Duckboard
One soldier looks through the periscope
There were also dugouts in the trenches; these were protective holes that were dug out of the sides of the trenches that could fit at least 1 man in. The actual size of the dugouts was various, some of the dugouts could hold up to or over ten men. But a manual brought out by the British Army suggested that the dugouts should be between two ft. and four ft. six inches. Wide and that they should be covered by corrugated iron or brushwood, then covered with a minimum amount of nine inches deep of earth. But as the war lasted longer the size of the dugouts grew in size. In the communication trenches large dugouts were also built in to the sides so that they were not exactly in the firing line of enemy guns. These dugouts often provided sleeping accommodation for officers and they also served for the battalion headquarters.
After the front line trenches there was the communication trenches, which travelled between all of the trenches, and the communication trenches were dug in a zigzag line like all the other trenches but they were dug at an angle to those facing the enemies trenches. These trenches used to be used to transport equipment, food supplies and men between the trenches. The British got men to carry supplies to forward positions while the French used to rely on tramways to get supplies to the front. The communication trenches where also used to move wounded men to casualty clearing stations.
The other trenches the support trenches and the reserve trenches where practically the same as the front line trenches but without the periscopes, machine guns and the barbed wire exactly in front of them. They where also the same as the communication trenches.
Dead end trenches were often used as toilets but this was only at the end of them though but they where there as trap, if enemy soldiers took over a part of a trench and there was still soldiers that where originally based there before it was taken over, and the enemies went down the dead end trench they could be surprised and shot by the people that where originally based there. The dead end trenches had dugout in them so this could be done.
Weapons
During World War 1 weapons where used a lot some of the weapons will be listed below.
MACHINE GUNS-In World War 1 machine guns may well have been one of the deadliest weapons around in the war, but they probably injured more people than they killed with a headshot. Because the machine gun took about 4 men to carry it- one man carried the actual gun another carried the tripod and two soldiers carried the bullets for the gun, with two more soldiers protecting them with rifles.
They may have also injured the soldiers when they got overheated quickly, one way too stop them from overheating so quickly was to fill the water barrel which was around the main gun with water, but when the water for the gun ran out it needed to be replaced, the gun crew had to use any liquid there was and that liquid was there urine.
MAXIM MACHINE GUN-An American inventor Hiram maxim visited Paris electrical exhibition in 1881 and he got the idea for the maxim.
Maxim moved to London to work on producing an effective machine gun for the next few years. Then in 1885 Hiram showed the gun to the British Army and Hiram made the machine gun use the energy from each bullets recoil force to eject the used cartridge and insert the next cartridge, this made the gun able to use a whole belt of bullets without having to load each bullet manually. Trails for the Maxim gun showed that the machine gun could fire about 500 rounds per minute.
Three years later the British army adopted the maxim, then the German, Italian, Russian, Austrian and the Swiss armies purchased the Maxim.
SHORT MAGAZINE LEE-ENFIELD MARKS III AND V-The lee-Enfield was an excellent weapon even though it was less accurate than its predecessor it had certain compensating advantages, one of the advantages was the easy breech mechanism which allowed the gun to have a fast rate of manipulation. When world war broke out the British Army concentrated on making the gun have a quicker rapid fire. Where every soldier who had one could fire at least 15 well-aimed bullets in a minute, this proved an excellent effect; this was seen in the first couple of months in ww1 when the German infantry suffered heavily loss.
LENGTH:44.5” (1130mm)
WEIGHT: 8.2lb (3.71Kg)
BARREL: 25” (635mm)
CALIBRE: .303”
OPERATION: Bolt
FEED: 10-round box
SIGHTS: 2000 yds (1829m)
MUZ VEL: 2440 f/s (738 m/s)
(LEBEL M1816) MODELE 1816-Was the first rifle adopted by France that was breechloading. On the outbreak of world war one the French Army was still using the lebel, but in 1916 it replaced by the Berthier.
