Student Activity #1 Life in the Trenches

Student Activity– Life in the Trenches

The following excerpts are actual accounts from the Western Front during World War I. Use these excerpts to examine the soldier’s emotions and desires. Please do not write on this copy.

“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)

"We must looked out for our bread. The rats have become much more numerous lately because the trenches are no longer in good condition. The rats here are particularly repulsive, they are so fat - the kind we call corpse-rats. They have shocking, evil, naked faces, and it is nauseating to see their long, nude tails."

(Erich Maria Remarque) Verdun, France July 23, 1915

My dear Claudette,

I have taken advantage of the recent break in the weather to write to you. After stopping the German advance last year, we began digging trenches along the front. The front is now nearly 400 miles long! That is a lot of digging, especially when we dig an entire series of trenches to accommodate supplies and support staff, reserves, and artillery. As you might well imagine, I never want to lift another shovel again. Conditions are unbearable. Rain and snow turn the trenches into thick mud. Mud is everywhere. We stand in it, sleep in it, and eat in it; sometimes I even dream about it. Even in the winter, the mud doesn’t go away; it only becomes cold mud. The only thing worse than the mud is the rat. We must be careful to bury our dead quickly or the bodies seem to move on their own. My only comfort is knowing that the Germans suffer from these same horrible conditions. I have been careful to avoid trench foot. Many have gotten it, but so far I have been lucky. I have also managed to avoid other diseases common in the trenches, such as dysentery and cholera. With any luck I should be home soon for a short visit. When I get there, perhaps we can discuss the question of marriage you raised earlier.

All my love, Paul

Letters of Harold Chapin (who was an author and playwright and died during WWI)

…if you at home could only hear and see the enormous concentration of force necessary to take a mile of German trench; the terrific resistance we have to put up to hold it; the price we pay for every little failure—a price paid with no purchase to show for it –if you could only see and realize these things there’d be some hope of you bucking in and supplying the little extra force—the little added support in resistance—that we need to end this murderous, back and forth business. We were rather crushed today. In my company, two killed, one injured. I feel most for their mothers. Chick the younger of the two-- was only nineteen and such a child; though very tall. They were smashed by a shell. I wish to God America would come into this war and get it over!