Description of Life in the Trenches Essay example

Wars take lots of things from the soldiers involved. Some things, more than others are more significant and meaningful to the soldiers daily lives. Many soldiers were drafted, and forced to go into the war whether they wanted to or not. They would leave nearly everything behind, but they would carry with them their memories, worries, and their innocence. Unfortunately, nearly every soldier would lose this innocence during their time at war.

British and French troops served in World War One at the western front, in trenches that were built by these troops as well as 140,000 men from neutral china, who were known as the Chinese Labour Corps. It would take 6 hours for 450 men to make approximately 250m of trenches, which were about 1 to 2 meters wide and 3 meters deep, per night. They were of a zig-zag shape, so preventing the enemy from firing down a straight length of trench, which were about 2,490 kilometers in total. The conditions in the trenches would have been very significant to the soldiers, as they were the main feature of trench warfare, and I will discuss these conditions further using sources that refer to these conditions.

Trenches were long, narrow ditches dug into the ground where soldiers lived day and night. There were many lines of German trenches on one side and many lines of the trenches on the allied side. In the middle there was no-man’s land, so called because it didn’t belong to either army. Soldiers crossed no- man’s land when they wanted to attack. Soldiers in the trenches did not get much sleep, but when they did it was in the afternoon during daylight and at night for only 1 hour at a time. They were woken up at different times, either to complete one of the daily chores or the go to fight. The system of trenches was employed because a German commander, General Erich von Falkenhayn, decided that his troops must at all costs hold onto those parts of France and Belgium that Germany still occupied. Falkenhayn ordered his men to dig trenches that would provide them with protection from the advancing French and British troops. The Allies soon realised that they could not break through this line and they also began to dig trenches.

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 though the soldiers were supposed to only spend four days at a time in the trenches it often ended up being longer. In fierce battles the men were sometimes in the trenches for up to twenty days with practically no food or water, and very little sleep. When the soldiers came out of the trenches they were "enclosed in a practically bullet-proof casing of mud"�. The men then had to march from the trenches to the billets and were often shot down on their way.

Living in the trenches is extremely horrible, even though I have only been in it for two days. Although, it is clever that these trenches, that are created by digging in the mud, are designed to protect us from machine gun fire. They are muddy, and when it rains, the mud can slowly trickle onto my outfit. These trenches are rat infested, and the filthy rats always steal the last morsels of food that we have. We use the backside of our shovel to smash and kill the filthy rats. When I first smashed a rat, blood oozed out of the rat and its body was twisted. Nobody could bear to watch that horrendous sight anymore. I immediately ran away; it was the first living thing that I had killed in my entire life. I felt happy but remorseful at the same time. Here in the Western Front, clouds always block the rays of the vivid sunshine; the

Soldiers live a life where they are constantly seeing people and friends dying, they didn’t know when they were going to see their family again, probably they weren’t going to see them again. “The whole street seemed to explode. There was smoke and flames all over, but the worst of it was the screams of the dying and the wounded and mothers looking frantically for their kids. “Eye-witness to a Zeppelin attack. For soldiers not to get bored in their free time they play card games like war (kind or ironic) solitary, and gin rummy. People on the Home Front also lived a very hard life during WWI, they were constantly hearing gunshots and watching people die in front of them and with the impotence that they couldn’t do anything to help them since it was

            The war had a great impact on everyone involved in the war, whether it is soldiers, bystanders, or surrounding cities, nobody was safe from some type of stress and recoil from the war. Post war diseases such as PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, affected those people in the war and around the war zone. Most people could hide it but the degree of hiding it varied between who the person was and what that person went through and if it was bad or not. Other people let it completely control their lives. PTSD also proved that there were no war heroes because no matter what nobody wins. The returning soldiers were affected and usually hurt physically, mentally, and in some cases, both. In the novel, The Things They Carried,

For a soldier life would be a cold, dirty, monotonous cycle that seemed to never end. Soldiers would be living together in tiny spaces in all weather, so disease was common and was a terrible killer for the soldiers. Trenches would often flood, making the damp and perfect for rat that carried many deadly diseases and would eat the rations keeping the soldiers alive. One of the terrible diseases caused by the cold was called trench foot, this was a disease where the soldiers feet would turn black and toes would start falling off, this usually resulted in amputation.

