by J Mock

Created on: July 22, 2008   Last Updated: January 03, 2009

Death on the doorstep

Life in the trenches during World War One brought with it a harrowing, bloody and inescapable reality for the front-line troops who served their country.

It was impossible to avoid the grim realities of the death and disease that filled the air. A putrid, choking stench, that filled the nostrils and lungs, never to be forgot in a lifetime. Captured images of rotting corpses at every turn, in their thousands, the hundreds of miles of waterlogged trenches and open plains, now a field of mud and clay, torn to shreds under the continuing bombardment from either side.

Trench warfare was a battle for survival, in conditions that no man should ever have to endure. A soldier may have escaped from Flanders, survived the Somme and braved Ypres, but the ceasefire in 1918 did little for the men who travelled home, their lives forever blighted by the visions and sounds of the ''War, to end all Wars''.

The principle uses of a trench is in providing a fortified defensive line to repel an advancing enemy, combined with the functionality of launching an offensive.

The origin of trench warfare is said to have been initiated by the German Army, after the Battle of Marne in 1914. Desperate to protect themselves from the advancing Allied Forces, the Germans ''dug themselves in''. Unable to dislodge the German forces, the British and French copied their counterparts and too, dug themselves a line of defensive trenches. This would eventually result in a line of trenches covering 440 miles along the length of France, from the North Sea to the border with Switzerland, and be known as the ''Western Front''.

Daily life in the trenches usually revolved around a set pattern. Men stood guard, lining the trench walls at dawn and dusk, in anticipation of enemy raids. Chores of repairing the trenches and filling up sandbags, mixed with officer inspections and mealtimes.

Duties were hampered by the general living conditions a soldier had to endure. Rainfall brought its own misery in pools of water underfoot, unable to drain away. The corpses of the dead lay rotting at the sides, as rats crawled the passages and lice infested the men. Disease and infections, such as Trench Foot, Trench fever, and dysentery were visibly rife, and no man escaped the sights and smells of the unhygienic living. Unable to wash, the men lived cramped together amid the dirt.

Sleep deprivation was all too apparent, as soldiers lived in anticipation of the enemy shellfire and bombardments. A few hours sleep here and there, never sure of when the next alarm would ring out.

Enemy fire, gas attacks, trenches collapsing, the stagnant water and the sight of the dead filled the eyes and the thoughts of those who endured life on the Western Front. In certain cases it was not unheard of for a soldier to inflict wounds upon himself in order to try and escape the hell of this confinement.

The renowned English poet, Siegfried Sassoon wrote one poem, entitled ''Suicide in the Trench'', in an example of life in the trenches.

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you'll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.

For those soldiers who had to endure the days, weeks, months and years couped together amid the dust and dirt, the memories of a living hell would remain etched in the mind for a lifetime.

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

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