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World War I History - World War I by the Numbers Interactive - HISTORY.com

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World War One - An academic point of view

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World War One - An academic point of view

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Everything you need to know about the first year of World War One in a 12 minute video. 'World War One - 1914' is the first of a five-part series covering the Great War.

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British India During World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special

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Prisoners of War During World War 1 I THE GREAT WAR Special

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How Did Journalists Work In World War 1? I OUT OF THE TRENCHES #7

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HELP SUPPORT THE CREATION OF MORE HISTORY VIDEOS BY DONATING ON http://www.patreon.com/JohnDRuddy Any donations are welcome!! Like John D Ruddy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JohnDRuddy Follow John D Ruddy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/johndruddy Subscribe on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/c/JohnDRuddy Enjoy! Please share! Manny Man Does the history of World War 1 in six minutes.

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(video 9:00 mn)

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The Sinking of the Lusitania : Winsor McCay : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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The Sinking of the Lusitania, released in 1918, is an animated short film by American artist Winsor McCay. It features a short 12 minute explanation of the...

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Eye witness account of the sinking of the Lusitania, 1915.

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Watch and write down notes.

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BBC - History - World Wars: World War One Trench Virtual Tour

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Take a virtual tour of a World War One (WW1) trench and experience the conditions under which the soldiers fought and lived.

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The war effort at home (movement into war production, rationing, and food supply)

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From the borrowing of money to the employment of women in industry, Professor David Stevenson examines the strategies used at home to maintain arms for troops, and basic supplies for civilians.

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Stories From The Trenches :  WW1 British Indian Soldiers

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Professor Susan R Grayzel studies the range of roles women carried out in World War One within domestic labour, waged industrial labour, and military nursing and doctoring.

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Women on the Home Front in World War One

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Women on the Home Front in World War One

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Find out more
Books
Working-Class Cultures in Britain: Gender, Class, and Ethnicity by Joanna Bourke (Routledge, 1994)

Out of the Cage: Women's Experiences in Two World Wars by Gail Braybon and Penny Summerfield (Pandora Press, 1987)

Women Workers in the First World War: The British Experience by Gail Braybon (Croom Helm, 1998)

Working for Victory: Images of Women in the First World War by Diana Condell and Jean Liddiard (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987)

Working-Class Culture, Women, and Britain 1914-1921 by Claire A Culleton (Macmillan, 2000)

Feminism and Democracy: Women's Suffrage and Reform Politics in Britain, 1900-1918 by Sandra Stanley Holton (Cambridge University Press, 1986)

Fighting Forces, Writing Women: Identity and Ideology in the First World War by Sharon Ouditt (Routledge, 1994)

Nice Girls and Rude Girls by Deborah Thom (IB Tauris, 1997)

On Her Their Lives Depend: Munition Workers in the Great War by Angela Woolacott (University of California Press, 1994)

Links

Archive of primary documents from World War One Established and maintained by the World War One Military History discussion group, the site focuses on 1890-1920, discussing topics from military, diplomatic, social, and economic issues to the arts.

The Great War The PBS site for 'The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century' series goes beyond the military and political history of World War One to explore its ongoing social, cultural and personal impact.

Places to visit

Fawcett Library The Fawcett Library houses an extensive collection of women's history with a reading room, exhibitions and events.

Imperial War Museum - Women in Uniform Opening in spring 2003, the exhibition illustrates the role that women have played in conflict in the 20th century. The museum would like to hear from women who may have personal mementoes relating to their experiences. Please write to Jan Mihell, Dept of Exhibitions, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ.

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national union of women's suffrage societies

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Women on the Home Front in World War One

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Books Working-Class Cultures in Britain: Gender, Class, and Ethnicity by Joanna Bourke (Routledge, 1994) Out of the Cage: Women's Experiences in Two World Wars by Gail Braybon and Penny Summerfield (Pandora Press, 1987) Women Workers in the First World War: The British Experience by Gail Braybon (Croom Helm, 1998) Working

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Women at War: the British sisters who nursed French soldiers during WWI

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Subscribe to France 24 now: http://f24.my/youtubeEN FRANCE 24 live news stream: all the latest news 24/7 http://f24.my/YTliveEN On November 11., France marks Armistice day. FRANCE24's journalist Marie Valla made a webdocumentary, Women at War: the British sisters who nursed French soldiers during WWI that features two sisters who treated Soldiers.

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Professor Stephen Badsey reflects on how letters, parcels, and newspapers - although subject to censorship - kept family and friends in touch with soldiers serving in World War One.

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Life in a Trench | World War I | History

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Trenches were long, narrow ditches dug into the ground where soldiers lived.

They were very muddy, uncomfortable and the toilets overflowed. These conditions caused some soldiers to develop medical problems such as trench foot.

There were many lines of German trenches on one side and many lines of Allied trenches on the other.

