Life In The Trenches - research and evaluation of the sources

by naddyt123 (student)

Life In The Trenches

April 19, 2012

Life In The Trenches

By Nadine Thomas 9.5

Introduction

The aim for this project is to gather information and evaluate it depending on how useful/reliable/typical it is. This information is all to do with life in the trenches in World War 1, and how it really was. The topics I have to include are:

How trenches were designed and made.
Food and rations soldiers ate.
Health issues soldiers faced.
Weapons used in World War One.
Daily routines in the trench.
Boy Soldiers

World War one was named the ‘great war’ as it was thought to be the war to end all wars, but unfortunately, this was not the case. It started on the 28th of July 1914, and ended on the 11th of November 1918. The main countries involved were: Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Russia, but many other countries joined and disengaged as the war progressed. Around 9 million life’s were lost, and those lucky to survive were left injured. The “trigger” to start the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There were many other factors contributing to the start of this war; Militarism (countries competing against each other for the biggest armies), Alliances (countries making “promises” to help another country in its time of need), Imperialism (countries wanting a bigger empire, and trying to take control over a country) and Nationalism (where nations wanted to be independent).

How Trenches Were Designed and Made

Trenches are some of the most important factors of world war one. They are used in movies, TV and books, and they usually help paint a very bleak picture of the war. When the first soldiers arrived in ‘No Man’s Land’ they hurriedly made trenches, because they didn’t expect the war to last as long as it did. The first trenches made were just holes in the ground, and because they were so quickly and hastily made, they were of poor quality. They often flooded and collapsed, and so future trenches began to become deeper and more ostentatiously made, and these ones were of a better quality.

This is a picture of a trench in world war one taken from a history textbook for year nine’s. It is not completely reliable because there is no information there stating why this photo was taken, because if the photo was taken for commercial reasons (e.g. advertising, newspapers) then it would be made to look nicer, so it would not be a good representation of what life was actually like in the trenches. Also, this picture only shows how the British trenches were like, so it is not a good representation how all of the trenches were in World War One. I can infer from this source however, that the hygiene in the trenches must have been quite poor and also the living conditions as well, because I can see that there is only mud surrounding the soldiers. From my own knowledge I know that rainfall was dreaded by the soldiers in the trenches, because the ground surrounding them became wet and sticky and sometimes mudslides occurred. A lot of the time, the trenches flooded, and the soldiers could be waist deep in muddy water.

Here is a screenshot of the video of soldiers digging trenches. The soldiers are working hard; they have to bend down every time they toss some dirt over their shoulders. After watching the video I can infer that the trenches were not dug in straight lines, because I saw that they soldiers were all over the place digging. From my own knowledge I know that they did not have trenches in straight lines, because it made it harder for the enemy to attack if the trenches were zigzagged. After I watched this clip, I found out that the soldiers were actually in training, but it would be nearly exactly the same when they were actually out on the battlefront digging trenches, they would just have to dig quicker. I think this source is quite reliable, because even though these soldiers were just in training, they would still have to do the same thing when they were actually fighting, and I know that digging trenches was just like that, from my own knowledge. This source is quite typical of soldiers as well, because after doing some thorough research, I found that both sides of the war dug trenches, which means the source is quite typical. The only people it does not represent are the people higher up than the soldiers (the doctors, generals, pilots etc.)

Here is another source from a history textbook, showing the layout of the trenches. I can infer from this picture that attacks could happen at any time because I can see dugouts next to every trench, which would be used to escape from the enemy. From my own knowledge I know that dugouts give more protection that the trenches does, but just because you are in a dugout, doesn’t mean you are fully protected and cannot be killed by anything. This source is not completely reliable, because things in a history textbook are usually watered down so that children can understand it better, and judging by the colourfulness and simple statements in the picture, I would say this textbook is for primary school aged children. This source is quite useful however, because it is clear and basically shows you exactly what the battlefield looks like. This source is quite typical, because from my own knowledge I know that both sides of the combat zone were very similar, and the picture represents both British and German troops well, because it explains what German and British dugouts were like.

