The nature of trench warfare and life in the trenches dealing with experiences of Allied and German soldiers…
The Nature of Trench Warfare and Life in the Trenches Dealing with Experiences of Allied and German Soldiers:…
Life in the trenches were constant of boredom, routine, “shell shock”, disease and vermin and the “stench of death”…
We already fought a couple of battles here at the Western Front. In most of those battles, both sides used trench warfare, in which soldiers hide inside deep trenches. These trenches were dug in rows with sandbags lined at the top – side facing the “no-man’s land”. No-man’s land was basically where all the battle happens. The countryside mire was filled with landmines, covered with barbed wires on the surface. Several of my surviving comrades from the previous battle, the Somme, were shell-shocked, probably from the disaster. I still couldn’t forget the ‘Blood Bath’ that happened there. Trench life has been far worse than the life at camp 2 years ago. There was still the awfully wet mud surrounding and the cold air filled our lungs. Our boots were always wet, and we were given whale oil to cover our feet every day. Some people refuse or forget to do it, thus they developed trench foot. It’s a condition where one’s feet are rotting, and more often than not, accompanied by swelling and a painful infection. The trenches were filled with lice and rats which caused diseases, when they sneaked around the supplies. I managed to avoid the lice because I kept the silk you gave, around my torso as an undershirt. Anyways, a few days before the battle, General Arthur Currie made thorough plans for the attack. The planes scouted the enemy front lines and the terrain, and spotted the snipers and machine gun positions. We built a…
| * poor hygiene left the soldiers invested with lice * Trench foot is the rotting away of the foot due to a wet boot causing moisture to soak into the foot * Trench mouth is poor hygiene in the mouth creating the gums in the mouth to rot away and become diseased * Trenches invested in r…
The guns were automatic that made it really easy to kill the people when they tried to go from one trench to the other. Also the gases that they used were very fatal. The gas caused many of the soldiers to get incredibly sick and die, if the gas was exposed to their skin they would get many terrible sores. Also the tunnels they built from one trench to the other.…
Fra Eline, our comrades on the front lines have other problems than the enemy. It comes in the forms of dysentery, rats, and trench foot. Dysentery makes an average man unable to preform the most basic of tasks. This dysentery is caused by unclean drinking water and rotten meat. The rats are a common infestation in the trenches because they spread lice and are a nuisance to the men.…
Here in the trenches condition are very terrible. Things I had seen is unbearable, these trenches are overflowed with water and things I have to do to live in these conditions. About the overflow as it rains, us standing in these large puddle. Your socks will be completely wet, which is a uncomfortable feeling. In order to survive I had to find a dead man socks to use for my own. We also went several weeks not showering because during these conditions they needed a excessive amount of soldier to fight. Having twenty guys crowded on top of you, these trenches are very narrow only enough to have bit of room for the person next to you. This made diseases to easily spread such as influenza, fever, typhoid, and malaria. One of my buddies I share a spot within the trenche just died, right in front of me.…
Hello Mother and Father how are you doing? I haven’t been doing too well in the trenches. As you know I have been assisting the French in the trenches for nearly two years. The trenches are horrendous; I never thought I would be more petrified at the horrific conditions than the actual war. Every day we face rats, hundreds of millions of rats, scurrying through the trenches. Since we don’t have a proper waste disposal system, the rats eat the trash that lay on the floor and the soldiers who have died in combat. It’s a gruesome sight, watching a fallen solder’s surrounded by flies and the rats consume the decaying corpses. Trench foot is almost just as bad, a couple of my closest friends have died from it. They told us that we developed trench foot from standing…
We don’t have any other pairs of clothes, so we sleep in the same pair of clothes every night. Since we have lice everywhere, we all have to cut our hair short so that it fits in our hats and we even have to scrape the lice off of our hair with the blunt edge of our knives. Our underclothes are always stuck to us from the sweat and the water inside of the trenches. Because our trenches are filled with water, there are a lot of us that have gotten trench foot. Trench foot is when your feet swell up to about two or three times the size of normal feet and they develop gangrene. I could stab my bayonet into my foot and not feel it. Sometimes, if you are lucky enough, the swelling goes down, but you feel the worst pain you have felt in your life. Men are screaming and crying in pain as their legs and feet get amputated. I got lucky, but if I was stuck in that trench for one more day, I fear I would have been too…
