were also placed at the bottom of the trenches to protect soldiers from problems such as . Soldiers also made and in the side of the trenches to give them some protection from the weather and enemy fire.
The were also protected by and . Short trenches called saps were dug from the front-trench into . The sap-head, usually about 30 yards forward of the front-line, were then used as .
Behind the were support and reserve trenches. The three rows of trenches covered between 200 and 500 yards of ground. , were dug at an angle to the frontline trench and was used to transport men, equipment and food supplies.
BARBED WIRE
Trenches on the were usually about seven feet deep and six feet wide. Thick barbed-wire entanglements protected these trenches. Being a member of a wiring party was one of the most unpopular duties experienced by soldiers. This involved carrying out 6 ft. steel pickets and rolls of wire. The pickets were knocked into place by muffled mallets. When fastened to the pickets, the wire was pulled out to make what was known as a apron. Barbed-wire was usually placed far enough from the trenches to prevent the enemy from the trenches to prevent the enemy from approaching close enough to lob in. Sometimes barbed-wire entanglements were set up in order to channel attacking infantry into fire. Barbed-wire entanglements were virtually impassable. Before a major offensive soldiers were sent out to cut a path with wire-cutters. Another tactic was to place a Bangalore Torpedo (a long pipe filled with explosive) and detonate it under the wire. was necessary to destroy the barbed-wire. However, this always removed the crucial element of surprise. Many soldiers disputed the fact that shelling was capable of creating a gap in the wire. , who observed attempts to destroy barbed-wire entanglements at the remarked: "Who told them that artillery fire would pound such wire to pieces, making it possible to get through? Any Tommy could have told them that shell fire lifts wire up and drops it down, often in a worse tangle than before."
NO MANS LAND
No Man's Land is the term used by soldiers to describe the ground between the two opposing trenches. Its width along the could vary a great deal. The average distance in most sectors was about 250 yards (230 metres). However, at Guillemont it was only 50 yards (46 metres) whereas at it was over 500 yards (460 metres). The narrowest gap was at Zonnebeke where British and German soldiers were only about seven yards apart.No Man's Land contained a considerable amount of . In the areas most likely to be attacked, there were ten belts of barbed wire just before the front-line trenches. In some places the wire was more than a 100 feet (30 metres) deep. If the area had seen a lot of action No Man's Land would be full of broken and abandoned military equipment. After an attack No Man's Land would also contain a large number of bodies. Advances across No Man's Land was always very difficult. Not only did the soldiers have to avoid being shot or blown-up, they also had to cope with and water-filled, shell-holes.Soldiers were only occasionally involved in a full-scale attack across No Man's Land. However, men were sometimes ordered into No Man's Land to obtain information about the enemy. When a artillery shell had landed just in front of an enemy trench, soldiers were often ordered to take control of the shell-hole and to try and spy on the enemy. Small were also sent out to obtain information about the enemy. These patrols would go out at night. They would have to crawl forward on their stomachs in an attempt to get close enough to find out what the enemy was up to. If possible, they would try and capture a sentry and bring him back for interrogation. To stop British night patrols the Germans used a . Suspended from a small parachute, the flare blazed brightly for a minute giving the defending troops a chance to kill the soldiers who had advanced into No Man's Land.
FIRE STEP
So that soldiers in front-line trenches could fire through the , a fire-step was dug into the forward side of the trench. The fire-step was 2 or 3 ft high. It was on this that the sentries stood. It was also used by the whole unit when (an anticipated enemy attack).
PARADOS
The rear-side of the trench was known as the parados. Both the parados and the (the side of the trench facing the enemy) were protected by two or three feet of . Soldiers were instructed to build the parados higher than the so that the defenders were not outlined against the sky and therefore easy targets for the German . The parados also protected soldiers in against those firing from the rear.
INTERVIEWS FROM PERSONS ABOUT THE TRENCHES
(1) Sergeant A. Vine, diary entry (8th August, 1915)
The stench of the dead bodies now is awful, as they have been exposed to the sun for several days, many have swollen and burst. The trench is full of other occupants, things with lots of legs, also swarms of rats.
(2) Richard Beasley, interviewed in 1993.
If you left your food the rats would soon grab it. Those rats were fearless. Sometimes we would shoot the filthy swine’s. But you would be put on a charge for wasting ammo, if the sergeant caught you.
(3) James Lovegrave, interviewed in 1993.
Life in the trenches was hell on earth. Lice, rats, trench foot, trench mouth, where the gums rot and you lose your teeth. And of course dead bodies everywhere.
(4) Frank Laird writing after the war.
Sometimes the men amused themselves by baiting the ends of their rifles with pieces of bacon in order to have a shot at them at close quarters.
(5) Captain Lionel Crouch wrote to his wife about life in the trenches in 1917.
I can't sleep in my dugout, as it is over-run with rats. Pullman slept here one morning and woke up to find one sitting on his face. I can't face that, so I share Newbery's dugout.
PROBLEMS IN THE TRENCHES
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. One pair of rats can produce 880 offspring in a year and so the trenches were soon swarming with them.
Some of these rats grew extremely large. One soldier wrote: "The rats were huge. They were so big they would eat a wounded man if he couldn't defend himself." These rats became very bold and would attempt to take food from the pockets of sleeping men. Two or three rats would always be found on a dead body. They usually went for the eyes first and then they burrowed their way right into the corpse.
One soldier described finding a group of dead bodies while on patrol: "I saw some rats running from under the dead men's greatcoats, enormous rats, fat with human flesh. My heart pounded as we edged towards one of the bodies. His helmet had rolled off. The man displayed a grimacing face, stripped of flesh; the skull bare, the eyes devoured and from the yawning mouth leapt a rat."
WATERLOGGED TRENCHES.
In September, 1914, the German commander, General ordered his men to dig trenches that would provide them with protection from the advancing French and British troops. As the soon realised that they could not break through this line, they also began to dig .
As the Germans were the first to decide where to stand fast and dig, they had been able to choose the best places to build their trenches. The possession of the higher ground not only gave the Germans a tactical advantage, but it also forced the British to live in the worst conditions. Most of this area was rarely a few feet above sea level. As soon as soldiers began to dig down they would invariably find water two or three feet below the surface. Along the whole line, trench life involved a never-ending struggle against water and mud. were placed at the bottom of the trenches to protect soldiers from problems such as .
Much of the land where the trenches were dug was either clay or sand. The water could not pass through the clay and because the sand was on top, the trenches became waterlogged when it rained. The trenches were hard to dig and kept on collapsing in the waterlogged sand. As well as trenches the shells from the guns and bombs made big craters in the ground. The rain filled up the craters and then poured into the trenches.
SHELLS
During the first two weeks of the the British, Australian and Canadian guns fired 4,283,550 shells at the German defences. It is estimated that throughout the the used 5,000,000 tons of shells against enemy positions. The used a similar amount of shells in their effort to win the war.
Soldiers subjected to continual exposure to shell-fire were in danger of developing . Early symptoms included tiredness, irritability, giddiness, lack of concentration and headaches. Eventually the men suffered mental breakdowns making it impossible for them to remain in the . Between 1914 and 1918 the identified 80,000 men (2% of those who saw active service) as suffering from shell-shock.
THE WORKING DAY
FOOD IN THE TRENCHES
A total of 3,240,948 tons of food was sent from Britain to the soldiers fighting in France and Belgium during the . The employed 300,000 field workers to cook and supply the food. At the beginning of the war British soldiers were given 10 ounces of meat and 8 ounces of vegetables a day. As the size of the army grew and the German blockade became more effective, the army could not maintain these rations and by 1916 this had been cut to 6 ounces of meat a day. Later troops not in the front-line only received meat on nine out of every thirty days. The daily bread ration was also cut in April 1917. The British Army attempted to give the soldiers the 3,574 calories a day that dieticians said they needed. However, others argued that soldiers during wartime need much more than this.
Soldiers in the were very critical of the quantity and the quality of food they received. The bulk of their diet in the trenches was bully beef (caned corned beef), bread and biscuits. By the winter of 1916 flour was in such short supply that bread was being made with dried ground turnips. The main food was now a pea soup with a few lumps of horsemeat. Kitchen staff became more and more dependent on local vegetables and also had to use weeds such as nettles in soups and stews.
The battalion's kitchen staff had just two large vats, in which everything was prepared. As a result, everything the men ate tasted of something else. For example, soldiers often complained that their tea tasted of vegetables. Providing fresh food was also very difficult. It has been estimated that it took up to eight days before bread reached the and so it was invariably stale. So also were the biscuits and the soldiers attempted to solve this problem by breaking them up, adding potatoes, onions, sultanas or whatever was available, and boiling the mixture up in a sandbag.
The catering staff put the food in dixies (cooking pots), petrol cans or old jam jars and carried it up the communication trenches in straw-lined boxes. By the time the food reached the front-line it was always cold. Eventually the army moved the field kitchens closer to the front-line but they were never able to get close enough to provide regular hot food for the men. Sometimes a small group of soldiers managed to buy a small primus stove between them. When they could obtain the fuel, which was always in short supply, they could heat their food and brew some tea.
Food was often supplied in cans. Maconochie contained sliced turnips and carrots in a thin soup. As one soldier said: "Warmed in the tin, Maconochie was edible; cold it was a man killer." The tried to hide this food shortage from the enemy. However, when they announced that British soldiers were being supplied with two hot meals a day, they received over 200,000 letters from angry soldiers pointing out the truth of the situation. Men claimed that although the officers were well-fed the men in the trenches were treated appallingly.
Food supply was a major problem when soldiers advanced into enemy territory. All men carried emergency food called iron rations. This was a can of bully beef, a few biscuits and a sealed tin of tea and sugar. These iron rations could only be opened with the permission of an officer. This food did not last very long and if the kitchen staff were unable to provide food to the soldiers they might be forced to retreat from land they had won from the enemy.
Two stretcher men in the trench trying to make hot food to eat.
Conclusion
I think from what I found out by doing this project is that the war was terrible but at first I thought the war wasn’t half as bad from what I proved. I think the trench foot would have been really bad for the soldiers when they first found out they had it, and I would of hated the waking up and finding a rat beside me. But I might have liked the war because you would meet lots of new people and I would know I would miss my family but If I died I would of at least known I died for my country.
By
Ross Williams