In the middle was no man's land, which soldiers crossed to attack the other side.

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What was life like in a World War One trench?

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Trenches were long, narrow ditches dug into the ground where soldiers lived. They were very muddy, uncomfortable and the toilets overflowed. These conditions caused some soldiers to develop medical problems such as trench foot. There were many lines of German trenches on one side and many lines of Allied trenches on the other.

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History >>World War I Trench warfare is a type of fighting where both sides build deep trenches as a defense against the enemy. These trenches can stretch for many miles and make it nearly impossible for one side to advance.

During World War I, the western front in France was fought using trench warfare. By the end of 1914, both sides had built a series of trenches that went from the North Sea and through Belgium and France. As a result, neither side gained much ground for three and a half years from October 1914 to March of 1918.

Soldiers fighting from a trench by Piotrus

How were the trenches built?

The trenches were dug by soldiers. Sometimes the soldiers just dug the trenches straight into the ground. This method was called entrenching. It was fast, but left the soldiers open to enemy fire while they were digging. Sometimes they would build the trenches by extending a trench on one end. This method was called sapping. It was safer, but took longer. The most secret way to build a trench was to make a tunnel and then remove the roof when the tunnel was complete. Tunneling was the safest method, but also the most difficult.

No Man's Land

The land between the two enemy trench lines was called "No Man's Land." This land was sometimes covered with barbed wire and land mines. The enemy trenches were generally around 50 to 250 yards apart.

Trenches during the Battle of the Somme
by Ernest Brooks

What were the trenches like?

The typical trench was dug around twelve feet deep into the ground. There was often an embankment at the top of the trench and a barbed wire fence. Some trenches were reinforced with wood beams or sandbags. The bottom of the trench was usually covered with wooden boards called duckboards. The duckboards were meant to keep the soldiers' feet above the water that would collect at the bottom of the trench.

The trenches weren't dug in one long straight line, but were built as more of a system of trenches. They were dug in a zigzag pattern and there were many levels of trenches along the lines with paths dug so soldiers could travel between the levels.

Life in the Trenches

Soldiers generally rotated through three stages of the front. They would spend some time in the front line trenches, some time in the support trenches, and some time resting. They almost always had some sort of job to do whether it was repairing the trenches, guard duty, moving supplies, undergoing inspections, or cleaning their weapons.

German trenches like this were generally
better built than those of the Allies
Photo by Oscar Tellgmann

Conditions in the Trenches

The trenches were not nice, clean places. They were actually quite disgusting. There were all sorts of pests living in the trenches including rats, lice, and frogs. The rats were everywhere and got into the soldiers' food and ate just about everything, including sleeping soldiers. The lice were also a major problem. They made the soldiers' itch horribly and caused a disease called Trench Fever.

The weather also contributed to rough conditions in the trenches. Rain caused the trenches to flood and get muddy. Mud could clog up weapons and make it hard to move in battle. Also, the constant moisture could cause an infection called Trench Foot that, if untreated, could become so bad that a soldier's feet would have to be amputated. Cold weather was dangerous, too. Soldiers often lost fingers or toes to frostbite and some died from exposure in the cold.

Interesting Facts about Trench Warfare

It is estimated that if all the trenches built along the western front were laid end-to-end they would total over 25,000 miles long.

The trenches needed constant repair or they would erode from the weather and from enemy bombs.

The British said it took 450 men 6 hours to build about 250 meters of a trench system.

Most of the raids took place at night when soldiers could sneak across the "No Mans Land" in the dark.

Each morning the soldiers would all "stand to." This meant that they would stand up and prepare for an attack as most attacks took place first thing in the morning.

The typical soldier in the trenches was armed with a rifle, bayonet, and a hand grenade.

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History >>World War I Trench warfare is a type of fighting where both sides build deep trenches as a defense against the enemy. These trenches can stretch for many miles and make it nearly impossible for one side to advance. During World War I, the western front in France was fought using trench warfare.

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When the Germans attacked in Belgium they quickly beat the armies defending the borders and managed to get into France very quickly. The British and French generals, uncertain about how to stop the German advance decided to 'dig in' and ordered the construction of Trenches to act as a barrier against the attack.

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 caving in if a bomb went off nearby. It also provided

more protection from bullets. In front of the trench Barbed wire was rolled out.

This was to stop soldiers being able to charge at the trench.

Both sides soon found that they could stop an enemy attack by digging trenches and setting up machine guns. Trenches soon became a permanent feature of warfare and the trench lines changed little in three and a half years. Sandbags protected the soldiers from bullets and shrapnel. Barbed wire was set up to delay any enemy advance. The ground between the trench lines became pock-marked with shell craters.

