The image of a soldier in a muddy trench is what many people visualise when they think of the First World War. However, most soldiers would only spend an average of four days at a time in a front line trench. Their daily routine when in the front line varied according to where they were. I believe that the trenches wouldn't have been much better than they were in world war 1. If they were better, they would have been more like the ones the Germans had in world war 1.
Unlike commonbelief that war was a time of excitement and adrenalin rushes, life wasactually boring in the trenches and most of the time was spent in cleaning the gearand waiting for an attack.As stated inthe background information, the Germans were the first to start the trenchsystem. Such a fact gave them the advantage to have the time to build the besttrenches. They built trenches deep under the ground were soldiers wereprotected and comfortable not like the open air trenches of the enemies thatbehooved constant construction and brought about diseases. The German Trencheshad electricity, beds and even toilettes that each soldier enjoyed.
On the other hand, the British trenches were not the most luxurious places as you can read in the. Under such hard circumstances, the soldiers were vulnerable for depression. Therefore, to preventdisinterest and keep the British soldiers in high spirits, the generalsworked on making a three week timetable. They divided the soldiers so that eachwould spend a week on the front line, aweek in the support trench and then another in the reserve trench away from thefront line to relax.
Such a schedule was created especially after realizingthat the British army lost about 7, 000 men daily. And because most of the Britisharmy were made of 'pals battalions' which means that everyone in abattalion knew each other. A death of a soldier was a death of a friend so relaxing in the reserve trench was an essential distraction from the deaths on the front line.Being in the trench was more than just fighting and facing death, it was alsoabout maintenance. Most of the raids were done at night so the mornings wereusually quiet and included maintenance work. By dawn, the men would start someraids, fire some shells and gun shots. Then they would go have breakfast andthe fighting would stop until the night came. In such a long period, the soldiershad some chores that mainly focused on maintain the state of the trench.
Theyfilled sand bags, cleaned weapons, costumed the barbed wire. One important taskwas also pumping water out of the trench if it rained as seen in this video:.
It shows some soldiers as they were using pumps to drain the water.THE FORGOTTENSOLDIERS:While talking about soldiers, one must not just focus on those of his own kind. There were other species that were important in the trenches. As seenin the picture, the British released pigeons from the trench to carrymessages. As the last page in this section, it is now easy to see that war was not easy. Not on the soldiers, the civilians, nature or fellow Earthlings. It makes you wonder why humans choose to engage in one in the first place.
It took a lot of effort for the soldiers to build their own hell holes labeled 'trenches.' In these holes, they were physically, mentally and psychologically challenged. And every now and then we are reminded of these trenches, of this 'war that ended all wars' when new bodies are dug out from old trench sites. Once someone's son, lover, husband or best friend now labelled 'anonymous.'