Life in the trenches was very difficult. During the day, the intense heat of the Turkish climate was very uncomfortable. This often led to sunstroke and dehydration, a problem made worse by the lack of drinking water.
However, at night the temperature plummeted and many soldiers suffered from frostbite. Being under constant bombardment meant that there was a constant threat of death.
This, and the tremendous noise of warfare, led many soldiers to despair and even insanity.
“On both sides in 1915 there would be more dead on any single day than yards gained in the entire year. And there would be nearly four more years of attrition—not to determine who was right, but who was left.”
― Stanley Weintraub, Silent Night: The Remarkable Christmas Truce of 1914
Source A: letter printed in the Greenock Telegraph, 1915
Source B : George Blake “Path of Glory”
Collect a copy of the trench diagram. Label it correctly, and then stick it in your jotter.
Organise the information in Source A into two sections: evidence that shows that trench life was boring, and evidence that shows it was dangerous.
Give two reasons why Source A is useful to historians as evidence of life in the trenches.
Using all of the information on this page, create a spider diagram describing trench conditions.
In All Quiet on the Western Front, the author explains that the lice “caus[ed] the men to itch
unceasingly. Since there were no washing machines or cleaners at that time, the soldiers would re-wear their cloth many times. The lice would lay their eggs in the seams of the cloth. When the soldiers would wear their clothes, their body's collision with the clothes’ fabric would hatch the eggs of the lice.
(Remarque & Wheen, 1929, pp.29-30).