Life on the Western Front during WW1

In World War One, the trench system on the Western Front extended from the English Channel to the Swiss Alps - a distance of roughly 475 miles.

It was in trenches that British soldiers spent most of their time, waiting for the next major offensive. But why were trenches required and what was day-to-day life in them like?

Watch this video to find out about life in the trenches during World War One, including the experiences of Scottish soldier, Arthur Roberts.

Long before World War One, Germany had created a plan to avoid fighting with its rivals France and Russia at the same time.

This was known as the Schlieffen Plan – named after Alfred von Schlieffen, the German General who devised it in 1905. The plan was that Germany would invade France through Belgium and win a swift victory before Russia (an ally of France) had time to respond.

The plan gambled that Britain would not intervene in response to the invasion of Belgium. It also assumed that it would take Russia six weeks to organise its army before it could enter a war.

The plan was wrong about both.

In the east, the Russian Army was able to mobilise more quickly than the Germans had anticipated and began advancing towards Germany’s borders.

In the west, Britain chose to send an army – the British Expeditionary Force – across the English Channel to honour a previous treaty to uphold Belgium’s neutrality.

The result of Britain's intervention meant that they were able to successfully disrupt Germany’s plan to surround Paris and force a French surrender.

This failure, along with the introduction of modern weapons such as machine guns forced both sides to dig trenches as a means of protection from gunfire and as an attempt to encircle the opposition.

Germany's "quick" war would go on for four years and cost millions of lives.

While much of a soldier’s life at the front line was characterised by boredom and not much happening, when fighting broke out it could be terrifying.

As trenches were very good at defending soldiers from the direct attacks of enemy soldiers, other methods for winning battles were soon developed.

Huge field guns called howitzers were developed that would bombard enemy trenches with explosive shells. They were designed to destroy the trenches, tear through barbed wire defences, and shatter the morale of the enemy soldiers.

These bombardments could last for hours or even days. The British bombardment of German trenches at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 lasted for eight days!

The horror and destruction of these bombardments caused great suffering to soldiers. It even created a new medical condition called shellshock – where experience of the shelling left soldiers too traumatised to carry out their duties.

Another feature of trench warfare were trench raids. These involved soldiers leaving the safety of their own trenches and advancing on their enemy’s trenches to attempt to capture them.

This became known as going ‘over the top’ since it involved soldiers climbing out of their own trenches.These raids were very dangerous as they involved crossing the stretch of land between the trenches known as no man’s land.

Before such raids, artillery would bombard o man’s land to destroy barbed wire defences as well as the enemy trenches.

While this weakened the enemy, it also made o man’s land very hard to cross quickly as there were lots of holes, shell craters, and fallen trees.

Trench raids were made highly dangerous by the arrival of modern weapons such as machine guns.

Machine guns – such as the Vickers model used by the British army – could fire over 400 bullets a minute.

With that kind of firepower, only a few machine guns were needed to make crossing no man's land deadly.

On the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British army lost over 57,000 men – many of them killed or injured by German machine guns.

Another terrifying weapon that the soldiers In the trenches had to deal with was attack from poison gas.

There were several different kinds of gas used. The most common were:

• chlorine gas
• phosgene gas
• 'mustard' gas

Poison gas had been created decades before World War One but it had never been used on such a large scale before.

The first major use of poison gas in World War One came on 22nd April 1915 at Ypres in Belgium.

The German army released chlorine gas and clouds of it drifted across to the allied trenches. The gas caused extreme breathing problems and even death in the British, Canadian, and French forces. As this point, troops had no gas masks to protest themselves.

Poison gas became a common weapon and it became standard for soldiers to be issued with gas masks and protective clothing.

While these gases did not kill huge numbers of soldiers, they did cause horrible injuries in tens of thousands of soldiers.

Many of the gases caused permanent damage to the lungs and throat. Others caused agonising blisters on the skin and left people blind.

For many, daily life in the trenches was one of routine and mundane tasks.

Each day would begin at dawn with the soldiers ordered to ‘Stand To’. This was an order to protect the trenches from a potential German attack.

As the sun would rise behind the German trenches, dawn was a particularly good time for them to attack the British trenches as the British would have been blinded by the rising sun.

Once it was determined that the Germans were not going to attack, the British troops would be ordered to ‘Stand Down’ and the men would make their breakfast – this usually consisted of tea and bacon which was made on a simple, portable cooker called a primus stove.

After breakfast, the troops would complete a wide range of tasks including cleaning their rifles and carrying out basic duties:

• strengthening and repairing trenches
• digging new latrines
• ensuring that the sandbags that were part of the trench defences were refilled
• restocking the trenches with ammunition and food supplies

The army also had regiments of engineers at their disposal. Their job was to repair bridges and roads to allow supplies to reach the trenches or to allow the army to advance against the Germans.

Some soldiers were signallers and it was their responsibility to lay telephones lines so that messages could be carried throughout the trenches and back to army headquarters.

These lines would often get damaged during enemy bombardments and would need to be repaired or replaced regularly.

Soldiers did not spend all their time fighting. If the men had completed their tasks, they were given time to themselves.

Some would write letters home to their loved ones, others would keep a diary, whilst others would pass the time playing cards or chess.

Soldiers also didn't spend all of their time at trenches in the front line.

The troops were on a constant rotation and it was expected that they would receive 14 days off duty before serving in the trenches for a total of 16 days.

When not in the trenches, soldiers could enjoy time off in the French and Belgian towns that were under British control. This gave them time to rest and recover from the difficult and dangerous lives they lived in the trenches.

However, this did not always happen. The Scottish Black Watch regiment once served 48 days in the trenches without a break.

Hygiene and sanitation in the trenches was difficult to maintain.

Whilst the troops were encouraged to use toilet pits called latrines, some men opted to use nearly holes and craters made by shell explosions.

When drinking water was in short supply, some troops would drink water from these shell holes. Contaminated water lead to outbreaks of cholera.

Rats were a constant issue in the trenches. Dead bodies attracted them to the trenches and the troops soon found that the rats were helping themselves to the food supplies and spreading lice throughout the trenches.

Lice would lay their eggs in the seams of the troops’ overcoats, and in the case of the Scottish soldiers, in the pleats of their kilts. The lice caused the spread of trench fever and typhus amongst the soldiers.

The mud also created health problems for the troops as it prevented men from keeping their feet dry and clean.

This led to many soldiers developing a condition known as trench foot. This disease would rot the flesh from a soldier’s feet, exposing the bone and muscle underneath.

The lack of fresh fruit caused some to develop trench mouth. This was a disease which would cause the gums to bleed and recede.

Left untreated, ulcers could form along the inside of the mouth and down the throat, resulting in the soldier experiencing pain whilst they ate and swallowed.

They would also have chronic bad breath. Many soldiers who suffered from this condition took up smoking as a means of masking their breath.

The horrors that the soldiers faced on a daily basis, combined with the noise from artillery bombardments, caused many men to develop shell shock.

These men would display symptoms such as their limbs shaking uncontrollably, foaming at the mouth and becoming incontinent. Some became confused and would even be found wandering behind the trench system without knowing where they were.

We now call this condition post-traumatic stress disorder.

Unfortunately, in the early stages of the war, the army viewed shell shock as cowardice. Of the 306 British soldiers executed by firing squad (and since pardoned), many showed symptoms of shell shock.

Eventually military hospitals, such as the one at Craiglockhart in Edinburgh, were established to help treat soldiers suffering from shell shock.