Dodgy Defence Dig-outs: Introduction to Trenches

With help from here:

Win an indescribable holiday to ‘The Trenches’! You get to wade through knee deep sludge and shave off your perfect locks for fear of lice breakouts. You get to deal with the rats, the grit and the barbed wire (and we’ll throw in a couple of lifeless corpses for you!) The appalling reek of urine, its offensive stench, will linger with you*

*Hot showers not included.

Trench warfare began in September 1914 and due to a breakthrough ended in August 1918 . The purpose of trenches was to give some protection from powerful enemy artillery and small arms fire.  It was the most dangerous place because it was the front line. A typical trench system consists of three main fire or support trenches and is connected by communication trenches and various posts. A routine for trenches that soldiers commonly used are four days in the front line, then four days in close reserve and four days at rest.

Many trench locations were only used for a few days before they advance on into what had been no man's land or the enemy’s location, for example in Italy the trenches were dug in rocks. The type of trench they had depended on the local condition of their position .Therefore they could only build their trenches with the resources they had. The most common materials that they used were wood and sandbags.

Trench conditions varied between the time of the year and weather. Vermin including rats and lice were very numerous; disease was spread both by them, and by the maggots and flies that thrived on the nearby remains of decomposing human and animal corpses. The trenches were sometimes flooded up to waist height when it rained and men sometimes suffered from exposure, frostbite, trench foot, which is a wasting disease of the flesh caused by the foot being wet and cold, constrained into boots. (Trench foot can sometimes cripple a man).

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Horrible Histories section:

Horrible Histories is a great way to effectively get the information across (and a few laughs too). Here’s the link: