The war was fought by men on foot, in a flat open country that gave no shelter from enemy fire
By Ayesha Rizwi
Contents
) Trenches
2) Home Front
3) Weapons
4) War : - In the Air
At Sea
5) Literacy
War in the trenches
The war was fought by men on foot, in a flat open country that gave no shelter from enemy fire. Facing armies dug trences as fortifications from which to defend their position or attack the enemy. When the Germans turned onto the Allies, they dug trenches on the River Aisne, as a line of defence. By mid-October, two lines of trenches faced each other from the Swiss border to the Channel coast.
These single lines were soon to become a elaborate networks of defence. The trenches were fronted with masses of barbed wire and with strategically placed machine gun posts. These trench systems were everything except a let down.
There were different sectors dividing up the trenches. There was a "cushy sector", where the men could just relax and take a rest, these had little fighting where as "active sectors", there was lots of it. On "cushy sectors" the men agreed to an un-official truce to "let sleeping dogs lie". There were ways of arranging this without the generals knowing. Gunners would fire there guns at a specific time, to let the other side get out of the way. No one shot at each others toilets, in case the others did the same back.
Since most soldiers in the sectors wanted to stay alive, they were left to themselves. If the men on the other trench weren't trying to kill them ,why should they kill them? The phrase "live and let live" was first used in the summer of 1915. "Live and let live" drove the generals crazy, but there was so much that they could do about it.
What was life like in the trenches?
Life in the trenches was a nightmare on its own. When it rained, and it often did, the trenches would be flooded for up to weeks at a time. The men had to eat, sleep and fight in wet uniforms constantly. They were surrounded by mud, water and pests. They often had to endure searing heat or bitter cold.
The trenches had to be easily repaired, because due to the \raining, there would sometimes be small mudslides. This is when the mud from one side of the trench was would slip off.
Conditions
The soldier would often have to live like this for up to weeks at a time like this. Food and sanitation were poor at best and non existent at worst. They had to deal with rats and lice living off them all the time. The rats fed on the dead bodys of men who had already died, and the lice on the livng bodies of the solider, since they were stuck in damp uniform all the time.
They tried to make the trenches more suitable for the men by making a resting area, a toilet area, an eating area and so on.
Illnesses.
The men suffered from many illnesses. These were:
Trench foot
Trench foot was caused by a microscopic fungus, that breed in cold and damp conditions. This was first spotted by the Britsh Expeditionary Force in the muddy wintry trenches of France in 1914. The infected foot could have swollen up to 3 times it size and lose its sense of touch. So much that a soldier once used the expression
" you can run a bayonet through it"
That year, over 20,000 British Soldiers suffered from trench foot. They sometimes had to have there entire foot amputated because the foot would have gone gangrenous and would have caused the soldiers a lot of pain. In 1915, the living conditions improved slighty so there was less disease from then on, but it was still a major problem.
Trench Fever
This was a fever which spread through the trenches fast & affected huge numbers of men in 1915. It was carried from one man to the next, ...
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" you can run a bayonet through it"
That year, over 20,000 British Soldiers suffered from trench foot. They sometimes had to have there entire foot amputated because the foot would have gone gangrenous and would have caused the soldiers a lot of pain. In 1915, the living conditions improved slighty so there was less disease from then on, but it was still a major problem.
Trench Fever
This was a fever which spread through the trenches fast & affected huge numbers of men in 1915. It was carried from one man to the next, by lice or "chats", which infested the mens uniform. One way to control them was to run a lighted match up the seams of there shirt or jackets. The symptoms of trench fever were very similar to the symptoms of very severe flu. Only about 5% of the victims of trench fever never really got better.
Routine, Food and Dangers.
The routines which the men had to go through were unbearable. They had to be fighting constantly throughout the day, only stopping for a quick break or for the rest room.
They often had a very tough routine. Sometimes they even had to endure gas attacks, or different weapons being fired at them.
Living, working and fighting in the trenches, was not as fun as it seemed.
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Nationalism or loyalty for ones own country was an obsession during the First World War. Pro patria mori was a truly noble thing ( to die for one's country).
Since so many men joined the armed forces, there wasn't enough people to help keep the farms and factories going, because they needed to supply the armies in France and on the different fronts with food and clothing. Women were then asked to replace the men. By the end of the war, over 5 million women were working in full time work, 1.5 million of them, doing mens jobs.
The First World War was the beginning of the Women's Liberation. This allowed women to have the total equal rights as men. Women were more free.
People who were not in the war were expected to do "their bit". Most people grew vegetables in their gardens to send abroad for soldiers.
Women formed clubs to knit socks and other garments for the soldiers.
Taking holidays was a thing of the past. It was wise to look if you were doing your bit, even if you weren't.
Even the royal family changed their last name from Hanover to Windsor to make it sound more British in July 1917.
The Government then issued a conscription.
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However, skilled workers in the mining or farming industries were "excused" as the Government put it. Lord Kitchners tactics was to use emotional blackmail ( see picture above). Kitchener set out to recruit possible millions of men if the Germans were to be defeated. 54 million posters were plastered across Britain of Kitchener pointing with slogans at the bottom.
Kitchener was bombarded with queues and queues of men outside recruiting offices. Within a month, Kitchener was able to form six new divisions of volunteer regular soldiers, each with about 200,000 men.
