In this section, and the pages below, I will use extracts from different books and accounts to try to give a picture of some of the various aspects of Trench Life.  I suspect none of us will really be able to understand how they put up with it for so long.

Training Field cooking Lice & lice powder Trench hospital Trench routine Battalion CO’s routine

World War 1 trench life for people today usually means the mud of Passchendaele, men creeping out through the wire like Blackadder in his TV series, going on patrol, or the frightening experience of going ‘over the top’. I have included pages on these topics, and hope to add to them as I work my way round my bookshelves.

Images of the battles in the First World War are stark and brutal.  Apart from the terrible artillery barrages, a lot of action was at close quarters, the bayonet.  But the majority of the soldiers’ time was not spent in battle, it was taken up with time in the front line trenches, or in the rear areas, the interminable marches to and fro. Maybe what most deserves our admiration is how they lived and survived in those trenches.  An old soldier said that his main memory in old age was not of artillery shells or dead bodies, but lice.

When the battalions were first formed, just after the declaration of war, their first few months were spent in training. Much of it would later be shown to be inappropriate for the static war they were to fight in the trenches. The photos above are from “The War Budget” weekly publication.  They were in the February 13, 1915 copy under the headline “How British infantry advance under fire”. The text below the photos was (photo on left) “pushing through an undulating country, broken up by woods.” In the photo on the right, “an advance in skirmishing order.” Note that the men are wearing parade hats, not a steel helmet.  These did not arrive until later in the war.  Edmund Blunden, in his book “Undertones of War”, has a short comment on the helmets when they came out; “...their ugly useful discomfort supplanting our old friendly soft caps;...” General Jack commented on them; “Steel helmets have been issued to all ranks; formerly only the company snipers wore them. It is said that while they save some heads they cause more serious wounds to others....”

When the men did come to advance it was often in “the fog of war”. here we have a photo of an advance early in the war.  The men can quickly lose sight of each other in the smoke, and the wire will break up an advance.  Many would be slaughtered by machine-guns.

Soldiers had their own sense of “black humour”, they probably needed it to put up with the conditions they had to live in.  After going through an attack, such as that in the photo above, then on the way out of the line they might sing the song below for those who were on their way up to the front.  Strong emphasis was put on the word “you”.

The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling For you but not for me: For me the angels sing-a-ling-a-ling, For you but not for me.   Oh! Death, where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling Oh! Grave, thy victory? The Bells of Hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling For you but not for me.

The photo on the left shows a soldier getting a “cuppa” behind the trenches. It shows the way they had to live in mud, and become almost oblivious to it.  Their uniforms would be caked in the clay and mud that was such a part of their world, especially following any rain.  Baths were rare events.  In the photo below the field kitchen is filling ration containers before they are transported to the men at the front.

An extract from “A Subaltern on the Somme”; Of all people entitled to praise in these times I give the palm to the army commissariat.  True they cannot feed five thousand on five loaves and two fishes, but after that miracle theirs comes second.  Consider it.  We have been wandering about in a foreign country for four months, and never till this moment have we known what it is to feel really short of food.  When I remember that this battalion is one of thousands similarly mobile, and when I see the conditions under which we ask so punctually not only for our daily bread, but our regular meals, I marvel at the organisation which can respond promptly to such a demand.

Our principle food in the trenches is, of course, bully beef and bread, falling seldom to biscuits.  But this is by no means all we have. Often enough there is that excellent tin of cooked meat and vegetables known familiarly as “Maconachie”: there is tea and sugar, and lately we have had plentiful supplies of good Australian jam, which came as a pleasant change from the nondescript variety known as “Tickler”.

At the moment I am reminded of these blessings by their absence. Yet even now there is half a loaf going.  It has suffered too many hardships since it left the bakers to make it look appetising; and muddy and wet, it must wait till we see what happens to-night before it can be sure of reaching a human interior. Still, there it is.  And water?  There is still a drop in the bottom of the petrol-tin.

Oh, this water!  The taste of water impregnated with petrol will carry me back here if I live for ever.  It is a nauseous taste, and no doubt someone ought to be hanged for not washing out the spirit before adding the water.  Still, it quenches thirst.

And then there’s rum.  Rum of course is our chief great good.  The Ark of the Covenant was never borne with greater care than is bestowed upon the large stone rum-jars in their passage through this wilderness. The popularity of rum increases, till the hour when it is served tends to become a moment of religious worship. After the divine pattern, its celebration is administered by priests in the presence of higher dignitaries. When these priests happen to be old-time N.C.O.s, they want watching, or the communicants are apt to go short, to the degradation of the priests.

There are men so devout they live for rum. I honestly believe some I know would commit suicide if the rum ration were withdrawn.  And in truth the rum is good - fine, strong, warming stuff - the very concentrated essence of army-council wisdom.

General Jack in his diary is complementary about the rations that reached the trenches, although it had to be brought up by fatigue units; ‘The food is ample, arrives regularly, and consists of tea, cocoa or soup, bully beef or stew, beans, butter and jam - all in tins - besides bread or biscuits, and cheese. The men, however, can scarcely get a hot drink since smoky or bright fires are forbidden....’

The advert on the right is from “The War Budget”, but this Vermin powder, sold by Boots, would have been advertised in many periodicals for the folks at home to but and send to the “boys”.  It cost 9 old pence, with a penny for postage.

Henry Williamson, who served in the trenches, wrote of lice killing in ‘How Dear is Life’,

“The guardsmen exterminated lice in the crutches of their trousers, and the tails of their grey shirts, by an interesting method.  A man sat on the trench floor, trousers down for inspection around the crutch; and when he spotted an itchy-koo, he touched one end of a thin yellow stalk of cordite, got by opening a cartridge, on the burning tobacco of his pipe, and charred the louse with the fizzing end.”

