Life and Suffering in the Trenches Essay

     A typical day in my grandfathers’ life at the time was to wake up at the crack of dawn and get ready for a full day of combat, well at least for the ground troops that didn’t have a tank to be protected by. Of course for him, driving a tank was easier then being a ground troop. So that made things a little easier. He told me every day the main thing he did, and I quote, “kep my

During World War I, trench warfare was very common. It was a newer technique in battles as in wars prior to the Great World War, fighting was less invasive and men merely marched at each other from opposite ends of fields and fought until only one side remained standing or a white flag was hung high in surrender. In fact in older wars, the fighting was far less dangerous to the point where battles were often times viewed by locals who watched from side lines with really no threat of getting hurt. In World War I however, the fighting had upscaled to the most sadistic type the world had ever experienced. With the industrialist wave that had overcome us in the late 1800s into

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.

Since the majority of the Great War accounts for a vast network of resources on what the trenches ultimately provided this research will explore within and above trench lines. The failed plans of leaders halted what is known to be the most strategic play in physical versus intellectual attributes of warfare altogether. If it weren’t for the salient of trench warfare throughout the years of 1914-1918, indulged the importance of communication and its

The grey sky hung close to 16-year-old Ed and the other soldiers as they stood, lined up in the trench. Rain poured heavily over their helmets, draining into the mud. The French sun hid hazily in the smog-covered sky. THUD THUD THUD, cannons pounded shells through the air, towards the Germans.

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.

Trench warfare was implemented to provide cover for soldiers during battle in WW1 seeing that most battlefields were open field & farms, so soldiers had little or no cover from rifle fire. After suffering thousands of casualties, soldiers began to dig into the ground creating cover. Over the months the trenches grew & evolved to hold barracks & equipment. Within a few months trenches were equipped with all essentials to ensure there was no need to leave them unnecessarily. Trenches were first dug by hand but soon soldiers would be equipped with shovels to increase productivity. Trenches were also mainly built at night to avoid detection by enemy troops.

It was poorly constructed, polluted with human excrement and contained pools of water. Buried about a foot deep, hundreds of Germans and French lied in the trench since last October. Mud was my best friend, and sleep was interrupted by the booming of German shells. There was infection everywhere. Men were blown or shot to pieces, and their bodily fluids fed the rats. Those malicious critters were immense, crawling on and eating the decaying bodies. Some of the men had gotten a nasty disease that ate away at their feet. Trench foot, they called it. Unless we could dry our feet, our feet began to rot. Making up the majority of our diets were stale bread. With no appetite, I starved for most days. And containing no proper washrooms, we had areas in the trench where we relieved ourselves. Oh how the banging never ceased for sixty seconds! Some men were terrified of fighting, mama. Their minds went crooked, and their bodies twitched and trembled constantly. They wouldn't fight, or listen to orders. Most of them were executed, unless they had an injury that could send them home. Mama, Riley was shot in the heart yesterday. But, he died grateful. "It's an end to those shells, bombs, rats, lice and mud," he spoke his last

The use of trenches in The Great War was to protect soldiers while they moved positions and to exchange fire across an empty zone labeled as No Man’s Land. However, as Jennifer D. Keene explains, no soldier ever spent the entire war in the trenches. Troops rotated between the trenches, reserve, or rest areas, which were located in the rear. Keene goes on to tell that the normal rotation duration for soldiers on the line was for three weeks and the duration for behind the line was for one week, however, that time could vary depending on whether a unit was in training or if there was not enough replacement troops at the time (“American Soldiers and Trench Warfare”). Troops, although not always on the front line, were never completely

World War I, also known as the Great War start on 1914, it was the first time largely using modern model firearm in the war. WWI have result a totally different war style under the new firearms, because the machine gun could take hundreds of people in really couple minutes, and the artillery have let each side could boom enemy in long range. The old way standing against each other’s block and shot each other doesn’t work in WWI anymore, so people invented Trenches, it basically is dig in to the ground so it can avoid the machine gun on the ground. Trenches warfare takes months and months to fight, and the trenches have become where those soldier live during the war. The life in trenches is terrible, one of the things trenches have known well know is trench foot, basically let the solider lost legs. Other issue on trench is cleaning, like lice, which end up most cloth solider wear have tons lice on it. There also have some uninvited guest such as trench rat, a huge rat that can ear injury solider alive.

In World War One, on the Western Front, soldiers served and lived in trenches for days, weeks or even months on end. Alone with the daily essentials needing to be done in these small, enclosed spaces, men also had to work hard in the mud and filth, sometimes for hours without rest, all the while being prepared for attacks or trench raids at any moment. This was what life was like for hundreds of thousands of soldiers during the period of World War One. This lifestyle throughout the First World War had an enormous effect on the European soldiers, both physically and mentally.

Isolation in the countryside however it is safe away from the bloody trenches. We all feared the chances of survival. It doesn’t matter anymore, the war will never end. If the worst happens, we will die with pride. I think we might have alienated the sergeant because he

“All trench systems consisted of several parallel lines of fortifications. A forward trench line was adjacent to ‘no man’s land, the unoccupied ground separating the two sides and had the greatest vulnerability to enemy attack” (Heyman, 43). Other attributes to the trenches included barbed wire, boardwalks, alarm bells, and sand bags that prevented the sides from collapsing. Certain spaces were also included in the trenches for first aid posts, communication equipment, and headquarter posts. These posts offered immediate medical treatment when the soldiers were injured.

The trenches along the Western front had never been seen before. Cattle Ranchers had created spots and other trenches had been created from different wars, but they could never compare to the 1, 300 feet long trenches completed with barbed wire (Book, 175). There was no systems to the trenches, design varied based on the terrain and place. If the soil was drier and workable, there was less need for support (Book, 176). New trenches were always being dug, and soon became a maze of dead ends and duplicates. It was very easy to get lost. The space between fronts, no man’s land, reached 3 to 4 thousand feet wide. In October of 1914, the British travelled to Ypres, a city in Belgium, to try and reduce the gap. This was not the only problem forming. The Welsh had discovered that the trenches fall and collect water in the rain, and by winter the trenches had developed from a stream to a river. Eventually, they managed to build above water level, and it took two weeks to dry out the trenches (Book, 177). The trenches would not be the same again. The Germans became impatient with the changing trenches and chose to abandon the wet, allowing them to become more settled. Moltke ordered the Germans to entrench and hold. On September 13th, the French general Franchet d´Esperey order for their trench system to be extended from Rheims, to the Swiss frontier, on both sides. On September 15th, another French general

The war fought between July 28 of 1914 and November 11, 1918, was known as the Great War, the War to End all Wars, and in the United States the European War. World War I is known for a new style of warfare, trenches from which both sides fought in. New and destructive technologies were introduced, and for the first time a major war was fought on land, sea, below the sea, and in the skies as well. Its casualty totals were unprecedented as the soared into the millions. The two sides were known as the Allies which consisted of Great Britain, France, Russia, and later on the United State. The opposing side, the Central Powers, which comprised of Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary (the Habsburg Empire), and the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). The war ended after an armistice and most significantly the Treaty of Versailles.