With so many diseases and unhygienic places. The trenches consisted of heavily shelled ruins of towns, villages and farmhouses. Hospitals with nurses, army camps and lines of the wounded were all in these trenches. Soldiers would wait for their turn to head out to the front line.According to (Steele, 2009) the main problems were trench foot and trench fever due to the rats and lice.Trench foot rotted the toes and the body lice brought trench fever.Even when they left the trenches they could get shot. The men at war were mentally disorientated. Their minds were confused, questions rolling around in their head, who am I now?A robot of war? When they showed their trueself it was with humour or tremors. They were terrified, although they hid behind a straight faced, strong solider. It was their choice between staying and going through humiliation or put your life on the line. Shells were often used for a surprise attack causing shocked terror. Tanks were also popular among the British and ANZAC troops. Poison gases were introduced to be a unseeable death. Tanks also released very hot fumes making it difficult for soldiers to breathe. Permanent forces determined what artillery was used but most consisted of 3 batteries with six 18-pounder guns(David Clare Holloway,2014).

War in the trenches is described in an apocalyptic, horrific terms, usually there were three parallel lines of trenches, a front- line trench was of major importance guarded by tangled lines of barbed wire, typically only occupied in force during stand to attention at dawn and dusk , located 50 yards to a mile from its enemy counterpart, a support trench line to which the garrison would draw when the front trench was bombarded, located several hundred yards back, and several hundred yards behind that a reserve trench line where

These soldiers had to live and sleep in these trenches and become use to the conditions. This included freezing cold weather, wet surroundings, dead and dying bodies scattered everywhere, mud, dirt, lice and rats, bullets and guns, and soldiers upon soldier. These circumstances weren’t only uncomfortable, they were harsh, and extremely dangerous. The rations were small, and food was seen as a highly valuable source (Hillman.R, 2001) This only added to the discomfort of the men there. Many soldiers watched as their teammate was shot right in front of them, “You are eating a crust of bread and a man is shot dead in the trench next to you, You look calmly at him for a moment, and then you go back to eating your bread.” William Peden. They became prone to the tragedy and the horrible conditions that they had to endure on a daily basis. A photo was captured on the Western Front (Photo captured on July 1916, found in World War One in Photographs) showing a soldier walking through a huge puddle in the flooded trenches. The sandbags kept the sides up but did nothing to prevent the water. Things like this made even the smallest journeys very treacherous and hard to do. Many people lost these men due to exhaustion and therefore drowning in mud. Obviously, living conditions were a big part of trench warfare and contributed to it being a very brutal part of

The trenches in World War 1 could be muddy and smelly. There was many dead bodies buried nearby. The toilets would overflow into the trenches occasionally. Millions of rats that grew the size of cats would infest the trenches, and lice would bother the soldiers every day. The trenches were long skinny ditches that were dug into the ground by the soldiers. Soldiers lived in these trenches all day and night. And would protect the soldiers. Trench warfare reached its highest development on the western front when armies of men faced each other in a line of trenches. The western front extended from the Belgian coast through to northern eastern France to Switzerland. Trenches were not an enjoyable place to be.

The whole idea of the trenches was to gain and to give protection from enemy lines who would want to attack their enemies once seen, so trenches were a good

Imagine standing in thick mud, surrounded by dirt walls. Artillery shells could be heard crashing into the ground as fellow soldiers were blown up in close proximity. Moaning from the wounded filled the air. Fear and panic were abundant as the soldiers employed methodical tasks they had learned in their training. A quick glance over the parapet showed the brutality of war, as this is the day-to-day life of a soldier in the trenches. During World War I new scientific know how allowed for the development and introduction of numerous types of weaponry for use in battle. Advancements of technology during World War I led to a higher number of casualties than what was otherwise possible. The technologies included guns, tanks, explosives, barbed wire, and poison gas.