What food did soldiers eat in the tranches during the first world war (1914 1918?

Answer 1

The regular supply of rations to troops serving in the trenches was a key requirement for all military authorities.

As an example of the type of food distributed to troops, the British daily ration for 1914 consisted of the following items:

1 1/4 lb fresh or frozen meat, or 1 lb preserved or salt meat
1 1/4 lb bread, or 1 lb biscuit or flour
4 oz. bacon
3 oz. cheese
5/8 oz. tea
4 oz. jam
3 oz. sugar
1/2 oz salt
1/36 oz. pepper
1/20 oz. mustard
8 oz. fresh or 2 oz. dried vegetables
1/10 gill lime juice (if fresh vegetables not issued);
1/2 gill rum (at discretion of commanding general)
up to 2 oz. tobacco per week (at discretion of commanding general)
In contrast the German daily ration for 1914 comprised the following:

750g (26 1/2 oz) bread, or 500g (17 1/2 oz) field biscuit, or 400g (14 oz.) egg biscuit

375g (13 oz.) fresh or frozen meat, or 200g (7 oz) preserved meat

1,500g (53 oz.) potatoes, or 125-250g (4 1/2-9 oz.) vegetables, or 60g (2 oz.) dried vegetables, or 600g (21 oz.) mixed potatoes and dried vegetables

25g (9/10 oz.) coffee, or 3g (1/10 oz.) tea

20g (7/10 oz.) sugar

25g (9/10 oz.) salt

two cigars and two cigarettes or 1 oz. pipe tobacco, or 9/10 oz. plug tobacco, or 1/5 oz. snuff

at discretion of commanding officer: 0.17 pint spirits, 0.44 pint wine, 0.88 pint beer.

Answer 2

1. A lot of the time they were out of the trenches. It was one week on, one week off or something like that.
2. Remember this was 1914-1918. Most of those men ate better in the army than they had in civilian life.
3. Plum and apple jam was the great staple for putting on your bread.

Answer 3

The food in the trenches of WW-One, was, according to my late grandfather, who fought in it - 'effin awful. Mostly it was bully beef [that's corned beef in English] and a diet of cooked haricot beans with stringy [streaky] bacon. This was usually boiled up and eaten with hard-tack biscuits. Hardly ever any fresh fruit or vegetables. The soldiers were given free cigarettes, so most people smoked all day long and waited for the whistle to blow before going over the top.

Answer 4

They had very limited rations.
A few cracker like biscuits, if they were lucky some bacon and cheese but they mainly survived on Bully beef, which was basically tinned corned beef.
Intrestingly each man got a daily ration of rum to keep him warm and his morale high

Answer 5

Bad.

In the case of Canadian soldiers, they were provided with canned mutton, almost to the exclusion of all other food. This led to great resentment, and had a lasting effect on the Canadian diet -- lmab and mutton are almost never eaten by old Canadian families.

According to all accounts I have ever read, the food of other allied forces was nearly always poor in quality, served cold, and nearly inedible.

Answer 6

Bully beef, biscuits and beans and pork. It was usually food with a high protein and fat content, which usually came out of a tin; it was cheap and easy to transport.

Answer 7

One of the staple rations in World War I was British canned beef, called "Bully" beef by the troops. ("Bully" is probably a corruption of the French bouillie, boiled). The Germans also called it "Bully," and liked it so well that they rarely returned from a trench raid without some, especially since German rations worsened as the war lengthened and the allied blockade cut off German resources.

By 1916, the staple of the German soldier's diet was a mixture of dried vegetables, mostly beans, that the Frontsoldaten called Drahtverhau (barbed wire). Other German culinary delights included Stroh und Lehm (straw and mud - yellow peas with sauerkraut), and Schrapnellsuppe (shrapnel soup - undercooked pea or bean soup).

Jam, essential for softening stale bread, was Heldenbutter (hero's butter), Wagenschmiere (axle grease), and Kaiser-Wilhelm-Ged@chtnis-Schmiere (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Spread). (52) Some of these terms may refer specifically to the notorious turnip jam that became standard issue after the blockade and crop failures created severe shortages. Spread on ersatz bread made with sawdust and other fillers, it was neither appetizing nor nourishing.

The French did not share their enemy's or ally's taste for "Bully". They referred to it as singe, (monkey), and boTte B grimaces, for the grimaces it produced. Other regular items in the French soldier's diet included schrapnells (undercooked peas or beans), and lentils, known as punaises (bugs).

They called a stew a rata, a shortened form of ratatouille, which in its general sense refers to a stew, not merely the vegetable stew which it designates in modern French. Rata however, also suggests the verb ratatiner (to shrivel or dry up), which may be a remark on the quality of army cooking.

British Troops Daily Ration - 1914
20 oz. Fresh or frozen meat, or 16 oz. preserved or salt meat
20 oz. bread, or 16 oz. biscuit or flour
4 oz. bacon
3 oz. cheese
5/8 oz. tea
4 oz. jam
3 oz. sugar
1/2 oz. slat
1/36 oz. pepper
1/20 oz. mustard
8 oz. fresh or 2 oz. dried vegetables
1/10 gill lime juice if vegetable not issued (for scurvey)
1/2 gill rum (at discretion of commanding general)
not to exceed 20 oz. tobacco per week
Substitutions
4 oz. oatmeal or rice instead bread
1/3 oz. chocolate instead of tea.
1 pint porter instead of rum
4 oz. dried fruit instead of jam
4 oz. butter, lard, or margarine, or 1/2 gill oil instead of bacon

German Troops Daily Ration - 1914
26 1/2 oz. bread or 17 1/2 oz. field biscuit, or 14 oz. egg biscuit
13 oz. fresh or frozen meat, or 7 oz. preserved meat
53 oz. potatoes, or 4 1/2 oz. vegetables, or 2 oz. dried vegetables, or 21 oz. mixed potatoes and dried vegetables
9/10 oz. coffee, or 1/10 oz. tea
7/10 oz. sugar
9/10 oz. salt
2 cigars and 2 cigarettes, or 1 oz. pipe tobacco, or 9/10 oz. plug tobacco, or 1/5 oz. snuff (at discretion of commanding officer)
0.17 pint spirits
0.44 pint wine
0.88 pint beer

Answer 8

Probably bully beef but, in view of the other horrors they had to face it must have been the least of their problems.

Answer 9

my dad who was a sapper in that war , told me it was corned beef that came in very large tins,there was so much about they built walls with it and sand bags.

Answer 10

Nothing, there were no such things as tranches.