From my knowledge I know that trenches were not designed, they were just dug wherever they could be, in zigzagged lines. They had to be the right size, because if they were too big, then fewer trenches would be able to fit in the allocated area. After they were dug, they were lined with sandbags and barbed wire, for protection, but that was only if there were enough supplies. It apparently took 6 hours for 450 men to construct 250 miles of trench (according to ) there were three ways to construct trenches, entrenching, sapping and tunnelling. Entrenching was the easiest and “normal” method to do, you work your way from the top of the land, and go downwards, with the help of a shovel. This was the quickest way to construct a trench, and also the most effective because many men could build a trench at a time. Sapping meant you dug at the ends of the trench and worked inwards, and tunnelling is basically going underneath the ground, leaving some soil on top. Sapping and tunnelling were not as effective, because fewer men could work at the same time, and when you were tunnelling, the layer of soil on top could collapse.

This is a preview of the whole essay

From my own knowledge I know that it was impossible for anyone to see out of their trench if it was the correct depth, and because of this a firestep was built, which was about two or three feet above the ground, and was just like a large ledge. Sandbags were also put around the edges of the trenches, to soak up water and to absorb bullets and shell fragments. If the trenches had been dug in straight lines, and the enemy had managed to get into it, then the enemy would be able to shoot and kill many soldiers at a time. Duckboards (wooden planks) were sometimes put on the floor of trenches to help protect soldiers against fungal infections caused by terrible and wet conditions (e.g. trench foot) but this could have been a bad idea, because if water was in the trench, then the ground would not be able to absorb it, because of the duckborards, and so the water would be left there until it evaporated. Barbed wire protected the trenches, to help stop foreign people from entering the trench. Trenches called ‘saps’ were dug about 30 yards (about 27.5 metres) in front of the front line trenches, and were used as listening posts. Behind the front line trenches there were reserve and support trenches, and soldiers were moved from one trench to the other and back again, to give the soldiers some time to rest.

Food and Rations Soldiers Ate

When people think of the war, they often think of hungry soldiers who didn’t get enough to eat. This source shows people queuing up to get their rations. I can infer from this source that food was not readily available at all times, because I can see many people waiting to get food. From my own knowledge I know that soldiers were often hungry, because of the lack of food that they had to survive on. The soldiers are queuing up to get their food because if they missed the time to get food, they may have to wait a couple of days before an opportunity to eat may arrive. This source is quite typical because from my own knowledge I know that food was shared out among the soldiers on both sides of the war. It is not completely reliable though, because it only shows one second of the war, and for all we know, the next day could be a completely different scene to this sight that a picture has been taken of. This is quite a useful source because it shows how food was given out during WW1.

Here is a painting of two soldiers trying to prepare hot food in the trenches. From my own knowledge I know that this source is not typical at all because most soldiers were so busy all of the time that they didn’t have enough time to start cooking in their trench. Matches were in short supply also, and because the ground was wet and moist most of the time, the possibility of soldiers being able to start a fire was very low. It is not reliable either, because the artist (Gilbert Rogers) would have most likely not have been painting in the middle of the trench amongst all of the rubble and mud. In fact, the chance that he actually visited the battlefield during the war is very small, so this painting is almost certainly just a figure of his imagination.

From my own knowledge I know that corned beef was a food product that was readily available. It was made in Britain, and because of that, there did not need to be any connections with any other countries. This is why soldiers usually mentions corned beef or salted meat in their diaries, because it was something they survived on. Soldiers were also given bread, pieces of dark chocolate, rum and tobacco.

Food in the trenches was more often that not given in cans. This was because food lasted longer if they were preserved this way, and the metal lasted longer against the gnawing teeth of the rats. The British army tried to hide the terrible quality of the food, and the lack of it, from everyone on the home front. They attempted to spread the message that soldiers were given two hot meals every single day, but their lies proved pointless when soldiers went back home and reported the truth. A soldier called Harry Patch said "Our rations - you were lucky if you got some bully beef and a biscuit. You couldn't get your teeth into it. Sometimes if they shelled the supply lines you didn't get anything for days on end. There were five in a machine-gun team, and everything we had was shared amongst us. I used to get a parcel from home. My mother knew the grocer pretty well.". But it was a completely different story when men managed to get onto the enemies territory. Every man carried some emergency food, which they called ‘Iron Rations’. This was made up of; a can of bully beef, a few biscuits, some tea and some sugar. Obviously this food did not last particularly long, and if the people providing the soldiers food (kitchen staff) were not able to bring them any food, then they would have to either turn back or last as long as they could without food.