Weapons were crucial in the war. The faster and deadlier the weapon, the better. If one side brought out a new weapon, within weeks or even months the other side would have brought out a copy of it. This went on for the entire war.
Rifles
Rifles were the basic weapons for world war one. Many of the were repeating rifles. This meant that they could fire from 5 to 10 rounds before they had to be re-loaded. Some of the best ones could fire over 1,400 meters. Expert marksmen called snipers, were used to target unwise soldiers who raised there heads above the parapet of his trench.
Speed was absolutely essential, especially to stop the attackers from invading your trench. One soldier firing 10 rounds a minute is better than two men firing 5 rounds per minute.
Bayonets
All soldiers were given these for close up fighting. They were very sharp and could easily slice some-ones arm or leg off. They could also be attached to the rifle, which then turned in to a stabbing weapon. Although most homemade soldiers preferred home made weapons like clubs, daggers, & knuckledusters to bayonets when it came to hand fighting.
Tanks
The deadliest weapon of all. This wasn't so much a weapon as it was it trample down the enemies trench defence system.
Tanks were first used in 1916 at the Battle of Somme, by the British. Unfortunatly, they got bogged down in the mud. However, despite this glitch, the Germans thought that the tanks were nothing to worry about and they left the matter. It wasn't until the Battle Of Cambrai that the Germans were totally astonished. The British smashed through 3 lines of German trenches by midday.
Early tanks were horribly uncomfortable and let no light in. The only light was from a tiny dim light bulb. The temperature inside the tanks could reach up to 35 ? C. A soldier could not stay in a tank at that temperature for no more than an hour or so, at a risk of dehydration and dying.
It was very loud inside the tanks as the engines were inside the tank were the men were sitting. The men's eardrums often spilt from the sound. When under attack by machine guns, sparks would fly off on the inside when they were hit on the outside. Even thought they were protected by the tough outer shell of the tank, the crew inside the tank wore metal helmets and chain mail with eye slits, to protect themselves from any other dangers inside or outside of the tank.
Machine Guns
World war one is commonly referred to as the "machine gun war". I was because of machine guns more than anything else that attack became so difficult and defence became so easy. A single machine gun could fire up t 400 - 600 rounds per minute. The problem with early war machine guns was that because they fired the bullets so quickly they tended to over heat and would often "jam". This took several water bags or air vents to cool down. Guns were positioned in groups of three because of this, so that if two of them jammed, at least one of them would be working.
At the beginning of the war, the only machine guns were the British Vickers ones. They would weigh over 60 kg and would take 6 people to carry it. As this posed as a problem, lighter models were soon developed. Such as the Lewis Gun. This was more streamlined, more lighter, could be carried by one man and mostly air cooled. Lewis' could also be mounted onto planes and fired from the air.
Gas
This was a deadly thing in the War. I was first used by Germans on the opening stages of the Second Battle of Ypres, April 1915. The chlorine gases was released from cylinders which the British nicknamed "Rodgers". It was a dirty greenish colour and killed many people & it stained the ground for a long time.
Further tests lead to mustard gas, which was odourless and colourless and caused blindness, painful blisters and a slow and horrible death.
This new development was quickly copied by the allies, and soon there were both using gas in large quantities. By 1918, both sides were firing gas to each other in special gas filled shells, which were more effective than cylinders. In most trenches having to deal with this gas problem, there was a gas alarm. An empty cylinder was hit and this was the signal for the soldiers to get the gas masks on. Thankfully only 3% of people died from gas.
In the air
By the end of the war, the Allies and the German troops had less than 2,000 planes between them. This was a major loss for both sides even though they didn't really use them.
At first, they were just used as information planes. They would fly over the enemys country and try and gather information on the enemys position. This "trips" would help there countries artillary target the enemy with their guns. Gradually, each side slowly started to realise what these planes flying over there country were for. The next time planes flew over there country, there started to shoot them down. Soon the planes had to be armed with ammunition and soon confused "dogfights' in the air began.
However war in the air was more gentlemanly than the wars on the ground. If a plane was obviously down, the enemy planes would stop firing. If a plane had to land in enemy territory, they were usually well treated. Some even flew with a few simple comforts like a toothbrush, however some higher up pilots disapproved of that, just like they did with parachutes, incase the pilots gave up to easily.
Most World War 1 planes were biplanes. This means that they had two sets of wings above the other. The most famous British planes were: -
The Sopwith Camel & The Sopwith Pup
War at Sea.
Submarines:
The average submarine of 1914-18 was about 60 metres long & could dive a depth of up to 60 metres. To the Navy, this was a very high tech submarine but we have now devolped ones which can accomadate people more comfortable and can dive deeper. However between the 1916 - 18's the sailors had to put up with no toilets in the earlier versions of the ships. On long journeys, this could pose as a problem, so they took drugs to reduce the times they had to use the lavatory. There would have been a permenant stench of unwashed sailors & the toilets. Also they had to endure the permenant tossing and turning of the submarine. This would be enough to make even the strongest stomachs turn. The air inside the submarines was always warmer than the surrounding waters.
The two most famous poets of World War One was probably Seigfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen. Below you will find a small section about them .
Seigfried Sassoon. ???????????
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Wilfred Owen ???????????
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