The British developed the tank to destroy machine gun positions, cross rough ground and go through belts of barbed wire.
Why the Trenches stayed
This was difficult to cut. Shelling usually only tangled it up. It spread men out in a line.

These mowed down men with intersecting crossfire.

This was very effective in slowing down heavily-laden attackers. It was not so effective against troops in trenches.

The best trenches saved soldiers from all but a direct hit. Shells churned up the ground, destroyed drainage systems and made attack very difficult.

The enemy could easily see when extra supplies were brought up for an attack.

These could rush reinforcements to a threatened spot very quickly. Aeroplanes were not powerful enough then to delay rail traffic by any great amount.

Men could only advance at walking pace.

Generals had never fought this way before and could not think of ways of

breaking through the trenches

These were to stop enemy artillery destroying a whole line of trench and to

prevent successful attackers being able to fire along a long length of a trench.

These joined lines of trenches.

These led nowhere and they were built to confuse and slow down the enemy in the event of a successful attack.

These were built for miners and snipers.

These were tunnels driven under enemy trenches so that explosives could be placed under them and detonated.

This was very difficult to cross because of the belts of barbed wire, shell holes and very swampy conditions when it rained.
The Trench: Important points
Advantages: easy to make, easy to defend, cheap to build, don't need lots of men to defend them.

Disadvantages: wet, cold, hard to get in an out of without being seen by the enemy. Trenches were very dirty and unhygienic as there was no running water or flushing toilets.

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 learnt 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 heat 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 was 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.

Source B: Private George Coppard, With A Machine Gun to Cambrai (1969 )

A full day's rest allowed us to clean up a bit, and to launch a full scale attack on lice. I sat in a quiet corner of a barn for two hours delousing myself as best I could.

We were all at it, for none of us escaped their vile attentions. The things lay in the seams of trousers, in the deep furrows of long thick woolly pants, and seemed impregnable in their deep entrenchments. A lighted candle applied where they were thickest made them pop like Chinese crackers. After a session of this, my face would be covered with small blood spots from extra big fellows which had popped too vigorously. Lice hunting was called 'chatting'. In parcels from home it was usual to receive a tin of supposedly death-dealing powder or pomade, but the lice thrived on the stuff.
Source C: Private Stuart Dolden wrote about his experiences in the trenches after the war.
We had to sleep fully dressed, of course, this was very uncomfortable with the pressure of ammunition on one's chest restricted breathing; furthermore, when a little warmth was obtained the vermin used to get busy, and for some unexplained reason they always seemed to get lively in the portion of one's back, that lay underneath the belt and was the most inaccessible spot. The only way to obtain relief was to get out of the dugout, put a rifle barrel between the belt and rub up and down like a donkey at a gatepost. This stopped it for a bit, but as soon as one got back into the dugout, and was getting reasonably warm so would the little brutes get going again.

After the war, Captain G. H. Impey, 7th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, wrote about his experiences of trench life.

The trenches were wet and cold and at this time some of them did not have duckboards and dug-outs. The battalion lived in mud and water. Altogether about 200 men were evacuated for trench feet and rheumatism. Gum boots were provided for the troops in the most exposed positions. Trench feet was still a new ailment and the provision of dry socks was vitally important. Part of the trench was reserved for men to go two at a time, at least once a day, and rub each other's feet with grease.

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."
Source B: Stuart Dolden, 1920
The outstanding feature of the trenches was the extraordinary number of rats. The area was infested with them. It was impossible to keep them out of the dugouts. They grew fat on the food that they pilfered from us, and anything they could pick up in or around the trenches; they were bloated and loathsome to look at.

Some were nearly as big as cats. We were filled with an instinctive hatred of them, because however one tried to put the thought of one's mind, one could not help feeling that they fed on the dead.

, Source C: George Coppard With A Machine Gun to Cambrai (1969)

Rats bred by the tens of thousands and lived on the fat of the land. When we were sleeping in funk holes the things ran over us, played about, copulated and fouled our scraps of food, their young squeaking incessantly. There was no proper system of waste disposal in trench life. Empty tins of all kinds were flung away over the top on both sides of the trench. Millions of tins were thus available for all the rats in France and Belgium in hundreds of miles of trenches. During brief moments of quiet at night, one could hear a continuous rattle of tins moving against each other. The rats were turning them over.

What happened to the rats under heavy shell-fire was a mystery, but their

powers of survival kept place with each new weapon, including poison gas.

If you left your food the rats would soon grab it. Those rats were fearless.

Sometimes we would shoot the filthy swines. But you would be put on a charge for

wasting ammo, if the sergeant caught you.
Source E: Frank Laird writing after the war.
Sometimes the men amused themselves by baiting the ends of their rifles with pieces of bacon in order to have a shot at the m at close quarters.

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When the Germans attacked in Belgium they quickly beat the armies defending the borders and managed to get into France very quickly. The British and French generals, uncertain about how to stop the German advance decided to 'dig in' and ordered the construction of Trenches to act as a barrier against the attack.