Trenches were built to protect yourself from the enemy(s). Trenches were generally around two meters deep and two meters wide. There was three rows. The first row was called the frontline trench. The frontline was the closest to no mans land (the land controlled by neither side of a war), it was also the most dangerous because that was were most of the fighting went on. The second row was called the support trench. It was back-up to the frontline, just in case the enemy got passed. The third and last row was called the reserves. This is were they kept all the supplies and equipment. Also there was communication tunnels connecting the trenches, they were used to transport supplies and messages to the other trenches. Trenches were very unhealthy. Lice, rats and all sorts of vermin occupied the trenches. There was little to no running water, the bathrooms consisted of a bucket in the trench. Also there was dead bodies covering all of the land. Worst of all, there was rats. They would eat dead bodies, or eat out the eyes and live in the bodies of the dead. Rats would nibble the living while they slept or when they were wounded. The other horrible parasite was lice. Lice is hard to get rid of…
Rats in their millions infested trenches. There were two main types, the brown and the black rat. Both were despised but the brown rat was especially feared. Gorging themselves on human remains they could grow to the size of a cat. Men, exasperated and afraid of these rats (which would even scamper across their faces in the dark), would attempt to rid the trenches of them by various methods: gunfire, with the bayonet, and even by clubbing them to death. It was futile however: a single rat couple could produce up to 900 offspring in a year, spreading infection and contaminating food. The rat problem remained for the duration of the war although many veteran soldiers swore that rats sensed impending heavy enemy shellfire and consequently disappeared from view. This rat problem was so big that a lot of soldiers died due to infection and there was no way of ridding them. Rats were by no means the only source of infection and nuisance. Lice were a never-ending problem, breeding in the seams of filthy clothing and causing men to itch unceasingly. Even when clothing was periodically washed and deloused, lice eggs invariably remained hidden in the seams; within a few hours of the clothes being re-worn the body heat generated would cause the eggs to hatch. Lice caused Trench Fever, a…
The smell of the rotting corpses builds up more when it is hot. When it rains, the trenches erode so much we constantly have to enforce it. The trench does not have drainage, so we are forced to operate in waist-high water. Many of the comrades get infected with gruesome diseases such as the Trench Foot, as a result of staying soaked in dirty water for too long. The trenches are infested with mice, insects, diseases, and human corpse. Even worse, the trenches smell like chemicals and rotting carcass. We are always cold, wet, and hungry. Large pests such as huge rats dwell in the trenches, feeding off the bodies of the fallen. In here, we often see rats that grow to the size of a cat! Smaller pests such as Lice will even feed off the ones still alive. Lice thrive in our clothing and hair, and the only time I can get slightly cleaner hair is when it rains. However, corpses are the worst in the trenches. It takes up space, smells horrific, and filled with…
Then you go to the trenches where the soldiers lived day by day they were getting sick and the dirt had everything in them and the nurse that was out there didn't have anything to cure them they had cuts and wounds that were infected from the dirt all the could do was wrap them and they were dieing slowly as they seen this the war was starting people were dieing off left and right. So the living conditions were pretty rough and a time where lives was taken because of diseases . What came with this was family getting moves out their homes and getting moves into concentration camps and lives were taken because they cause they had to move out their house because of war and had to have solider in their homes this was only the beginning. Harsh thing were…
The line was, as always, long. But eventually we got what we came for. Our “breakfast” consisted of undercooked eggs, grits, and on special occasions, any type of meat. Still, we ate the hell out of it. It was one of 2 meals a day, and the one that mattered the most. With all the fighting going on during the day, we needed the extra energy. Without saying a word, we finished our food quickly and walked to our briefing section of the trench. As we were walking, we could hear some of the other soldiers talking about what the commanding officer would have our squad do in the next few hours. There were always rumors. Rumors of soldiers like us having to jump over enemy lines, in no man’s land, to try and advance in the trenches. Rumors like these were shook off, and normally untrue. That was, until, I found out the hard way that the rumors were very…