Fighting conditions in trenches were absolutely horrible. The trenches were filled with water, rotting bodies, injured soldiers, men who hadn't bathed in weeks because there was no where to do so, overflowing bathroom holes, medicines and other materials, used to stave off the constant threat of disease and infection, cordite, the lingering odor of gases from poison, rotting sandbags, stagnant mud, cigarette smoke, and cooking food. Although overwhelming to a new member of the army that was involved in trench warfare they soon got used to the smell and eventually became part of the smell with their own body odor. Most soldiers had shell shock and had a hard time living in the trenches and caused them to lose their minds.
In trenches there wasn’t really away to get supplies other then the ones brought to you by you comrades so there was never really any supplies for the soldiers. Food was late or cold more then often, therefore soldiers normally ate their food they brought with them. They also carried around weapons for just in case they ran into a problem. Weather contributed to the rough time they had with supplies, with rain causing trenches to flood, sometimes up to waist height, which would cause food and other supplies they had to go bad. The soldiers might even be killed because they were in the mud for so long that their feet were frozen like ice so they couldn't move. Trench life was generally tedious, prone to boredom and was hard work, with the trenches requiring constant building and repairing to keep out the water and mud that would fill in the trenches if not kept out.
Poison gas and highly explosive shells were used to attack trenches, also the hand grenade that was already created at this time was used to attack trenches. These three highly explosive weapons were used to clear out trenches and to help get across no mans land. Poison gas also called mustard gas was a highly lethal gas that could start to effect enemies within 12 hours of them encountering it, “Mustard Gas (Yperite) was first used by the in September 1917. It was one of the most lethal of all the poisonous chemicals used during the war. It was almost odorless and took twelve hours to take effect. Yperite was so powerful that only small amounts had to be added to high explosive shells to be effective. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several weeks. The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, the eyes became very sore and they began to vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful and most soldiers had to be strapped to their beds. It usually took a person four or five weeks to die of mustard gas poisoning.”() Hand grenades were brought in to the war from the start, Germans knew that trench warfare was going to be used and prepared for it by making hand grenades to blow up people in trenches, the Allies had not anticipated the large use of trench warfare and had to improvise the making of them, “Germany was well prepared for trench warfare in 1914, having produced quantities of many types of grenades as early as 1913. The Allies had failed to foresee the extended use of hand grenades and were forced to hastily construct improvised types. During the next three years hand grenade design progressed from crude bombs to refined weapons.” Germany was ready for this type of fighting the allies were not which made it that much worse for them.
Living in a trench was the worst thing these people could do considering all the animals and water they were sitting in which was basically their own filth. While living in the trenches it caused the soldiers to contract diseases like trench foot, trench mouth, and shell shock. The animals carried diseases that could be transferred if they bit you which happened commonly. Lice and rats were the two most commonly seen in trenches, lice made the men itch uncontrollably and the rats bit the mean and caused there bites to become infected. “Life in the trenches was dirty, cold, and uncomfortable. Soldiers shared space not only with other soldiers but also with rats and lice. The rats stole food and bit the men incessantly. Sanitation was almost nonexistent, and so disease ran rampant killing men almost as often as weapons of war. Life vacillated between terrifying battles and mind-numbing boredom.”(Bowman, John S.) Trench foot was a disease caused by living in the unsanitary health conditions of trenches that had been filled with wet cold water that caused the soldiers feet to swell over three times their normal size, “Many soldiers fighting in the suffered from trench foot. This was an infection of the feet caused by cold, wet and insanitary conditions. In the trenches men stood for hours on end in without being able to remove wet socks or boots. The feet would gradually go numb and the skin would turn red or blue. If untreated, trench foot could turn gangrenous and result in amputation. Trench foot was a particular problem in the early stages of the war.”() Another common disease that was seen in trenches was trench mouth, which was the overload of too many normal bacteria in the mouth that caused gums to inflame and become infected, “Trench mouth is a painful form of gum swelling (). The term "trench mouth" comes from World War I, when the disorder was common among soldiers. The mouth normally contains a balance of different bacteria. Trench mouth occurs when there are too many normal mouth bacteria. The gums become infected and develop painful . Viruses may be involved in allowing the bacteria to grow too much.”() Shell Shock was basically PTSD now a days what it did was caused them to have mental stress and emotional stress get the best of them and caused them to go crazy. All the diseases spreading in the trenches almost caused just as much death as the war did.
With the use of trenches the armies had to make weapons so that they could successfully defend them without any problems. some of those weapons were flamethrowers, machine gun turrets, and the bayonet. Flamethrowers are basically self explanatory they were backpacks filled with chemicals that had a hose connected to them that shot fire blasts, “The concept of the modern flamethrower was first presented to the German high command in 1901 by a Berlin chemical engineer. Funding was secured, and in 1908 a prototype man-portable flamethrower (Flammenwerfer) was tested. During the period 1908-1914 this design was improved and tactics were worked out for engineering troops armed with flamethrowers to support infantry assaults. In addition, a larger nonportable device for defending trenches...”(Tucker, Spencer C.) With the use of flame throwers people could use them to defend the trenches by putting a huge wall of fire up that would burn anyone who runs through it. The Machine gun was another weapon used to defend trenches with its firing rate and its caliber size trenches had no problems mowing down the opposing army when they ran at the trench, “The Germans usually placed machine guns by themselves outside the frontline trenches in pairs to avoid destruction by the artillery preparations.”(Tucker, Spencer C.) The machine gun let the people in the trenches stop rushing troops in no mans land by firing large magazines of ammo and at a faster rate then regular guns.The bayonet was already invented at this time but was used to defend the trenches if they got involved in close quarters combat, it tended to be used the least out of the three just because the blade was to long and for them to use them as close as they were was hard, so the soldiers tended to use their knives for close encounters. But never the less the bayonet was used to keep rushing troops out of the trenches by stabbing them before they made it in the trenches. With these new innovations to WWI, trench warfare became a hellish waiting game between the two armies.
WWI was a war full of poor fighting conditions, not enough supplies, and new weapons that caused deaths for people to be just like torture. The very idea of this war is horrible and should have never taken place. War is a horrible thing that should be avoided by all of the countries.
