WORLD WAR I Trench Warfare

Arial View Trenches and No-Man’s Land No-man's-land is the white, blown out area in the middle. The German trenches are towards the upper right. The less intricate British trenches are on the lower left.

How did Trench Warfare come about? The human tragedy of the Great War –Great Britain 1 million combatants –France 1.3 million –Russia, 1.7 million –Germany and its allies, 3.5 million Losses in life per day of the war exceeded 5,500. One cause of this immense loss of life is the development of new destructive weapons (1) –.303 Lee Enfield Rifle, the Vickers Machine Gun, the Howitzer, Grenades, Flame Throwers and Gas By the end of 1914 both sides had dug into the earth like moles in a desperate attempt to stay alive. –Result = development of a massive trench system which traveled the equivalent of 25,000 miles.

What were the different types of Trenches? Front Line: Took the main force of enemy attacks Reserve Line: If the Front Line looked like being overwhelmed, then the troops in the reserve trench could be used to support them Support Line: Mainly used to rest troops although could be called upon to help in a crisis. Sap / Fire trenches – went into no-man’s land. Very dangerous. –No Man's Land is the term used by soldiers to describe the ground between the two opposing trenches.

The Trenches All the trenches were linked by communications trenches. Each side protected their trenches with masses of barbed wire. –Behind the trenches were the heavy guns of the artillery, designed to obliterate the enemy before an attack. They usually failed. Each trench – 10 feet deep; half way up was a ledge called the fire step where people would shoot from. They would sleep in holes dug into the sides of the trench called dugouts.

The Dugout

Trench Diagram

The Trench System

What were everyday conditions like? Routine: Troops spent 8 days in the front line, followed by four in reserve. Boredom: Was the defining experience of trench life. During the day soldiers would sit around and doze. At night they repaired trenches, lay wire and carry stores, or went on patrols in no-man’s land. Lack of food: Another key feature. Bully Beef and biscuits (so hard that they would have to be smashed with a stone) were the staple food, supplemented from packages sent from friends and relatives at home.

Winter Conditions: Rain, Mud and Trench foot Heavy rain flooded trenches and turned them into mudpits. –Thus, soldiers would put down planks called duckboards for soldiers to stand-on, but these were often inadequate. Many men suffered from frostbite or trench foot due to the constant exposure to mud and water – the feet swell up to 3 times their normal size, go gangrenous (i.e. rot) and had to be amputated.

Summer Conditions:Rats and Lice Rats: It was often difficult to remove the dead and this led to large colonies of rats emerging. They fed on corpses and rations. Lice: Almost all of the soldiers suffered from lice. They spread diseases like dysentery and typhoid. Many soldiers sent hours burning the lice out of the seams of their clothes with a match, but they never left.

What were conditions like during attacks? 1. Artillery: The enemy would start by trying to "soften up" the lines with massive artillery fire, designed to kill soldiers, destroy trenches and shatter the barbed wire. The noise was deafening 2. Gas: First used by the Germans; the gas was very dangerous as it could blow back on your own side. Caused the lungs to slowly dissolve, and the patient would drown in his own fluids. Horrific. Many soldiers covered their mouths with a rag that had been soaked in urine. 3. Over the top: Soldiers would fix bayonets and wait for the whistle from their officer, aware that minutes later they stood a good chance of being killed or maimed for life. –At the whistle, they would climb over the trenches and advance into no-man’s land facing a hail of machine gun fire and shells. Almost all such attacks were abject failures, with mass slaughter being the result.

What was the effect on soldiers? 1. Desertion –Either from the trenches or on leave. –Comparatively rare as it carried the death sentence, which was carried out frequently. –More common was “Field Punishment No.1" which involved being strapped to an immovable object for several hours

What was the effect on soldiers? 2. Suicide –Probably more common than official figures would suggest. –Complete mental breakdowns were inevitable given the hellish situations which men had to deal with.

What was the effect on soldiers? 3. “Blighty” wounds –Men would try to get a non-life threatening injury to get invalided out of the army e.g. by putting an arm above the trench. 4. Shellshock –Mental breakdown caused by prolonged exposure to death and destruction. –Sufferers often could not speak and lost control of their limbs. Some never recovered. –Initially sufferers were regarded as weak and ridiculed but eventually even the generals had to accept that it was a genuine medical condition.

What was the effect on social relations? The traditional view is that the war broke down social barriers because all classes had to "muck in" together, but if anything the war heightened tensions not only between classes but also within them. 1. Between ranks and classes –When a ten minute break was signaled on a march, officers invariably fell out on the left side of the road, other ranks on the right. –In London, officers were not allowed to carry a parcel or ride a bus! 2. Within the ranks –Even within the ranks of the ordinary soldier divisions were created when ten percent of a battalion was kept behind before an attack, the idea being that if the 90% were killed then the survivors could retrain the new recruits. –This led to a great gulf between those who fought that day and those that stayed behind in the safety of the lines. 3. Between Soldiers and Civilians –The divisions between officers and the ranks, and within the ranks themselves, were only subsumed by a common hatred of civilians