The Great War III: life in the trenches

In my previous post on the Great War, I discussed how the trenches came to be - against the wishes of both sides. The next Great War myth concerns life in the trenches which, we are usually told, involved a mud soaked, lice infested hell, with soldiers eking by on meagre rations amidst constant shelling, surrounded by rats and the bodies of their fallen comrades.

The first point to make is that it was an extraordinary feat of logistics that the troops were there at all. With Britain's peacetime army being increased many times over in an extremely short space of time, new troops had to be trained (with much of the regular army being in France), clothed, fed and equipped, daunting requirements in themselves. Then they had to be sent to France and marshalled along the line. With 1914 infrastructure, to move that number of people in that short a period of time and back them up with adequate logistics a Herculean task and it was an extraordinary exercise in organisation that Britain managed it at all, let alone as well as she did. Problems of time and resources for training, and of equipment would, however, manifest themselves in subsequent engagements, to which I will return.

Staying with life in the trenches, Gordon Corrigan has done a masterful job of setting out the facts, rather than the myths. The remainder of this post is drawn from his book Mud, Blood and Poppycock. The first point is the trenches themselves: the Germans built the best, the French the worst, and the British somewhere in the middle. Partly this conforms with stereotypes about German engineering and thoroughness, partly I suppose it comes from the fact that the Germans' main aggressive thrust had been halted and they came to the realisation that there would be a stalemate, and one which did not favour them, being outnumbered and boxed in. German trench construction was of such a high standard that it survived unprecedented shelling on the Somme, which the British would only learn at terrible cost. The French trenches, being the most rudimentary, obsessed as their commanders were with constant attacks, would have been the worst place to be, not least because they buried bodies in ramparts that would then be exposed through shellfire ... One of the reasons why the British spent more time on defence than their allies is that they knew that their new soldiers arrived relatively poorly trained and not ready for combat immediately. Many commanders wished to delay offensives for some time because of this (of itself this goes some way to disproving the myth that commanders were incompetent or indifferent to the suffering of their troops); events would not always allow them such an indulgence, however.

At p 85 Corrigan writes that despite the tales of rats, lice and general filth, cleanliness and hygiene in the trenches were strictly enforced. The paid a great deal of attention to its latrines, as indeed it had to. Disease caused by poor hygiene had dogged armies throughout history and dysentery had always been a big problem. By now the army was well aware that if human waste was not disposed of properly, unnecessary casualties would follow. The average made produces 2.4 pounds weight of faeces and urine per day. In the average company defended position this in a ton a week. In the forward areas latrines were constructed just behind the trenches at the end of a communication trench and out of view of the enemy. They were usually deep pits with wooden seats on top. Disinfectant was provided and when full the latrine was closed.

Corrigan also stresses (p 88) that bodies were buried properly as soon as possible - the myth of them lying around in the trenches is absurd. No army would risk the effect that that would have on both hygiene and morale. As to other forms of rubbish, good discipline got rid of it, and rats were rarely a problem in the trenches, although lice, inevitable when men cannot wash properly, sometimes were. On coming out of the line troops had their uniforms fumigated, laundered and ironed, and if necessary exchanged to reduce the risk of infestation.

What about constant shelling? Corrigan answers (p 89) that British soldiers did not spend four years of the war in the firing line, or even at the front. Men were regularly rotated from the firing line to the support and reserve trenches and then back to billets, usually well behind the battle area. With a division having two brigades in the line and one out, and with each brigade having two of its four battalions in the line, a battalion could expect on average, to spend just ten days a month in the trenches. It was unusual to find any battalion spending more than four or five days a month continuously in the firing line. To be sure, those ten days would have been appallingly stressful, but it is important not to exaggerate it.

But then what of trench foot - a term which derived from the era, surely? Trench foot was indeed a serious problem in 1914-15, with its exceptionally harsh winter and resultant flooding. This did not go unnoticed by the authorities, however, who issued whale oil and thigh high rubber waders, and ordered the loosening of puttees, regular changing of socks, and drainage of the trenches. At first drains were soak pits dug into the floor, but mechanical pumps would later be provided. Corrigan concludes that by the middle of 1915 trench foot had all but been eliminated, except in battalions new to the front.

As to the food the troops were provided with, the British army aimed to give its soldiers at the front a daily intake of 4,193 calories. This was less than the French and more than the Germans who aimed for 4,466 and 4,038 calories respectively. Soldiers rarely went hungry except in the most extreme circumstances. Soldiers did not complain about lack of food, although they did complain about its monotony. But the diet was far better than many had had in peacetime: I have read elsewhere that the average soldier on the Western Front actually gained weight during his period of service. We forget the poor standard of living of much of the British population of the era. It was a stark contrast to the Antipodean soldiers, who gained the reputation of a 'race of atheletes', having grown up in conditions far removed from the grim realities of industrial cities in pre-war Britain. Indeed, Corrigan remarks sardonically that the promise of decent clothes and three square meals a day would have been a significant boost to patriotism when it came to signing up. Again, given the infrastructure of the day, the way the troops were fed was a logistical triumph.

Perhaps the most telling point is that made by Corrigan on p 97, concerning the percentage of men reporting sick with ailments due to causes other than enemy action. Before the war it was considered that 0.3 daily, or about three men a day in an infantry battalion of 750 men was a reasonable sick rate for an army in the field. The rate for 1913 was in fact 0.12 percent and after the war, 1919 to 1928, it was 0.17. On the Western Front, with total war in full swing, the sick rate for August to December 1914 was 0.26, declining to 0.24 percent in 1915 and 0.13 percent in 1016. Throughout he war the sick rate was well below acceptable peacetime rates. The conclusion, saving shot and shell fire, the Western Front was a remarkably healthy place to be throughout the war!

I repeat that the trenches would hardly have been enjoyable. Indeed it is so far removed from the comforts of middle class C21 life that I wonder if we could properly understand it. Certainly idiotic 'reconstructions' like the television series of a couple of years ago called 'The Trench' rather missed the point: the participants in the programme might have suffered a few privations, but they didn't get shot at .... Yet it is also important to depict life in the trenches according to the facts, not popular imagination.