An Example of this is the Battle of the Somme in 1916. Before the men went over the top on the 16th July 1916, there had been severe bombardment on the German Trenches, this lead the Allied Generals to believe that there would be very few German soldiers in the trenches still alive. But they were wrong the Germans had built deep trenches, which mean they had been protected well from the severe bombardment. This caused the deaths of so many British soldiers and this lack of judgement from these Generals killed many soldiers.
The Germans built trenches to withstand long bombardments but the British wanted a quick resolution. The Germans built deep defensive belts of obstacles, wire and minefields. They also established their positions with great deliberateness and efficiency, because they were determined to stay in them; there was to be no further retreat. Since the decision was theirs as to where they should entrench, they had first choice of terrain, and chose well in most cases. The Germans usually placed themselves above their opponents so that they would have to accept less advantaged ground. The Chalk soil enabled them to prepare strongly constructed trench systems virtually indestructible dugouts formed an essential features. Often the trenches would be dug on sand or clay.
Most of the German trench lines were connected with two exits; they felt their trenches were unbreakable. What they created was a fortress not a trench, barely visible at ground level except for the barbed wire which guarded the trench, the trenches were up to 40 feet deep. There could have been up to 5,000 yards from the front line trenches to the rear a fortress design to stand a prolonged siege, including the worst that modern artillery could throw at it, and only to be taken with extreme difficulty and at high costs.
They also had great concrete pillboxes for machine guns and prepared immense dugouts up to 40 feet below the ground to protect whole platoons and companies when not on the front line or preparing for an assault, some of these dugouts had electricity.
The allied commanders gave undue attention to their trenches. Their trenches were not as deeply dug as the German trenches because the British did not expected to be in the same place for long. Their troops were told to defend every inch of land they had.
Barbed wire was used so much because it was cheap to manufacture, light and easily transported quickly put into position and a very difficult obstacle.
British trenches came off worse. Trench conditions were diabolical in the bad weather, were generally hellish, a fact of which the generals were too often unaware or insensitive to. Over 1.65million men in the British Army were wounded during the First World War. Of these, around 240,000 suffered total or partial leg or arm amputations, this is a extract form a soldiers diary.
Bombardier B. C. Jones, diary entries between December 1915 and June 1916.
7th December 1915: I take over duty at the Batty position. About 2.30 Germans commenced shelling near battery. One shell hit the dugout of our telephone pit. I remembered no more until I woke up in Bethune Casualty Clearing Station No 33, where I have been severely wounded. Left hand blown off, left arm ripped up 12 inches. Scalp wound 6 inches, wound on side of knee (left) 5 inches.
9th December 1915: Operation on upper arm for gangrene (successful).
12th December 1915: Removed to St Omer No 10 Casualty Clearing Station by hospital barge.
29th December 1915: I am sent to England on the hospital ship Dieppe, then by train to Nottingham.
3rd June 1916: Operated on and re-amputated in Brighton and awaiting Roehampton for artificial limb.
Soldiers also suffered from trench foot and frostbite. Trench foot was caused by long periods of standing in mud and water. The feet would often swell and go completely numb. Then they became extremely painful and began to rot; sometimes feet would get so bad they would have to be amputated. Foot inspections were carried out to try and detect the disease at the outset, and soldiers were advised to wash their feet daily and rub them with whale oil.
Dysentery was another disease that soldiers caught in trenches. Bacteria entered the body through the mouth in food or water and also by human faeces, and contact with infected people. The diarrhoea caused the soldiers suffering from dysentery to lose important salts and fluids from the body and dehydrate. This disease struck the men in trenches, as there was no proper sanitation. Latrines in the trenches were pits four to five feet deep.
Dysentery was also caused by contaminated water. The main reason was that it was sometime before regular supplies of water to the trenches could be organised, soldiers were supplied with water bottles that could be refilled when they returned to the reserve lines. However, the water bottle supply was not enough for them and soldiers in the trenches often depended on impure water that was collected from shell-holes. Later, to purify it, chloride of lime was added to the water. The soldiers disliked the taste of the purified water.