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Graphic eyewitness Somme accounts revealed

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Graphic eyewitness Somme accounts revealed

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"From that moment all my religion died, after that journey all my teaching and belief in God had left me - never to return."

This was how Charles Bartram, a 23-year-old former colliery worker from Doncaster, described his experience of the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

It is one of more than 500 remarkable first-hand accounts of the World War One battle donated to the Imperial War Museum, the "vast majority" of which have never been seen before.

Anthony Richards, head of documents and sound at the museum, says it is "quite amazing" to have come across so much previously unseen material about a battle that ended 100 years ago this week.

What makes these testimonies "incredibly unusual" he says, is that they talk so candidly about killing in hand-to-hand fighting - and often the remorse felt afterwards.

"It's very unusual for people from World War One to talk about the actual act of killing. It's usually skirted around."

It was an "uncomfortable" subject for returning soldiers, he says, and memoirs and letters tended to avoid it.

But these accounts have some graphic details.

John Kirkham of the Manchester Battalion described how he could not shake off the memory of striking a German soldier with a club with metal spikes.

"It sank deep into his forehead. In the scuffle, his helmet flew off, and I saw that he was a bald-headed old man. I have never forgotten that bald head, and I don't suppose I ever will, poor devil."

The accounts were gathered more than 40 years ago for a classic history of the Somme, written by Martin Middlebrook. But much of the material was never published and only this summer was given to the museum.

This might have been the only time that soldiers recorded their feelings.

"You ask me to tell you about things I saw, you will be the only person I have ever told this to. The reason, they would never believe me," recorded Robert Payne of the Royal Garrison Artillery.

This soldier won the Military Medal, but his account includes stories of "self-inflicted wounds, several cases of madness" and a "poor chap" who threw down his gun and refused to move.

There are other accounts of an officer with shellshock having to be physically restrained by his "burly batman".

Despite the violence of the conflict, these stories are deeply humane and lacking in any self-glorification.

Battle of the Somme Centenary: A day of commemoration

'Most powerful place on Western Front'

In pictures: Battle of the Somme

George Mayne, a 19-year-old Royal Fusilier describes a sense of "bewilderment" and feeling "woolly-headed" as he went over the top and charged across no man's land.

When he stormed into the opposing trench he found a dying German soldier, calling for his mother and for water.

"I am glad to this day that I gave him a drink from my precious water," he wrote.

There were moments of bleak humour too.

Tom Short, a 19-year-old with the London Rifle Brigade, had charged a trench spotted by aerial reconnaissance, to find that the "trench" was only two feet deep.

Horribly exposed, Tom faced a German bayonet charge and thought that it was all over.

"In a split second before the moment of connecting my stomach with a bayonet, at which I was nearly passed out in terror, a terrific shout of "halt" came from somewhere and knowing how disciplined the German soldier is, the bod coming at me slid flat on his back, his rifle shot straight up in the air and his legs shot between mine. It appears a German officer gave this order."

These were young men - and some were younger than they should have been.

George Rudge was only 17 at the Battle of the Somme and had given a false age when he enlisted.

"It seemed to me that everyone around me had been killed or wounded for I was the only one of my regiment I could see," he wrote, describing the advance.

He recalled his feelings about shooting the enemy.

"This was the first time I had killed anybody, as far as I know, and when things quieted I went and looked at a German I knew I had shot, and I remember thinking that he looked old enough to have a family and I felt very sorry."

He was in no doubt "we were just meant to be sacrificed, as we ran into a wall of steel" and talks of advancing with a "chap who had the bottom of his jaw blown off and still kept going forward till he dropped".

None of this was known to the soldier's own family.

His grandson, George Ward, who lives in St Ives in Cambridgeshire, says they knew their grandfather had fought in World War One, but not that he had served on the first day of the Somme.

"He was very private when it came to that," said Mr Ward.

"All he said was: 'I was in a battle... change the subject.' He wouldn't talk about it."

"It was just too horrific to talk about. They just tried to forget it. But it was there in their mind all the time."

Mr Ward says his grandfather's health suffered after the war from being gassed and he also had a breakdown.

Looking for the first time at his grandfather's account, he says "it's very emotional".

It's difficult not to be struck by the immense courage of these youngsters. Frank Graves describes the machine-guns and watching lines of men being "cut down like grass from a scythe".

But there was compassion for those overcome by fear.

John Kirkham, who had had his arm shattered by a bullet and returned to his own lines, reported seeing "two unfortunate boys" who had been "terrified" and who he was convinced had been summarily shot for cowardice.

It was also physically and mentally exhausting.

Reginald Moore of the Northamptonshire Regiment, who had gone over the top at 07:30 and had been engaged in the battle all day, describes how it "caught up with me" when night fell.

