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
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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
Men were living outside for days or weeks on end, with limited shelter from cold, wind, rain and snow in the winter or from the heat and sun in summer. Artillery destroyed the familiar landscape, reducing trees and buildings to desolate rubble and churning up endless mud in some areas. The incredible noise of artillery and machine gun fire, both enemy and friendly, was often incessant. Yet soldiers spent a great deal of time waiting around, and in some quiet sectors there was little real fighting and a kind of informal truce could develop between the two sides. Even in more active parts of the front, battle was rarely continuous and boredom was common among troops, with little of the heroism and excitement many had imagined before the war. The Italian infantry officer Emilio Lussu wrote that life in the trenches was ‘grim and monotonous’ and that ‘if there were no attacks, there was no war, only hard work’.[1] The order to attack – or news of an enemy assault – changed
Trench warfare was adopted to maintain an area of land, to prevent the enemy from capturing that land. The importance of this investigation was to show the significance of trench warfare during the First World War and how effective it was on how it had prevented many full on, front lined, assaults. World War I could have had a great impact in history with the amount of war casualties, which would have been historically shocking, but instead it created the stalemate, which prevented such numbers of deaths from happening.
The grim reality of living in muddy, rat-infested trenches epitomizes the brutal and prolonged nature of this new form of combat. Soldiers endured constant peril from enemy fire, disease, malnutrition, and psychological trauma, locked in a deadly stalemate that exacted a heavy toll on both sides. In the document packet, document 4 talks about how trench warfare got very severe and how the introduction of new machinery changed warfare too when gasses were made and added into the fight. Its effect on the French was a violent nausea and faintness, followed by an utter collapse. It is believed that the Germans, who charged in behind the vapor, met no resistance at all, the French at their front being virtually paralyzed” This shows how trench warfare got extreme and soldiers were left injured in many ways if not
The long period that the soldiers had to spend within the trenches,normally because dirty rain flood,with soaked shoes in mud puddles,rats and decomposing bodies,caused the
In Four Weeks in the Trenches, Austrian soldiers Fritz Kreisler details how soldiers used trenches to protect themselves from bullets, shells, and shrapnel (Document 3). The use and development of trenches was a major change in warfare throughout WWI. The innovation and use of poison gas in WWI indicated the increasing willingness of nations in the early twentieth-century to achieve victory by killing as many of the enemy as possible. As rifle technology and artillery advancements made killing the enemy easier, nation-states sought further technological development in the art of slaughter. An anonymous account of French soldiers’ first encounter with poison gas while facing the Germans at Ypres, on the western front.
Trenches were dug out in the ground for protection, against machine guns and bombs, however the trenches were not made for comfort or for soldiers to live in for a long time. Most trenches were muddy and wet and soldiers had terrible living conditions which would cause disease, and eventually death. In document two, by Robert Donald, he exclaims that “I do not see why the war in this area should not go on for a hundred years.” Usually, life in the trenches meant consent fighting and battles, no side ever won because each side would encounter a bomb or some kind of causality and make their trenches deeper, and deeper. This was one cause of a stalemate, and why it was predicted that war in the trenches would continue for years and many more soldiers would die. In an outside source, a diary written by a man named Endy, talks about his life in the trenches and how their were many deaths. Although, this was not the only reason the trenches were deadly. The use of poisonous gas was also used in trenches caused many
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.
Adding to this point, when it came to weapons, the trenches were not a good protection. Gases could easily run into the trenches harming most soldiers. There was hardly anything to do about it because if they got out of their trenches they would obviously be shot down. Secondly, the soldiers themselves weren't all that happy most of the time.
To explain the main features of trench warfare we must look at all the points the trench design, the modern technology etc. Trenches were designed in a specific way. They were built in a zigzag fashion to accommodate for bombs destroying them. If a bomb did hit them then only a corner of the
The five sources that I have selected to help with my enquiry are photographs, an extract from a newspaper article and a soldier's diary. The reasons why I chose these five particular sources is because I believe that they are a wide variety of selections, dating back to many years, all ranging from the start of the war to the end of the war. However, one of my sources, the newspaper article, was published in 2008 so it is more of a recent source but still, very useful and effective.From my own knowledge I know the trenches were inhumane
It is still hard to adapt too. Whenever it rains it like a flood in the trenches it becomes muddy and it stinks badly. It takes a long time for the water to dry and because of this, many soldiers including my close friend, Henry are getting trench- foot because it’s hard to keep your legs dry. Luckily, Walter and I didn’t get trench-foot yet. When the trenches have too much water we use an baler to get the water out of the trenches. Also, because of the rainfall, many soldiers including us get a cold or the flu. Now Walter and I both don't have the flu or the cold but other soldiers still have them. Rat infestations is another main reason why living in trenches is horrible. The rats will eat scrap foods and dead bodies found on the trenches floor. While having a dose, they will crawl on our faces and bite our feet. The rats will grow to the size of a cat! We tried everything that we can, to get rid of those pests. We used gunfire, a bayonet and even tried hitting them to death but they never die because “a single rat couple can produce 900 offsprings per year”. Cooties is a big problem found in trenches and by far is the biggest problem that is affecting me. “Since there aren't any proper washing facilities” lices start to appear all over the body including the hair and they start sucking the blood. We even have chores to do. Every soldier will be assigned a task. Today my task was to “repair the duckboards on the floor of the trench”. Which was really hard because there are so many dead bodies, rats and frogs on the floor. I and many other soldiers including Walter don’t get enough sleep because of the amount of work we need to do in the trenches and the amounts of noises surrounding the trenches. The only way that I can have a kip is if I take a shot of
Christmas in the trenches in world war 1, by the end of November 1914 the crushing advance by the Germans had swallowed the low countries and threatened France had been checked by the allies before it hit Paris. The other armies stared at one another a line of hastily built defensive trenches began at the edge of the English channel and continued through Switzerland. Barbed wire and parapets defended the trenches between them the no man’s land sat in some areas were more then 30 yards wide. Life in the trenches were almost impossible to survive with all the continuous sniping machine gun fire and artillery shells took most lives during the world war. The misery heightened by the ravages of mother nature
What was the life of an ordinary soldier in WWII like? Take the famous D-day for example. A soldier hears artillery shells whizzing past the landing craft. The only thing he hopes is to at least make it to the beach alive. Suddenly there is a loud thump. The commander yells “TAKE THE BEACH!”. The doors to the landing craft swing open. He hears endless gunfire everywhere around him. Grenade shrapnel hits his fellow allies. He takes cover in a bunker secured by his allies. Endless amounts of machine gun fire pin down his squadron. “Throw the smoke”! Smoke is deployed providing cover for the men to advance. The soldier watches as artillery is shot at a landing craft. He feels a sense of dread. “How many men just died?” he asks to himself. He puts
World War 1 is perhaps best known for being a war fought in trenches, ditches dug out of the ground to give troops protection from enemy artillery and machine-gun fire. The trenches spread from the East to the West. By the end of 1914, trenches stretched all along the 475 miles front between the Swiss border and the Channel coast.
Your cosmopolitan sympathies. (Rosenberg, Isaac. "Break of Day in the Trenches."Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 24 May 2017.) The introduction portion of this poem foreshadows a theme for the reader such that Rosenberg does not use an “ABC” format, instead he employs a descriptive structure technique. In this particular poem the rat that will cross No Man’s Land and make friends with the enemy, the Germans. According to