. Death was upon the soldiers even if there was nobody attacking them. There was a continuous shell fire that would randomly take the lives of many. Some men died on their first day in the trenches, and very few were lucky to make it out unharmed. Shell fire was not the only issue in the trenches. There were plenty of diseases and infections spreading around like a wildfire. Many soldiers got infections and diseases that could not be treated such as Trench Foot or Trench Fever. Although trench warfare acts as a great defensive and offensive measure, it became very dangerous because of the many different causes of death including shell fire, diseases, and infections.

Intro: The life for the average soldier in the WW1 trenches was pretty horrible. They had to live in mud, fellow dead soldiers and lots of rats, some the size of your hand. Life of a soldier was very tough, having to see your best mate get shot and he left to rot. Any soldiers that made it out of the war would have suffered either shell shock or post-traumatic stress disorder and living with either of these would have been terrible.

World War I had affected the health of many soldiers coming back from the war. To begin with many soldiers came home with tuberculosis. The disease spread rapidly in 1920 due to the unsanitary, urbanized conditions of the cities which was similar to that of the trenches. “The close proximity of people in wartime conditions meant diseases such as tuberculosis could easily spread” (Science Museum). In addition, many soldiers that returned home had lost limbs in the war due to trench foot. “Some conditions such as trench foot, an infection of the feet caused by cold, wet, and unsanitary conditions” (Science Museum). Trench foot affected soldiers who wished to go back to work, because most jobs wouldn’t allow handicapped workers to work; however,

The living conditions in the trenches where never sufficient enough for living in, especially when the soldiers had to stay in them for a few years. The trenches where just ditches in the ground with no sleeping arrangements. Many of the soldiers would go days without sleep. The rations of food that the soldiers received were often boring and sometimes inedible because they were rarely given fresh food. This would limit a soldier’s stamina in battle and make it more likely for that soldier to get killed. The

Even people who have not done an in depth study of World War I has heard of the infamous, trench foot. As many as twenty-thousand casualties were said to have suffered by the British Army alone. The cause to this infection of the feet was quite obvious. Trench warfare become most prominent during WWI, this was a type of warfare fought on land that consisted of seven foot deep, six foot wide tunnels dug into the earth to protect from enemy fire. These first came about when German General Erich von Falkenhayn commanded his troops to start digging to protect themselves from the oncoming French and British troops. The allies, after realizing they could not break through the German line, began to dig trenches as well (John Simpkin, 1997). Because of being the first to start digging their trenches, this gave the Germans the advantage of choosing the location to start digging. They of course, chose the high ground. This was a good decision based on a military tactical standpoint, as well as an advantage when it came to the living conditions of the soldiers (Simpkin, 1997). The deeper the British troops dug, the more water would begin to flood the trenches. The trench conditions were so bad that some soldiers even preferred to sleep outside the trenches, in plain view of their enemies and in a bullets trajectory. One soldier named Arnold Ridley

Australian soldiers who were delegated to battle in the Western Front often were faced with horrendous conditions; consequently, there were many fatalities and injured soldiers. Fighting in the Western Front, soldiers always had death around them. Whether that was bullet wounds and mustard gas, or even diseases caught from staying in the trenches, such as Trench Fever. Symptoms of Trench Fever is similar to malaria symptoms –a couple include: fever, sore joints and an outbreak of skin lesions (commonly on the back).

Medical care was as scarce as clean water. Basic medical care was rudimentary. Describing the situations as “incredibly unhygienic” would be an understatement. War fatalities were the immediate effects of the Great War and the incredible spread of a disease was a later one. As a matter of fact, more people died from the Great Influenza Pandemic than from World War One (Tauenberger1).

In World War One diseases were one of the biggest problem for the solders due to lack of hygiene, medical assistance and little medicine. The most common diseases that the soldiers faced in the war were influenza, typhoid, trench foot, trench fever, malaria, dysentery and diabetes. These disease were caused by soldiers being exposed to cold, wet, windy and damp conditions.

Infection assumed a basic part in the death toll on the Eastern Front. In the East, malady represented roughly four circumstances the measure of passings brought on by direct battle, rather than the three to one proportion in the West. Jungle fever, cholera, and looseness of the bowels added to the epidemiological emergency on the Eastern Front; be that as it may, typhoid spotted fever, transmitted by pathogenic lice and already obscure to German medicinal officers before the flare-up of the war, was the most dangerous. There was an immediate relationship between's the ecological states of the East and the pervasiveness of ailment. With urban areas too much swarmed by exiles escaping their local nations, unsanitary therapeutic conditions made

Muddy trenches become stinking cesspools, overrun by rats, which I cannot tolerate. Men spend weeks in the trenches without washing, which allows disease to spread. Soldiers' clothes become infested with lice and many men develop trench foot, a painful condition that causes their feet to swell and turn black. There are also unknown steps down and other steps where a piece of parapet has been blown in, or some walls of a traverse have