"I started to shake and tremble and they had to put another fellow with me until I was calm again.

"That sir was 1 July, I was 18 years."
Do you have any family memories of the Somme? The Imperial War Museum wants to find out more about some of these soldiers so they can add to their www.livesofthefirstworldwar.org archives. You can carry on the conversation at https://www.facebook.com/BBCFamilyNews Anthony RIchards is author of In Their Own Words: Untold Stories of the First World War and The Somme: A Visual History.

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"From that moment all my religion died, after that journey all my teaching and belief in God had left me - never to return." This was how Charles Bartram, a 23-year-old former colliery worker from Doncaster, described his experience of the first day of the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

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Citation: C N Trueman "Life in the Trenches"
historylearningsite.co.uk. The History Learning Site, 31 Mar 2015. 9 Aug 2018.

Trenches and life within those trenches have become an enduring topic from World War One. Throughout the war millions of soldiers experienced and endured the horrors of trench warfare. Some wrote down for posterity what these experiences were and as time has moved on from World War One more and more of these written documents - frequently in the form of a diary - have come to light. Others wrote about their experiences in book-form. On the British side "Goodbye to All That" by Robert Graves is considered a classic. For the Germans, "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich von Remarque was considered to be such a potent anti-war book that Hitler banned it. Over the years both books have sold in large numbers. In recent years "The Last Fighting Tommy" by Harry Patch gave an evocative account of trench life at Passchendaele. Others who wrote about their lives in the trenches did not achieve the fame of Graves or Remarque but their accounts are equally as valid. As recently as 2006 a trench diary kept by Private Bert Camp was discovered by his grandsons while the letters written home from the trenches by Private Freddie Noakes were published for the first time in 2010.

However, regardless of who wrote what about the trenches, all have one consistent theme - the horrors experienced by the men who had to live in them.

All of the soldiers who fought in trenches would have had a good idea of what a good trench was like and what constituted a bad trench. Frank Richards wrote about his experiences in trenches:

"A good standing trench was about six foot deep, so that a man could walk upright during the day in safety from rifle-fire. In each bay of the trench we constructed fire-steps about two feet higher than the bottom of the trench, which enabled us to stand head and shoulders above the parapet. During the day we were working in reliefs, and we would snatch an hour's sleep, when we could, on a wet and muddy fire-step, wet through to the skin ourselves.

If anyone had to go to the company on our right in the daytime he had to walk through thirty yards of waterlogged trench, which was chest-deep in water in some places.

The duckboard track was constantly shelled, and in places a hundred yards of it had been blown to smithereens. It was better to keep off the track when walking back and forth, but then a man had to make his way sometimes through very heavy mud.....wet snow had begun to fall, which turned into rain and some parts of the land were soon a bog of mud to get drowned in."

Bruce Bairnsfather experienced trench life in the early stages of World War One.

"It was a long and weary night, that first one of mine in the trenches. Everything was strange, and wet and horrid. First of all I had to do and fix up my machine guns at various points, and find places for the gunners to sleep in. This was no easy matter, as many of the dugouts had fallen in and floated off downstream.

In this, and subsequent descriptions of the trenches, I may lay myself open to the charge of exaggeration. But it must be remembered that I am describing trench life in the early days of 1914, and I feel sure that those who had experience of them will acquit me of any such charge.

To give a recipe for getting a rough idea, in case you want to, I recommend the following procedure. Select a flat ten-acre ploughed field, so sited that all the surface water of the surrounding country drains into it. Now cut a zig-zag slot about four feet deep and three feet wide diagonally across, dam off as much water as you can so as to leave about one hundred yards of squelchy mud; delve out a hole at one side of the slot, then endeavour to live there for a month on bully beef and damp biscuits, whilst a friend has instructions to fire at you with his Winchester every time you put your head above the surface.

Well, here I was anyway, and the next thing was to make the bets of it. As I have before said, these were the days of the earliest trenches in this war; days when we had none of those "props" such as corrugated iron, floorboards, and sand bags.

When you made a dug-out in those days you made it out of anything you could find, and generally had to make it yourself."

Some British soldiers found that captured German trenches were better built than British ones - as H S Clapham wrote after a successful attack on a German trench in Y Wood.

"When I dropped into the Hun trench I found it a great place, only three wide, and at least eight feet deep, and beautifully made of white sandbags, back and front. At that spot there was no sign of any damage by our shells, but a number of dead Huns lay in the bottom. There was a sniper's post just where I fell in, a comfortable little square hole, fitted with seats and shelves, bottles of beer, tinned meats and a fine helmet hanging on a hook."

August Hope wrote about the horrors he experienced.