LENGTH: 40” (1016mm)
WEIGHT: 9lb (4.08Kg)
BARREL: 20.5” (521mm)
CALIBRE: .7.62mm
OPERATION: Gas
FEED: 10-round box
SIGHTS: 984 yds (900m)
MUZ VEL: 2440 f/s (740 m/s)
WEBLEY MK.IV (PISTOL)-All British officers in British Army carried pistols during ww1, the pistol was also issued to military police, aircrew and operating personnel of tanks and armoured cars, and of these available the British tended the webley MK.IV. Originally designed in 1887, but improved during the early stages of the war.
The webley was a strong heavy-calibre weapon, which is estimated to have distributed over 300,000 to British officers during World War 1.
SHELLS- shells were like todays bullets for an automatic gun, except they were bigger. The shells were about 75 mm. When they were fired, the shells were fired out of a canon.
FLAMETHROWERS-in 1900 the German army first started testing with flame-throwers, then 11 years later special battalions were issued with them.
Then in October 1914 the flame-throwers were first used on the western front. The flame-thrower was mostly used to kill the enemy in the frontline trenches. When the flame-throwers were first used they only had a range of 25 metres (22.86 yards) but as the war advanced the flame-throwers range increased to 40 metres (36.576 yards).
The British army also tested with the flame-throwers but the British had no luck with them except with one with they developed into a two-ton thrower which sent a flame about 30 yards and those were introduced to the British army in July 1916. But within a couple of weeks two of the four had been destroyed so the British generals deserted the flame-throwers.
POISON GAS-This was a weapon that was soon going to be hated by the soldiers in the 1st world war, even though poisonous gases were known before the war military offices were unwilling to use the chemicals as it was a uncivilized weapon to be used. But the French army were the first army to use the poisonous gases at the begging of the war. (The French Army used tear gas grenades on the German soldiers).
Then the Germans started firing shrapnel shells with steel ball, which had been treated with a chemical irritant in October 1914.
To make a gas attack on the enemy it had to be the right weather condition, so an attack could be made. In September 1915 the British army launched a gas attack at the enemy but because the wind was blowing against the gas attack the attack was blown back into the British armies face. Then in 1916 this problem was solved, when it was put in gas shells to be used with heavy artillery this method made the armies range increase even in worst of weather.
After the German’s first chlorine gas attack, allied troops were given masks of cotton that had been soaked in urine; some soldiers preferred using handkerchiefs, socks or a flannel body belt, then it was rapped or held around the mouth and nose (it only protected them against some particular gases.
It has been estimated that the Germans used 68,000 tons of gases against the ally’s soldies and the French Army used 36,000 and that the British army used 25,000 tons of poisonous gasses.
Health Problems
There were many health issues, ranging from trenchfoot to shellshock.
Lice-in the first world war lice were every where, they came from the rats as well as the humans (the lice lived any where warm on the body), The lice bit the soldiers making them scratch and often result in skin diseases or with boils. With soldiers in the trenches suffered because there wasn’t much they could do to get rid of all the lice. One way to get rid of lice was to run a lit candle or lighter down the seams of clothes, or where ever else the lice gathered together. This was nearly useless because there were so many lice.
Rats-In the trenches the rats could be found everywhere, they could be found in the corpses of soldiers or where there was scraps of food.
One pear of rats could produce 880 offspring in a year so the trenches soon got filled with them, and by the end of the war, from just that one pear 5,996,695,360,172 could have been produced (if none hadn’t been killed or just died).
Some rats grew very large, that’s how the expression “Rats as big as bloody cats” got formed. One soldier wrote in a letter “The rats were huge. They were so big they would eat a wounded man if he couldn't defend himself.”
The rats also spread lice and any fatal disease e.g. tuberculosis (TB).
Trench foot-Trench foot is were the foot swells two or three times bigger than usual and goes numb (or it will eventually go numb) and the skin would than colour to red or either blue. Staying in cold damp and unclean conditions causes this infection of the feet. If trench foot is left untreated will turn gangrenous and will need amputation. During the First World War over 20,000 British soldiers were treated for trench foot between 1914 and 1915.
One way to cure it was for the soldiers to change their socks a couple times a day and dry their feet. Then near the end of 1915 British soldiers in the trenches got told they had to had to have at least three pears of socks with them and where ordered to change there socks at lest twice a day as well as having to dry their feet. Another way to cure it was to rub whale oil onto the skin of the foot/feet that had trench foot and that ten gallons of whale oil was used for a battalion at the front ever day.