Max Plowman on lice; “This morning I slept in a big German dug-out to which Rowley had moved while Smalley and I were out last night. It would have been wiser to have slept on top, for that filthy old place has left me a legacy of lice. People at home are horrified at the thought of lice, but they seem a very minor ill here.  Apparently no one who sees much of the front line is altogether free from them. They are a curse when the body becomes heated.  New underclothing seems the best remedy; which means that men must suffer more than officers in this respect, as they undoubtedly do in may other more serious ways.”

The health giving properties of chewing gum! And this was before the Americans arrived.

The conditions in the trench hospitals were pretty grim for the wounded. This photo shows a dug-out hospital, or holding area for the sick and wounded.

Dugouts. We are probably all used to pictures of the men living in the trenches and dugouts while at the front, and they usually looked pretty awful places to be. This next comes from from Lyn Macdonald’s book “Till the Last Man” and is a German soldier’s description of a British dugout he enters during Kaiserschlacht (21 March 1918).  I am not going to pretend that it is typical, but an interesting comment by Musketier Schetter; “It is a large English dugout with above-ground living quarters built with sandbags.  The enemy obviously left this place in a great hurry.  Tables in the kitchen are still covered with meat, cauliflower and other vegetables.  The dugouts are full of provisions, and we help ourselves to cigarettes, chocolate, corned beef, condensed milk, sugar, biscuits, marmalade and other good things to eat.” General Jack describes a Company Headquarters at Grande Flamengrie Farm in January 1915; “C Company’s headquarters are in the vaulted cellar of this derelict farm, 250 yards from the front trench..... The floor is awash with water which leaks in from the moat, and a hand-pump is at work day and night.  A small concrete platform in the corner, covered with damp straw, sacks and mackintosh coats, provides us with a dryish place on which to lie; a coke brazier maintains a moderate degree of warmth.  The cellar roof is cracked and shaky from the concussion of shells, and we think that a direct hit from a howitzer gun would likely turn this sanctuary into our tomb. Although safe from bullets, we frequently hear them ‘pinging’ through the empty doorways above or sputtering into the walls. Nevertheless, the cellar is a palace compared with the trenches, and needless to say, no-one is allowed to show his nose outside in daylight...”

In his novel, ‘Verdun’, Jules Romains describes the atmosphere in a dug-out; “Every kind of foul vapour, everything least acceptable to nose and lungs, seemed to have been rolled and churned together into a substance just not heavy enough to clutch with his hands, yet impossible to designate as air.  There was something of everykind in it - bad breath, wind, the smell of wet dog; reminders of a policeman’s boots, of stale tobacco; even of the kind of fried-fish shop one comes across in the slums, and traces of suicide by charcoal fumes.  How could he have slept in this stagnant, rotting medium?”

Routine. From Max Plowman’s “A Subaltern on the Somme.”

How unmercifully slowly the days wear away!  Just before dawn the order to “stand to” comes round, and then everybody is wakened, bayonets are fixed, Rowley comes out of the dug-out, followed by the subalterns who happened to be sleeping at the time, and in the chilly air we watch the sunrise. Looking east, we have the advantage of the Germans at dawn.  I only wish both sides would agree to sing hymns to the sun, for the beauty of these autumn sunrises is very great, and it seems a pity to leave their celebration to artillerymen a mile or so behind, who come out and pop off a few rounds for our benefit before going back to sleep.

As soon as the sun has risen we “stand down”, only those who were sentries keeping to their posts; the rest go to sleep again or have an informal meal. Rowley returns to the dug-out to write his report, which always includes news of the wind’s direction.  At about seven the sergeant sends a couple of men out of the trenches to bring in dixies of hot tea from the field-kitchens which cook for us in the village; and these men go again for dinner at twelve, and again at four for more tea.  In the middle of the morning a dozen or so 5.9 shells come over at regular half-minute intervals, and then the front nearly always remains quiet until “stand to” at sunset, when there’s generally some rifle-firing and a machine-gun in Gommecourt shows us what it can do.  Desultory firing goes on till midnight, when the place is quiet as a grave.

While a Major, General Jack recorded in his diary his routine as a Battalion C.O. during a spell in the trenches; “Dawn:- Holden wakens me and produces a cup of tea and a biscuit. 6am:- Breakfast; receive the companies’ written reports and send my battalion report by orderly to Brigade Headquarters in dug-outs near Vermelles.  8 - 1 o’c:- Walk round the companies’ trenches accompanied by the adjudant, medical officer, our three orderlies and one bugler.  1pm:- Lunch and two hours rest. 3 o’c :- Write and despatch to Brigade Headquarters the Situation Report for the day. 4 pm:- Tea, after which, except for dinner, there are papers, organization and other matters to be dealt with till midnight - often later - when I lie down on my bed, a wooden frame covered with wire mesh, constructed by Sergeant Gardner’s pioneers, with blanket and greatcoat on top...”  In his entry for June 12 1916 he had a slightly cynical comment regarding staff work “..by the Grace of God, we may be able to overcome all our enemies, the Germans in front, the Staff in rear.”

Edmund Blunden, in his poem “The Zonnebeke Road” has similar comments on the coming of the dawn in the trenches.

Morning, if this late withered light can claim Some kindred with that merry flame Which the young day was wont to fling through space! Agony stares from each grey face. And yet the day is come; stand down! stand down! Your hands unclasp from rifles while you can; The frost has pierced them to the bended bone! Why, see old Stevens there, that iron man, Melting the ice to shave his grotesque chin!