"It was 9 a.m. and the so-called trench was full of corpses and all sorts of equipment. We stood and sat on bodies as if they were stones or logs of wood. Nobody worried if one had its head stuck through or torn off, or a third had gory bones sticking out through its torn coat. And outside the trench one could see them lying in every kind of position. There was one quite young little chap, a Frenchman, sitting in a shell-hole, with his rifle on his arm and his head bent forward, but he was holding his hands as if to protect himself, in front of his chest in which there was a deep bayonet wound. And so they lay, in all their different positions, mostly Frenchman, with their heads battered in by blows from mallets and even spades, and all around rifles, equipment of all kinds and any number of kepis. The 154 th had fought like furies in their attack, to revenge themselves for the shellfire.

A heap of five corpses lay just this side of the barrier; we were constantly having to tread on them to try to squash them down in the mud, because, in consequence of the gunfire, we couldn't get them out of the trench. Our feelings gradually became quite blunted."

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Life in the Trenches - History Learning Site

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Trenches and life within those trenches have become an enduring topic from World War One. Throughout the war millions of soldiers experienced and endured the horrors of trench warfare. Some wrote down for posterity what these experiences were and as time has moved on from World War One more and more of these written documents ...

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American soldiers of World War I experienced a great deal of hardship while fighting on the western front in France and Belgium.

Since air transportation was still a dream, America's doughboys traveled on ships to France. These troop ships were often crowded and uncomfortable, with bunks stacked several layers high, and the men and their equipment forced into tiny spaces. The soldiers came up on deck only once or twice a day, usually for exercise or lifeboat drill. Many had never been to sea before, so they became sick from the pitching and rolling of the ship.

Troop ships sailed in convoys, groups of twenty-five or thirty vessels sailing in formation. They were protected by the American navy. The convoys constantly zigzagged across the water, making them difficult targets for German submarines. Athough there were sightings of submarines, only a few American troop ships were sunk during the war.

Almost all Americans arrived at French ports like Saint-Nazaire and Brest. However, the 30th Division, which had a large number of North Carolinians, was sent first to Britain. There the soldiers were given more training before going to France to join with the British army.

Most of the doughboys had time for training. The 81st Division, another unit with many North Carolinians, arrived in France in August 1918 but did not see combat until November. Experienced French and English instructors taught them about trench warfare at schools in the rear. Then the troops were sent to quiet sectors in the front lines to become familiar with conditions there.

No matter how realistic their training was, nothing could have prepared the Americans for the devastation of the western front. Four years of war had left the battlefront so churned up by shells and trenches that it looked like the surface of the moon. Poison gas had killed much of the vegetation. In Flanders, Belgium, where the 30th Division fought, the land was flat and low, and the trenches were often knee deep in water. When it was rainy, a wounded man might drown in the mud.

By 1918, the western front trenches ran in a four-hundred-mile line through France and Belgium from the North Sea to the Alps. Each set of trenches consisted of several lines: a main line and up to four lines behind it. The trenches were usually about four feet wide and about eight feet deep, but in some places they were much shallower. Soldiers reinforced the sides with sandbags, bundles of sticks or logs, or sheet metal.

All trenches were dug in a zigzag pattern. The section facing the enemy line was known as a fire trench. The zigzags, intended to keep shell fragments from spreading very far, were called traverses. All along the line were strong points, sometimes built of concrete, where machine guns were placed.

Short trenches, or saps, extended about thirty feet toward the enemy line. These led to listening posts where sentries could listen for enemy troops sneaking up at night. All across the front, fifty feet of barbed wire entanglements protected the trench. The area between the Allied barbed wire and the enemy's wire was known as no-man's-land.

The line trenches were connected by zigzag communication trenches. Every night, small groups made the difficult journey along these trenches to the rear for supplies. The network of trenches could be very confusing, especially in the dark. For this reason, all trenches had names or numbers, and maps showed every intersection, fire trench, dugout, and wire belt.

The Germans had had four years to improve their trenches. By 1918, their line was made up of concrete-reinforced bunkers, often several stories below ground, with electric lights and elaborate barracks. Their positions had been chosen carefully, and they were defended by machine guns, barbed wire, and artillery.

The major problem for soldiers in the trenches was simple survival. Most hardly saw the enemy and spent their days repairing damage from shells or cave-ins, hauling food and water to the front, and carrying wounded men to the rear.

Food often arrived cold, and during artillery bombardments, it might not come for hours or days. Much of the time doughboys lived on the so-called Reserve Ration of hard bread, canned meat (usually corned beef, known to the men as Corned Willy), and instant coffee. The Army also developed an Emergency Ration, with a cake of powdered meat and wheat and one of chocolate. Each cake weighed about an ounce. The meat could be eaten dry, boiled into a gruel, or sliced and fried. The chocolate could be eaten dry or boiled into a hot drink. Both the coffee and the entire Emergency Ration were among the first successful attempts at making instant food.

