08. Trench Warfare

08. TRENCH WARFARE

01. Digging In

In 1914, the Germans declared war on France and attacked. The Germans had a plan called the Schlieffen Plan, after the military leader who came up with it. This plan was to launch a surprise attack on France by going through Belgium. They thought they would be able to avoid the French defenses and defeat them very quickly. The plan didn’t work. The French and British armies then “dug in” by putting a large barrier in the way of the German forces. This was the start of trench warfare.

What do you mean “dug in”?

What we mean is that they literally dug trenches to fight from. A trench is a large ditch dug out to hide from enemy fire and to stop advancing troops. The soldiers dug a hole about a meter wide at the bottom and two meters deep. Boards were placed on the ground to act as drainage. On the side of the trench facing the enemy, a fire step was cut into the wall. This was for soldiers to shoot from. Sandbags were placed at the top of the trench. This would stop the trench from caving in if a bomb went off nearby.

The trenches also provided protection from bullets. In front of the trench, barbed wire was rolled out. This was to stop soldiers from being able to charge at the trench. The trench would be equipped with men armed with rifles and bayonets. At regular intervals along the trench there were machine gun posts.

The photo below is an example of a typical front line trench, or trench that is closest to where the fighting was expected to occur. Find each part of the trench in the picture and write a sentence on your note sheet about its purpose. (Yes, you will be guessing – but use the picture to create an educated guess.)

02. Why use trenches?

Trenches were not designed to be used for long periods of time. However, they worked when stopping the quick advancement of the German army and had many benefits. For example, they were very easy to make. All you would need would be lots of people (which armies tend to have) and digging equipment. Trenches were also very economical, or cheap, to build. If you look at the picture of the trench, there wasn’t really anything needed but boards, sandbags, and barbed wire. Finally, the trenches were easy to defend. They offered a lot of protection from bullets and allowed for modern technology to be used against the enemy. Not all soldiers had to be in the front line trenches at the same time, which meant many could get some much needed sleep or medical attention, if needed.

Trenches did have some downsides to them. Because they were outside, the soldiers were exposed to the elements. Trenches could be very wet, cold, hot, and dusty. Because there was no running water or flushing toilets, trenches were also very dirty and unhygienic. (Remember, trenches are long holes in the ground – there weren’t places to shower or to go to the bathroom without leaving the trench.) Trenches were also very difficult to get in and out of. Once soldiers rose above the top of the trench, they were vulnerable to enemy fire. Getting the sick or the dead out of the trench without putting others in danger was almost impossible – in fact, many times the sick and dead was simply left there.

As time went on, it became obvious that the Trench was not going to be the short-term barrier it was originally intended to be. Eventually networks of trenches were constructed. These trenches had to ensure the safety of the soldiers who would live, eat, sleep, and fight there. Often these trench systems were close as 20 meters away from the enemy who would face them across “No Man’s Land”.

Trench Systems: Use the picture below to answer the questions on your note sheet.

03. Life in the Trenches

Life in the trenches was not ideal for soldiers. Using the following information and primary source documents, follow the directions in your notes.

Video: Life in the Trench (from history.com)

Body Lice

Men in the trenches suffered from lice. One soldier writing after the war described them as “pale fawn in color, and they left blotchy red bite marks all over the body.” They also created a sour, stale smell. Various methods were used to remove the lice. A lighted candle was fairly effective but the skill of burning the lice without burning your clothes was only mastered with practice. Where possible, the army arranged for the men to have baths in huge vats of hot water while their clothes were being put through delousing machines. Unfortunately, this rarely worked. A fair proportion of the eggs remained in the clothes and within two or three hours of the clothes being put on again a man’s body head had hatched them out.

As well as causing frenzied scratching, lice also carried disease. This was known as pyrrexhia, or trench fever. The first symptoms were shooting pains in the shins and were followed by a very high fever. Although the disease did not kill, it did stop soldiers from fighting and accounted for about 15% of all cases of sickness in the British Army.

TURN OVER à

Trench Foot

Trench Rats

Many men killed in the trenches were buried almost where they fell. If a trench subsided, or new trenches or dugouts were needed, large numbers of decomposing bodies would be found just below the surface. These corpses, as well as the food scraps that littered the trenches, attracted rats. One pair of rats can produce 880 offspring in a year and so the trenches were soon swarming with them.

Some of these rats grew extremely large. One soldier wrote: “The rats were huge. They were so big they would eat a wounded man if he couldn’t defend himself.” These rats became very bold and would attempt to take food from the pockets of sleeping men. Two or three rats would always be found on a dead body. They usually went for the eyes first and then they burrowed their way right into the corpse.

One soldier described finding a group of dead bodies while on patrol: “I saw some rats running from under the dead men’s greatcoats, enormous rats, fat with human flesh. My heart pounded as we edged towards one of the bodies. His helmet had rolled off. The man displayed a grimacing face, stripped of flesh; the skull bare, the eyes devoured and from the yawning mouth leapt a rat.”