Trench Warfare

Life in the TrenchesPests and Pain

• Rats and lice tormented troops day and night

• Rats were oversized from feeding off the corpses and rations.

• Lice would spread a painful disease called trench fever.

• Trench foot caused gangrene and resulted in amputation.

Threat of Death

• Soldiers were under constant threat of attack.

• They would face hours of shelling and were always at risk of snipers.

• Many inexperienced men could not resist peaking over the top resulting in their death.

Trench Routine

Stand to at dawn

• Every dawn, soldiers would stand on guard at the front trench.

• This was to most likely time for an attack as there was reduced visibility.

• After stand to they would go through inspections, breakfast, and have their daily ration of rum.

Day to Day

• During the day they would

• clean latrines

• Repair duck boards

• Refill sandbags

• Write letters, gamble

Making Use of Shell Hole

Repairing Trenches

Night time

• During the night they would venture into no mans land to

• Repair barbed wire

• Dig new trenches

• Patrol for enemies

• Conduct raids on trenches.

Threat of Death “Shell Shock”

• Troops were under constant threat of death from enemy snipers and shelling.

• This constant stress lead to Shell Shock.

• This caused constant crying, loss of speech, or paralysis.

• Doctors now believe it was a result of physical injury to the brain from shell explosions.

“Wastage”

• This was death that occurred outside of formal combat.

• Most infantry units had 800 men and 80 would die a month.

• Usually by snipers or artillery shells.

Tending to a grave

Penalties and Discipline

• The purpose of military law is to ensure cohesion and victory.

• Violators had to be made an example of in order to discourage others from breaking the law.

• Desertion, leaving one’s post, drunkenness, and cowardice were the most common.

Penalties and Discipline

• Imprisonment, fines, loss of rank were common.

• Field punishment 1 = extra labour duties and attached to a fixed object for 2 hours a day. Nicknamed crucifixion.

• Field punishment 2 = just lose privileges.

Field Punishment 1

Trench Culture

• Slang was invented to make war seem less serious.

• Stray – sniper bullets

• Whiz bangers – shell fragments

• Soft work – less dangerous work

• Potato mashers - grenades

Tin Hat

• Known in official parlance as “Helmet, shrapnel, steel” ; is used for

• washing in, • cooking • baling out the trench• drawing loose rations, such as tea or sugar; and• The most useful article of equipment issued to

the soldier. • occasionally as protection for the head during

bombardments.

Trench Culture

• Troops created Newspapers, cartoons

• Troops had pets and troop mascots, many were left over from the enemy.

• One famous one was a bear cub called Winnie, inspired Winnie the Pooh.

“Keep your head still or I may cut off your ear”

Writing Home

Your Assignment• You are a WW1 soldier and are writing

home. Your letter will include the following topics.

• Life in the trenches, pest etc

• Threat of death

• Slang

• Pets

• Punishments

• Day to day activities.