Health Issues Soldiers Faced

The conditions in the trenches were absolutely appalling and devastating, and because of that, health was always an issue. Not only was the soldier’s poor diets an interjecting matter, but also the filth and the pests that surrounded the men helped bring down the level of hygiene.

Trench foot was a fungal infection that you could get after your feet had been in the dirty water for too long. The water seeped into your boots, and stayed there for long periods of time, because as soon as you emptied your boot, it got full again. The feet become numb, and can go either blue or red (neither colour is better). Advanced trench foot (after having damp feet for a long period of time), can lead to having to have your foot amputated, because there is no longer a need for it. Still, trench foot can be treated, and after that, full recovery can be acquired. I can infer from this source that the trenches often flooded, and because there were no draining systems back then, the water would be left in the trenches until it evaporated or seeped into the mud. This source is fairly reliable, because from my own knowledge I know that many men suffered from this condition, although this picture is actually showing the advanced stage of trench foot, after it has been left untreated for a couple of weeks. Still, I do not know what this picture was used for, because it could have been used to worry the soldiers into taking proper care of themselves. I do not think that that photo would have been shown in newspapers or on posters in Britain, because they wanted to keep everyone who was still in Britain calm, by not giving them unpleasant information about what was going on. This source is rather typical also, because I found out that both crews had soldiers who were suffering with trench foot. This source is not that useful, because it does not give me any information about why this condition occurred, or how to prevent it.

Rats were also a big problem in the trenches. From this picture I can infer that there were many of them around, and that the soldiers made a game out of killing them as I can see several dead rats hung by their tails on a line. This picture is reasonably reliable because from my own knowledge I know that rats were a vast obstruction on both sides of no man’s land, but I do not know why this photo was taken and for what reason it was taken, so it’s less reliable because of that. If it was taken to be put in a magazine, to show the soldiers were enjoying themselves, then it would have been over exaggerated, to make the war look like more of a “game”. This source is quite typical also because I know that a lot of the soldiers were bored whilst there were in the trenches, and that they usually could not sleep at night because of the rats crawling over them in their sleep. This may be why they made a diversion and some entertainment for themselves, by shooting or hitting rats to pass their time. I can see a bat or a club of some sort, and I assume that that was the instrument used to killed the rats. This source is fairly useful; because it shows you how big the rats were in WW1 and what the soldiers did as a pastime.

“We slept in our clothes and cut our hair short so that it would tuck inside our caps. Dressing simply meant putting on our boots. There were times when we had to scrape the lice off with the blunt edge of a knife and our underclothes stuck to us. “

(Elizabeth de T’Serclaes – a nurse on the front line)

Here is a diary extract by Elizabeth de T’Sercales, who was a nurse on the front line. Although she was a nurse and not a soldier, she still had to live in poorer living conditions. I would say that this source is somewhat reliable, because it was a diary extract, so she would not need to exaggerate anything because the only person she would be lying to would be herself. Also, from my own knowledge I know that nurses lived in quite appalling living conditions as well, and because this woman was a nurse on the front line, her living conditions would have been nearly exactly the same as the soldiers. This source is not that typical though, because the majority of the nurses in WW1 were actually based in hospitals, and only a few of them were on the front line (because being so close to the battle was “too dangerous” for women). I think this source is very useful, because it shows how badly lice infected the trenches, and what people had to deal with. She was a nurse, which was better off than being a soldier, so I can’t even imagine what it was like.Lice were a big problem in the trenches. They created a terrible smell, bred like wildfire and they made people itch like crazy. Harry Patch describes the lice in his autobiography: "The lice were the size of grains of rice, each with its own bite, each with its own itch. When we could, we would run hot wax from a candle down the seams of our trousers, our vests - whatever you had - to burn the buggers out. It was the only thing to do. Eventually, when we got to Rouen, coming back, they took every stitch off us and gave us a suit of sterilised blue material. And the uniforms they took off, they burned them - to get rid of the lice." Clearly, there was no time for soldiers to bathe, and there was nowhere, but if the soldiers had taken baths, even once every two months, then their health probably would have been better.

Weapons Used In WWI

In all wars, a vast range of weapons are used. Nowadays, guns are mostly used, with the exception of tanks and knifes. In world war one there were lots of different weapons that a soldier that could be issued to soldier and here are some sources stating that.

Here is a poem about the different weapons used in the war, and what it was like to be on the front line. Already from the title I can infer that guns were used, but I can also see that shells were also used. From this source I can infer that shells made an incredibly loud and terrible noise when they were made, because the author of this poem (Captain Gilbert Frankau) uses the line ‘heard ye the scream of our shells in the night, and the shuddering crashes?’, which is basically just describing the terrifying noises the shells create as soon as they are applied. This source is not completely reliable, because from my own knowledge I know that Gilbert Frankau was invalided out of the military after a serious injury/illness, and so he could have written the poem out of anger for being kicked out. Also, in a poem, people exaggerate things to make it sound more dramatic and intense and so Mr Frankau could have done that to make his poem sell better. This source is quite typical though, because from my own knowledge I know that most of what he is describing is actually true, and it represents the noises that scared and alarmed soldiers during the war well. It is not that useful though, because I do not know what Gilbert is exaggerating and what is actually the truth, so I cannot work out what the war was actually like from this poem.

This photo is showing a British soldier in full kit. From the photo I can see that soldiers carried bayonets, rifles and ammunition with them. Ammunition is used to load up guns, and is fundamentally what we call bullets today. I can infer from this picture that soldiers needed to load up guns frequently and quickly, because I can see that there are two pouches which contained ammunition on the jacket. From my own knowledge I know that guns were not so simple to use back in 1914, because nowadays guns have a strip of around 40 bullets loaded into them so that they do not need to be loaded so often, but in WW1 you put one bullet in, took a shot, another bullet in, take another shot etc. This was fairly time consuming. This source is 50/50 on the reliability scale, because I researched into what a soldier carried around with him in WW1 and it came up with the same results as this picture, but this picture is only a picture of one person, and it was also taken at the start of the war, so there was much more resources to go around (at the end of the war, resources were becoming more scarce). And, this is a picture of what a soldier was supposed to have with him, not what soldiers did have with them. So, this source is not that typical either, because sometimes some soldiers had to go without a piece of equipment (e.g. a bayonet), so it does not represent all soldiers fittingly. Still, this source is somewhat useful because it shows what soldiers were supposed to have.

This is a poster giving out information about tanks, and would have probably been used in factories building tanks, to make the workers there feel like they are helping their country, and keep them working hard. This source is not very reliable at all, because I know that tanks were very rare to be used in WW1, and they were not even used until 1915. The first tank was not built properly, and its tracks came off, the first time in the factory and the second time when government officials were watching. Tanks were not very commonly used also, because they were hard to transport across the sea, and they only travelled at 4 mph, and that was at top speed. Because of this, tanks did not really save many lives at all, and in some cases it crushed unconscious soldiers lying in the ground that it progressed through. This source is not very typical either, because when 36 tanks did come into battle in 1916, many of them got stuck in muddy trenches, or in deep ditches, endangering the lives of the people stuck inside. This poster is quite useful how the battle field was in WW1, and how the soldiers looked (in left bottom corner). The poster also shows the bayonet (in the soldier’s hand).

Daily Routines of the Trench

Stood to at 2.30am. On fatigues all day but things fairly quiet. Heavy shelling in reserves. Stand to from 7.30 to 8.30. Everything going good and not losing any sleep."

Arthur Elderton

In the morning, soldiers had to “stand to” (short for stand-to-arms), and they principally had to stand on the fire step of their trenches (a small ledge off their trench) and with their bayonet and rifles fixed in the correct positions, the commanding officers would check that every soldiers equipment was in proper working order, and that it was clean. I think this source is reliable, because it is a diary extract and so the soldier (Arthur Elderton) would most likely not be exaggerating anything, because it is personal thoughts. This source is also typical, because all soldiers had to do a stand-to in the early hours of the morning, and so it represents them. It is also useful too because it tells you what time they do their stand to, but it does not tell you anything about the rest of his day or what the stand-to included.]

After the stand-to arms, the soldiers had breakfast, and cleaned their rifles. In this diary entry, the soldier is saying that he had breakfast after 5.30 am, and when he did, the bread must have run out before he got there, so he only got some jam. This source is quite reliable, because as I have noted before, diary entries are just recalls of what happened in the day, and sometimes the soldier’s personal thoughts, so there’s not much chance that the soldier actually lied about what happened. Also, this diary was not sold to make the soldier a profit, so there was no point in him exaggerating. Moreover, from my own knowledge I know that this was the time that soldiers usually had to wake up, especially if they were travelling to a new destination. This source is not that typical though, because most of the time the soldiers stayed where they were for a year or so before moving. Food did run out often however. This source is useful, because it tells you what time of day that the soldiers had to get up, and about how food sometimes ran out.