Amputations-During the 1st world war lots of people suffered from trench foot, if the infection got gangrenous it might have been amputated.
Over 1.65 million British soldiers were wounded and 240,000 suffered with partial or total leg or arm amputations. After the amputations many of the men got artificial limbs fitted.
Shell shock- the motive for execution for British soldiers had a common topic: this was that many of them were suffering from shell shock; it was also called “war neurosis” and “combat stress”. But now a day it is known and recognised as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
The
Shell fever- Shell fever is a disease that was first found in World War 1 soldiers. The symptoms for trench fever ranged from a mild influenza to a recurrent disease. But the recognized manifestations were fevers, headaches, conjunctivitis and bone pain.
Food
During world war one 300,000 field workers were employed by the British army to work in France and Belgium. During the war British soldiers got given 1 lb (454g) of bully (corned) beef, ¼ lb (113g) of bacon, 1 ¼ lb (567g) of bread or biscuits, ¾ lb (340g) of potatoes, ¾ oz (21g) of butter, 1 oz (28g) of cheese, 2 oz (56g) of jam, 2 oz (56g) of sugar and ½ oz (14g) of tea. The soldiers in the trenches were also given small amount of salt and pepper.
But by 1916 flour was such short supply that the bread was being made with dried ground turnips in with it. Pea soup with some horsemeat in was the main food being made by the kitchen staff. When the kitchen staff became more and more dependants on the local’s vegetables they also had to use weeds such as nettles in soups and stews.
Some of the was also food which was distributed very close to the front. Pre-packed food was issued as emergency rations, these were used as a last resort. When the food was brought for the soldiers in the trenches, it was put in “pixie” pots and brought on a trolley with big wheels to the trenches.
Daily routine
For the Great War every soldier had duties and the daily life in the trenches for most of them relied on military operations in the area. But it was mostly very boring for a lot of them. Most of the people probably thought that it was better to be bored than to go over the top of the trench to be killed or injured in “no mans land”.
The routine for the soldiers was that they were supposed to spend up to four days in the front line, four days in support, four days in reserve and fourteen days resting. This routine often did not go to plan, in some instances in battles when the soldiers spent over a month in the front line waiting to be relived from the front line. The 13th Yorkshire and Lancashire regiment spent about 51 consecutive days in the front line.
For the troops to get into the enemies trenches the soldiers used to bombard the enemy with heavy shell fire to try and blow part of the front line trench up (hopefully killing some enemy soldiers as well). They also thought that the heavy shelling would blow apart the barbed wire, it didn’t it just lifted up the barbed wire then dropped it down again. Then eventually they would go over the top to try and capture the enemy trench, before being mown down by the German machine guns.
With the sound of shells exploding near you, many soldiers found it very hard to get any proper sleep and it was very common for soldiers to go with out a good wash for weeks on end. The lack of washing led to people being infested with lice, and the people who found it very impossible to sleep for days suffered shell shock.
Casualties
As the war progressed more and more people became a victim of the war. People used to get killed by machine guns as they went over the top of the trench or they got impaled on the barbed wire. Below is an estimated casualty list from some places on the western front.
MONTH BATTLE COUNTRY CASUALTIES
JANUARY COMPIÈGNE FRENCH 90,000
MARCH NEUVE CHAPELLE British 11,000
MAY ARRAS FRENCH 120,000
MAY AUBERS British 17,000
SEPTEMBER LOOS British 60,000
Executions
When the soldiers went into the trenches, a number of punishable acts. These offences include cowardice before enemy, self-inflicted wounds, desertion or attempt of abandonment, striking superior officer, disobedience of a lawful order, treacherously communicated with or in any way assisting the enemy, sleeping or being drunk on post, casting away arms or ammunition in the presence of the enemy, abandoning a position, and leaving a post without orders. A total amount of 286 people committed one of these offences while they were in the trenches and where executed. (All together about 304 soldiers committed an offence and were executed).
