Robert Graves Interactions With The Trenches

“‘Hole right.” ‘Wire high.’ ‘Wire low.’ ‘Deep place here, sir.’ ‘Wire low.’” This would be commanded from a guide to help his soldiers get past the telephone wires that had fallen in the trenches. This was a command that Robert Graves, a young officer would hear while he fought in the trenches in World War I. Graves was part of the Third Battalion under the Royal Welch Fusiliers. While in the military, Graves wrote about his interactions with the trenches and how they affected the war. Similarly, in Warfare in the Western World 1882-1975, Jeremy Black addresses the topic of trench warfare during World War I. Graves provided his readers with the understanding of the importance and the features of the trenches. This was done by sharing his story
Siegfried Sassoon, one of Graves’s friends, wrote about the war in such a cheerful way and told Graves his poems were too realistic. Siegfried had not encountered the trenches when he wrote the uplifting war poems. Graves knew that after Sassoon experienced the trenches, his poems will then become more realistic. Trenches had been different depending on where the soldier was located, due to the geography of the area. From being in the trenches, troops may encounter frostbite or even trench foot. Conditions in the trenches had not been the greatest for the soldiers. Though they had an adequate amount of medical supplies and food, their housing in the trenches had been on a whole different spectrum. There might have been a couple beds in the dugout,
There were sections of the trenches where there had been several dead ends and different alleys that had not been in use. It had been easy to slip in the trenches and get all muddy. The trenches were dug out to be several feet in the ground. Mice and frogs had fallen into the trenches and could not find a way back out. The trenches contained sump-holes, which had been drain method. However, there were several occasions where the troops would step into these holes. As the men would duck or move out of the way of the telephone wires, they would slip into the holes. Other times, the men were forced to swim because the water flooded the trenches. The conditions were even worse if the enemy came into the trench. “They allowed the work we’d done in the trench to go to ruin and left the whole place like a sewage farm for us to take over again.” This goes to show that the conditions were rough and soldiers did not volunteer to work in the