Trench Life: Big Holes In The Western Front

Trenches were very useful for soldiers as they protected them from snipers from high ground and hiding in bushes were the soldiers can’t see them and tanks that are firing shrapnel and trying to damage soldiers. The trenches were 1-2 meters wide with a depth of 3 meters and they were not dug in straight lines they were dug in a zigzag formation with different levels along the lines (Trenches/history), they had paths dugs so that the soldiers could move between the levels. Between the two countries, fighting was a big piece of land called no man’s land, which would be covered with land mines and barbed wire, and the land was often 50-250 yards long. Inside the trenches, they were often reinforced with wooden beams, at the bottom of the trenches there were wooden boards called duckboards, which this was meant to protect the soldiers’ feet from the water and to not make them get trench foot. Countries had the same idea when they build their trenches and made it a lot harder to fight and would take 3 months to end the war instead of 4 days without 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

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.

Trenches were long, narrow ditches that were dugged into the ground where soldiers lived all day and night.

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.

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

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

Aspects of Trench Warfare 1. Trenches were built in an attempt to continue the war as both sides had reached a stalemate. There was a rush for the sea and then they found nothing else could happen so they dug in. The

“It was dirty that’s for sure. The rats ate at your toes and the smell was horrible.”

Life in the trenches was very difficult and often very dangerous. They were often kept in the confined and small trenches for long periods of time. “Soldiers were bound to trenches, enduring long stretches of inactivity, suffering the random bombing or sniper attack, then undertaking terrifying charges” (Showalter). Trenches were often dug deeply underground and served as protection from incoming artillery. The idea and formation of these trenches were a result of France’s flat terrain. With flat terrain, soldiers were more prone to be killed from bullet fire. “Opposing forces dug deep trenches into the earth; from the trenches soldiers could safely lob explosives at their enemies” (Kreibohm). Trenches also spanned many miles and connected to other trenches. The most popular trench that spanned 475 miles was located between the Belgian coast and Switzerland called the Western Front, where most of the fighting took place. “The majority of the war was fought...stretching 475 miles between the Belgian coast and Switzerland...called the Western Front” (Kreibohm). The Central Powers and the Allied Powers both participated in this idea of trench warfare and elaborated on the complexity and the conformity of them. To protect the front line of the trench, machine guns were positioned in the front. Trenches were also protected by barbed

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.

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.