(1) Private Frank Bass, diary entry (26th September, 1916)

Up at 5.30 to depart for Front at 6.30. Breakfast supposed to be at 5.30 but had a job to get it and when we did, only jam. Paraded at 6.30 and marched to sidings.

After breakfast, soldier’s weapons were inspected, and this is what this photo is showing. From my own knowledge I know that weapons needed to be inspected to ensure that they were clean and serviceable. The source is quite reliable, because I know that every morning (or nearly every morning) soldier’s rifles and bayonets were inspected by the sergeants and the platoon officer. But, this only shows one inspection, and not how inspections were like throughout WW1. Still, this source is typical, because all soldiers had to have their weapons inspected after breakfast, so it represents soldiers well. However, I do not know whether or not soldiers on the other side of no man’s land (the enemy to the British, French, Russian, American etc. Soldiers) had to have their weapons inspected, but I assume they did. This source is not that useful nonetheless, because it does not show what they are inspecting the weapons for, and these soldiers are not even in the trenches, so it does not show exactly how it was.

Boy Soldiers

When the war started, they was a lot of excitement and lots of men and boys joined up. Soon, the novelty of being a soldier wore off, when men went missing, when they came home underweight, ill or badly injured, and when men did not come home at all. Still, the British government put out millions of posters around the country, persuading and forcing people to join up. By playing of people’s emotions, they made them feel like they were needed, that they were cowards if they didn’t join up, that they would be saving lives if they did join up, and mostly importantly, that they were just doing their role and duty by joining up to save their country.

Then, the government began to send letters out to men that were fit to join the army, but had not. There were also campaigns to get people to recruit. Unfortunately, many boys lied about their age, because in those days, there was nothing to prove how old you were, a lot of people did not have birth certificates, so the boys were able to get away with it. Boys as young as just fourteen found themselves in frontline trenches, fighting for their life’s.

The order of the white feather was a group of women who pressurised and verbally abused men who hadn’t joined up for the army and could. They pressurised James Lovegrove who was just sixteen at the time to join up: "On my way to work one morning a group of women surrounded me. They started shouting and yelling at me, calling me all sorts of names for not being a soldier! Do you know what they did? They struck a white feather in my coat, meaning I was a coward. Oh, I did feel dreadful, so ashamed."

So, hundreds of boys joined up to fight for our country, and because the army were desperate for more soldiers (to try to match the massive size of Germany’s army) they did not check the dates of birth written down very carefully, and often young boys who looked older, managed to get into the army. When one boy sixteen year old went to the recruiting officer, this is what happened: "The recruiting sergeant asked me my age and when I told him he said, 'You had better go out, come in again, and tell me different.' I came back, told him I was nineteen and I was in."

And, because these young children were able to go to war and fight for their country, many boys lost their lives, and completely missed their childhoods. The youngest boy ever to be killed in WW1 was only 13.

Some boys even ran away from school to go and fight. Victor Silvester was a fourteen year old school boy, who ran away from his school (Ardingly College) to fight, and claimed he was nineteen when asked of his age. His parents were told of his disappearance two weeks later, and guessed that he had joined up for the army. They were right, and it wasn’t until Victor was injured aged 17 that he was finally brought home.

Eventually, the number of too young soldiers fighting on the battlefields dropped, because boys that had been sent back home spread the messages of what war was really like, and the horrors that went on there. Under-age boys were sent back home like 13 year old George Maher: "I was locked up on a train under guard, one of five under-age boys caught serving on the front being sent back to England.

The British Army were also more thorough in checking the ages of the recruiting soldiers when WW2 came around, because they were not about to make the same mistakes of letting school-aged children join up.

Conclusion

This project has contributed a lot to my knowledge of WW1, and I am happy to have been given the great opportunity to broaden my awareness and understanding of WW1 and what life was really like in the trenches. I never thought that there was more than one way to dig a trench, it’s common knowledge that you dig downwards, but I did not realize that you could dig from underneath or even digging from the inside and outwards (tunnelling and sapping). I found out about the conditions in the trenches, the food shortages, the daily routines and the weapons they used. I think I have done well in this project, because I put a lot of effort into it, and I am proud of my work.

By Nadine Thomas 9.5 Miss O’Hanlon