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Life In Trenches

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What was life in the trenches like? This is a question you might ask yourself after learning more about WW1 and its exploits. Soldiers did not have an easy life to live in the trenches and everyday just grew harder. Trenches are basically long narrow ditches that were dug by soldiers for shelter from enemy fire. Back in WW1, the trenches became a place where soldiers would live and sleep with poor living conditions. The way the trenches in WW1 were set up was with the German trenches on one side and all the Allied trenches on the other. Between the two enemy trenches would be no man’s land which didn’t belong to either one of the armies. Some soldiers would climb out of the trenches and charge across no-man’s land to attack the enemy. This tactic is known as going over the top .
Back then, soldiers often wouldn’t sleep and when they found the time to it …show more content…

This makes sense considering soldiers were living in basically tunnels with no toilets or other necessities. Trenches were described as cold, muddy and smelly. If soldiers wanted to use the bathroom they would have to dig holes and those “toilets” would sometimes overflow into the trenches. Soldiers would also have to live in the trenches alongside multiple rats carrying diseases. Rat infestation was a huge problem in the trenches as they would feed on the soldier’s food and chew up their clothing. They were two types of rats in the trenches, the black and brown rat. Both of these rats were hated however, the brown rats were particularly feared. This was because brown rats were often seen devouring human remains in a grotesque manner by eating their eyes and liver. Soldiers often said that the rats could grow to be as big as a cat. They tried to get rid of these rats with methods such as gunfire, dogs, using bayonets and battering them to death. But no matter how much they tried, the rats would still come back and continue to wreck

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