The two most hideous parts of trench warfare were the rats and the bodies of dead soldiers. Rats were everywhere, spreading disease and feeding on food scraps and bodies. In many sectors of the front, the dead were buried in or near the trenches. Artillery blasts could dig up the bodies, then bury them again.

Every two weeks, usually at night, new units came up to the front lines through the communication trenches. They relieved those who had served on the line. The unit being relieved then had a week or two of rest in the rear. Usually, this "rest" involved a lot of labor.

The troops welcomed rest periods, even though they were never very far from the front lines. Rest camps were usually set up in deserted villages where doughboys used old stone barns or houses for shelter. Soldiers found the few villagers they did meet to be solid people who still supported the war even after they had lost nearly everything. The villagers and the Americans became friends. Also in the rear, the American Red Cross, the Knights of Columbus, the YMCA, and other organizations provided many of the little comforts that made life on the front easier.

The most important things the doughboy brought with him, more important than his training and his weapons, were his youth and confidence. The Americans were not as experienced as the Germans, but they made up for any lack with energy and enthusiasm. More than that, the time they spent in the trenches convinced them that the only way to win the war was to break out of the trenches and force the Germans into the open country beyond. There, the Germans could be defeated by superior American weapons and the strength of the young, confident doughboys.
At the time of this article's publication, Les Jensen, author of a number of articles and books dealing with military history, served as a museum curator with the National Museum of the United States Army in Washington, D.C.

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American soldiers of World War I experienced a great deal of hardship while fighting on the western front in France and Belgium. Since air transportation was still a dream, America's doughboys traveled on ships to France. These troop ships were often crowded and uncomfortable, with bunks stacked several layers high, and the men and their equipment forced into tiny spaces.

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"We had a new man at the periscope, on this afternoon in question; I was sitting on the fire step, cleaning my rifle, when he called out to me: 'There's a sort of greenish, yellow cloud rolling along the ground out in front, it's coming ---'

The First World War accelerated the development of new technologies designed to improve the ability to kill an enemy: the machine gun, the tank, the airplane, the zeppelin, and gas to name a few. Among these, gas was probably the crudest, certainly the

most capricious - a change in wind direction could spell disaster. Initially, gas cylinders were simply placed along the front lines facing the enemy trenches. Once the wind was deemed favorable, the cylinders were opened and the gas floated with the breeze, carrying death to the enemy. Later, gas was packed into artillery shells and delivered behind enemy lines. No matter the method of delivery, its impact could produce hell on earth. Chlorine and phosgene gases attacked the lungs ripping the very breath out of its victims. Mustard gas was worse. At least a respirator provided some defense against the chlorine and phosgene gases. Mustard gas attacked the skin - moist skin such as the eyes, armpits, and groin. It burned its way into its victim leaving searing blisters and unimaginable pain.
First introduced by the Germans, gas warfare was soon embraced by all the combatants. By the end of the war, one in four of the artillery shells fired on the Western Front contained gas.

Arthur Empey was an American living in New Jersey when war consumed Europe in 1914. Enraged by the sinking of the Lusitania and loss of the lives of American passengers, he expected to join an American army to combat the Germans. When America did not immediately declare war, Empey boarded a ship to England, enlisted in the British Army (a violation of our neutrality law, but no one seemd to mind) and was soon manning a trench on the front lines.

Emprey survived his experience and published his recollections in 1917. We join his story after he has been made a member of a machine gun crew and sits in a British trench peering towards German lines. Conditions are perfect for an enemy gas attack - a slight breeze blowing from the enemy's direction - and the warning has been passed along to be on the lookout:

But I waited for no more, grabbing my bayonet, which was detached from the rifle, I gave the alarm by banging an empty shell case, which was hanging near the periscope. At the same instant, gongs started ringing down the trench, the signal for Tommy to don his respirator, or smoke helmet, as we call it.

Gas travels quietly, so you must not lose any time; you generally have about eighteen or twenty seconds in which to adjust your gas helmet.

A gas helmet is made of cloth, treated with chemicals. There are two windows, or glass eyes, in it, through which you can see. Inside there is a rubber-covered tube, which goes in the mouth. You breathe through your nose; the gas, passing through the cloth helmet, is neutralized by the action of the chemicals. The foul air is exhaled through the tube in the mouth, this tube being so constructed that it prevents the inhaling of the outside air or gas. One helmet is good for five hours of the strongest gas. Each Tommy carries two of them slung around his shoulder in a waterproof canvas bag. He must wear this bag at all times, even while sleeping. To change a defective helmet, you take out the new one, hold your breath, pull the old one off, placing the new one over your head, tucking in the loose ends under the collar of your tunic.

For a minute, pandemonium reigned in our trench, - Tommies adjusting their helmets, bombers running here and there, and men turning out of the dugouts with fixed bayonets, to man the fire step.

