Chapter Four

Chapter Four Introduction | Exemplar material for use with the Chapter 4 activities |
Example Questions | Bibliography

Exemplar material for use with the Chapter 4 activities

The material which follows is designed to help you with the activities. Some of the items can be used for several different exercises. These include the cross-section of a WWI trench (activities 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3); information about trench warfare (activities 4.1, 4.4 and 4.5) and different types of written work based on this same information (activities 4.1 and 4.4).

Cross-section of a trench

What was life like in the trenches?  

The soldiers spent long spells in the trenches during the war. During battle they might have spent several weeks in a front line trench, though usually they spent about four days in a front line trench and another four days in a supporting trench. During lulls in the fighting, life was boring. Sleeping was difficult. Just before dawn everybody had to use the firestep as this was the likely time for an enemy attack.

The 24 hours was divided into 2–4 hour watches. Sentries on daytime duty feared being shot by enemy snipers if they moved about too much. Despite the dangers, trenches had to be repaired and food distributed. At night the barbed wire had to be repaired and No Man’s Land was patrolled to spot enemy activity and to recover the wounded.

There was a shortage of food which was usually the same every day – beef, a biscuit and jam. There were few washing facilities and many men were infested with body lice, which carried disease. The crude latrines and the rotting dead bodies created a foul smell, particularly in summer. Rats fed on the dead bodies. There was little protection from the cold and wet of winter. Men had to stand in pools of water, sometimes up to their waists, their toes swelling into the condition known as trench foot. Just under 75,000 British soldiers suffered trench foot during the war. Washing and drying feet daily was one way of preventing it, but often toes had to be amputated. Disease and illness were common.

And there was worse. There was the fear of death. Men lived in constant fear of attack from shells, gas and snipers. They knew that if they went ‘over the top’,there was little chance of returning. Living in such constant fear caused some men to suffer shell shock, in which their whole body would shake uncontrollably and they would often stammer. Another fear was falling into a shell hole of mud and drowning.