The role of the Inspector in An Inspector calls.

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In the First World War trenches were used extensively.  Troops spent week’s sometimes months in these trenches.  When there was stalemate (nothing happening between the two sides) then troops would spend long periods of time in the trenches.  An example of this would be in the autumn of 1914 on the German western front.  For the men in the trenches it was terrible, the living conditions were appalling and the space was very limited.

In the trenches men died everyday not just because of attacks but because of the living conditions the men had to go through.  All day there was noises of bombs.  Some of the worst cases were when shells were fired and some men would get shell shock or become deaf.  Some sergeants told men to kill people who were in shell shock, the men were blind folded so nobody knew who shot who.  Heavy artillery was fired all day long and it was very difficult for the troops to get sleep and also there was nowhere to sleep, men just leaned against the walls of the trenches and went to sleep.  In the battles on the western front a third of the troops died in the trenches because of the living conditions.

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In the trenches there were very peculiar problems that the troops had to take care of.  The first was a rat infestation; there were rats in the trenches that eat the dead bodies and even crawled on the troops when they were sleeping.  Some of these rats were the size of cats.  There were millions of them in the trenches they would reproduce offspring at amazing rates sometimes 900 a year.  They would contaminate food and were a big problem.  Troops dealt with the rats by shooting them or just clubbing them to death.

Other problems were lice; ...

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