The responsibility for bringing sick and injured men in from the battlefield lay with the Regimental stretcher-bearers many of who were conscientious objectors. These brave men had the daunting task of collecting the wounded from no man's land and trenches and taking them back to the Regimental Aid Post. In good conditions two men would carry a wounded man on a stretcher after bad weather, rain, though it took four men to lift a stretcher. The men not only had the problem of dragging their feet out of the mud after every step, they also had to make sure not to shake the stretcher as this would hurt the wounded man. One stretcher-bearer working in the mud in 1916 reported that: "as one carried a wounded man you got stuck in the mud and staggered. You put out a hand to steady yourself, the earth gave way and you found you were clutching the blackened face of a half-buried, dead soldier." Because of the shape of the trenches it was very difficult carrying the wounded along and around the trenches.
Once the stretcher-bearers had picked up, the wounded they would be taken to the Regimental Aid Post that was often based in the reserve trenches. After the wounds had been cleaned and bandaged the injured were taken to the where if necessary surgery could take place. Here is an extract from the diary of Sergeant Robert McKay, a stretcher-bearer with the 109th Field Ambulance Unit, at the Battle of Ypres in August 1917.
6 August Today awful: was obliged to carry some of the wounded into the graveyard and look on helpless till they died. Sometimes we could not even obtain a drink of water for them.
7 August Bringing the wounded down from the front line today. Conditions terrible. The ground is a quagmire. It requires six men to every stretcher. The mud in some cases is up to our waists.
14 August One party of stretcher-bearers was bringing down a wounded man when an airman swooped down and dropped a bomb deliberately on them. The enemy shells the stretcher-bearers all the time.
16 August The infantry took a few pillboxes and a line or two of trenches from the enemy in this attack but at a fearful cost. It is only murder attempting to advance against these pillboxes over such ground. Any number of men falls down wounded and are either smothered in the mud or drowned in the holes of water before we can reach them. We have been working continuously now since the 13th. The stretcher-bearers are done up completely.
19 August I have had no sleep since I went on the 13th. The 109th Field Ambulance alone had over thirty casualties, killed, wounded and gassed - and this out of one hundred men who were doing the line.
For many soldiers life in the trenches was a horrifying experience. Apart from the dangers of death and injury, the soldiers had awful living conditions. The trenches were often filthy and full of rats. Many men killed in the trenches were buried almost where they fell, if a trench subsided, or new trenches or dugouts were needed, large numbers of decomposing bodies would be found just below the surface. These corpses, as well as the food scraps that littered the trenches, attracted rats.
Another problem for the soldiers was shellshock. By 1914 British doctors working in military hospitals noticed patients suffering from "shell shock". Symptoms included tiredness, irritability, giddiness, lack of concentration and headaches. Eventually the men suffered mental breakdowns making it impossible for them to remain on the . Some came to the conclusion that the soldier's condition was caused by the enemy's . Doctors argued that a bursting shell creates a vacuum, and when the air rushes into this vacuum it disturbs the cerebrospinal fluid and this can upset the working of the brain. Some doctors said that there was only one cure for shell shock, which was a complete rest away from the fighting. If you were an officer you were likely to be sent back home to recover. However, the army was less sympathetic to ordinary soldiers with shell shock. Some senior officers took the view that these men were cowards who were trying to get out of fighting.
Between 1914 and 1918 the identified 80,000 men had been suffering from shell shock. A larger number of soldiers with these symptoms were classified as 'malingerers' and sent back to the front-line, in some cases men , others broke down under the pressure and refused to obey the orders of their officers and were court-martialled or got shot on the spot.
Official figures said that 304 British soldiers were court-martialled and . A common punishment for disobeying orders was . This involved the offender being attached to a fixed object for up to two hours a day and for a period up to three months. These men were often put in a place within range of enemy shellfire.
Conclusion
War in the trenches had countless consequences. By the time fighting had stopped, new equipment had been made which resulted in there being no such warfare again. But for all those men who died this new weaponry and equipment was too late. The soldiers were under a terrible mental strain, which meant for many that they could not cope with the pressures of fighting. Diseases and illness struck soldiers often because of the state of the trenches because the British Generals, particularly, did not build good enough trenches for their soldiers and this caused them to get decreases, trench foot and shell shock. These men often teenagers suffered great distress trying to survive for long spells in cold wet conditions without dry clothes or proper food. Those who survived would live with horror for the rest of their lives.
Bibliography
German troops building a dugout and a trench in early winter of 1914.
British troops going over the top in the Battle of the Somme 1916.
An officer inspecting the trenches in 1915. In some area of the trenches they were like this all year round.
The soldiers being treated for trench foot.
