what was life like in the trenches?

Question

what was there feelings and how was it like in world war 1

Answer 1

Read this

http://www.firstworldwar.com/features/trenchlife.htm

Answer 2

Recommend the trenches experience at the Imperial War Museum in London. The smell alone made me feel faint!

At below site are also running an on line exhibition marking the 90th year of The Battle of The Somme.

Answer 3

Miserable and terrifying. If you ever go to Belgium, visit two museums - the big one in Ypres and also a much smaller one at a place called Sanctuary Wood, where you can still see old WW1 trenches (and shell craters!).

In Ypres is also the famous Menin Gate, where The Last Post is played every evening for each of the soldiers who passed under it and never returned - they won't finish this until some time in the 23rd century!

Answer 4

you couldn't even begin to imagine it and even the words describing how it was in text books and testimonies still can't emphasise enough how awful it was. take a look at the war poets Sassoon and Owen and any decent text book on WW1 will have trench warfare in the contents and that's what you need to focus on as the stalemate and trench-warfare mean soldiers were in these conditions day in day out catching cold, trench foot, gangrene etc. good luck and do these guys justice we don't know how lucky we are today.

Answer 5

Hell on earth to the poor infantry man dirt squalor starvation trench foot , many had to eat rats to survive they died in there thousands mostly without much in the way of decent treatment for wounds or injury , they froze in the winter in dugouts in the sides of the trenches , if they tried to run away they were shot for desertion , if they became shell shocked they were not believed and forced to Cary on fighting, there trenches were always ankle deap in mud

Answer 6

Good answers. Plus there were pockets of gas that got trapped after gas attacks. Rotting bodies in no man's land. The "hurry up and wait" tedium of army life and the terror of going over the wall. One of the chief reasons for the German's defeat was that the Americans worked out an "end around" strategy, that seemed to break the stale mate.

Answer 7

WW1 has always fascinated me since my school days.

There are two books titled "Forgotten Voices of The Great War" and "Last Post" by Max Arthur.

These are two books with real life comments from soldiers that were involved in the the Great War.

The 2nd book is from the 12 remaining survivors.

Answer 8

Please try and read Pat Barkers Triology Regeneration. It is very moving with true accounts of the trenches and how those who survived those horrendous conditions try to put their lives back together.

Triology:
Regeneration
The eye in the Door
Ghost Road

Your local library will probably get them in for you if not, I ordered mine on line through Amazon.com

Answer 9

horrible..they ate bread and corned beef. it was constantly muddy, wet and cold, it was rat-infested and people suffered from 'trench foot', as well as the psychological effects of the shells etc. it was dangerous, and occupants got little sleep and were very uncomfortable most of the time. They ahd to wear heavy clothes which didn't help, and..ugh

Answer 10

It was absolutely awful. The prospect of imminent death was interspersed with weeks of boredom. Hunger, foot rot and brutal discipline were the norm and yet it the war was always covered in flags of patriotism and duty.

Answer 11

Here are some clues for you.

Memories from the trenches

“Whilst asleep during the night, we were frequently awakened by rats running over us. When this happened too often for my liking, I would lie on my back and wait for a rat to linger on my legs; then violently heave my legs upwards, throwing the rat into the air. Occasionally, I would hear a grunt when the rat landed on a fellow victim.”
(R L Venables)

“If you have never had trench foot described to you, I will explain. Your feet swell to two to three times their normal size and go completely dead. You can stick a bayonet into them and not feel a thing. If you are lucky enough not to lose your feet and the swelling starts to go down, it is then that the most indescribable agony begins. I have heard men cry and scream with pain and many have had to have their feet and legs amputated. I was one of the lucky ones, but one more day in that trench and it may have been too late.”
(Harry Roberts)

“The water in the trenches through which we waded was alive with a multitude of swimming frogs. Red slugs crawled up the side of the trenches and strange beetles with dangerous looking horns wriggled along dry ledges and invaded the dugouts, in search of the lice that infested them.”
(unknown journalist)

“To get a ‘cushy’ one is all the old hands think about. A bloke in the Camerons wanted a ‘cushy’ bad! Fed up and far from home he was. He puts his finger over the top and gets his trigger finger taken off and two more besides. “I’m off to bonny Scotland!” he says laughing. But on the way down to the dressing station, he forgets to stoop low where an old sniper is working. He gets it through the head.”
(Robert Graves)

“We slept in our clothes and cut our hair short so that it would tuck inside our caps. Dressing simply meant putting on our boots. There were times when we had to scrape the lice off with the blunt edge of a knife and our underclothes stuck to us. “
(Elizabeth de T’Serclaes – a nurse on the front line)

“No 1……2 Private A B; the Battalion (Pioneers) South Staffordshire Regiment was tried by FGCM on the following charges: “Misbehaving in such a manner as to show cowardice”. The accused, when proceeding with a party for work in the trenches, ran away owing to the bursting of a shell and did not rejoin the party. The sentence of the court was to suffer death by being shot."

Food for soldiers in the trenches during World War One was at times considered a luxury. Getting decent hot food from the field kitchens to the front line trenches could be impossible when a battle was either imminent or in full flow. When soldiers were at stand-down, food was easier to acquire and both British and German troops could expect certain food to be available with a degree of frequency.

The theoretical daily rations for a British soldier were:

20 ounces of bread
1/10 gill lime if vegetables not issued
16 ounces of flour instead of above
½ gill of rum
3 ounces of cheese
maximum of 20 ounces of tobacco
5/8 ounces of tea
1/3 chocolate – optional
4 ounces of jam
4 ounces of oatmeal instead of bread
½ ounce of salt
1 pint of porter instead of rum
1/36 ounce of pepper
4 ounces of dried fruit instead of jam
1/20 ounce of mustard
4 ounces of butter/margarine
8 ounces of fresh vegetables or
2 ounces of dried vegetables

The theoretical daily rations for a German soldier were:

26 ½ ounces of bread or
17 ½ of field biscuits or
14 ounces of egg biscuit
53 ounces of potatoes
4 ½ ounces vegetables
2 ounces dried vegetables