Reinforcements were pouring out of the communication trenches.

Our gun's crew was busy mounting the machine gun on the parapet and bringing up extra ammunition from the dugout.
German gas is heavier than air and soon fills the trenches and dugouts, where it has been known to lurk for two or three days, until the air is purified by means of large chemical sprayers. We had to work quickly, as Fritz generally follows the gas with an infantry attack. A company man on our right was too slow in getting on his helmet; he sank to the ground, clutching at his throat, and after a few spasmodic twistings, went West (died). It was horrible to see him die, but we were powerless to help him. In the corner of a traverse, a little, muddy cur dog, one of the company's pets, was lying dead, with his two paws over his nose.

It's the animals that suffer the most, the horses, mules, cattle, dogs, cats, and rats, they having no helmets to save them. Tommy does not sympathize with rats in a gas attack.

At times, gas has been known to travel, with dire results, fifteen miles behind the lines.

A gas, or smoke helmet, as it is called, at the best is a vile-smelling thing, and it is not long before one gets a violent headache from wearing it.

Our eighteen-pounders were bursting in No Man's Land, in an effort, by the artillery, to disperse the gas clouds.

The fire step was lined with crouching men, bayonets fixed, and bombs near at hand to repel the expected attack.

Our artillery had put a barrage of curtain fire on the German lines, to try and break up their attack and keep back reinforcements.

I trained my machine gun on their trench and its bullets were raking the parapet. Then over they came, bayonets glistening. In their respirators, which have a large snout in front, they looked like some horrible nightmare.
All along our trench, rifles and machine guns spoke, our shrapnel was bursting over their heads. They went down in heaps, but new ones took the place of the fallen. Nothing could stop that mad rush. The Germans reached our barbed wire, which had previously been demolished by their shells, then it was bomb against bomb, and the devil for all.
Suddenly, my head seemed to burst from a loud 'crack' in my ear. Then my head began to swim, throat got dry, and a heavy pressure on the lungs warned me that my helmet was leaking. Turning my gun over to No. 2, I changed helmets.

The trench started to wind like a snake, and sandbags appeared to be floating in the air. The noise was horrible; I sank onto the fire step, needles seemed to be pricking my flesh, then blackness.

I was awakened by one of my mates removing my smoke helmet. How delicious that cool, fresh air felt in my lungs.

A strong wind had arisen and dispersed the gas.

They told me that I had been 'out' for three hours; they thought I was dead.

The attack had been repulsed after a hard fight. Twice the Germans had gained a foothold in our trench, but had been driven out by counter- attacks. The trench was filled with their dead and ours. Through a periscope, I counted eighteen dead Germans in our wire; they were a ghastly sight in their horrible-looking respirators.
I examined my first smoke helmet, a bullet had gone through it on the left side, just grazing my ear, the gas had penetrated through the hole made in the cloth.

Out of our crew of six, we lost two killed and two wounded.

That night we buried all of the dead, excepting those in No Man's Land. In death there is not much distinction, friend and foe are treated alike.

After the wind had dispersed the gas, the R. A. M. C. got busy with their chemical sprayers, spraying out the dugouts and low parts of the trenches to dissipate any fumes of the German gas which may have been lurking in same."

References:
Empey, Arthur Guy, Over The Top (1917); Lloyd, Alan, The War In The Trenches (1976).

How To Cite This Article:
"Gas Attack, 1916," EyeWitness to History, eyewitnesstohistory.com (1999).

The Germans introduced gas to the Western Front on April 22, 1915, in an attack against British trenches at Ypres. Within 10 minutes, 5,000 had died while 5,000 more were wounded. Surprised by the success of the gas, the Germans failed to occupy the abandoned British trenches. Both sides utilized different types of gas thereafter, with limited success. During the war, about 30,000 died from gas attacks.

A short time after experiencing the gas attack, Empey was wounded in the face and left shoulder during a raid on German trenches. He was mustered out of the British Army and returned to his native New Jersey.

Empey's book Over the Top, which recounted his experiences, became a best seller in 1917 and was made into a film a year later. Emprey became a Hollywood writer, actor, director and producer. He died in 1963

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"We had a new man at the periscope, on this afternoon in question; I was sitting on the fire step, cleaning my rifle, when he called out to me: 'There's a sort of greenish, yellow cloud rolling along the ground out in front, it's coming ---' The First World War accelerated the development of new technologies designed to improve the ability to kill an enemy: the machine gun, the tank, the airplane, the zeppelin, and gas to name a few.

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Women are working day & night to win the war

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Women are working day & night to win the war

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Women are working day & night to win the war

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Listen and write down notes.

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Great Bidlake Farm, Bridestowe: The Farm Run by Women, World War One At Home - BBC

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Women, farming and feeding the home front