How To Keep Clean And Healthy In The Trenches (2024)

FAQs

How To Keep Clean And Healthy In The Trenches? ›

Individuals spent only a few days a month in a front-line trench. Daily life here was a mixture of routine and boredom – sentry duty, kit and rifle inspections, and work assignments filling sandbags, repairing trenches, pumping out flooded sections, and digging latrines.

Individuals spent only a few days a month in a front-line trench. Daily life here was a mixture of routine and boredom – sentry duty, kit and rifle inspections, and work assignments filling sandbags, repairing trenches, pumping out flooded sections, and digging latrines.

Long, narrow trenches dug into the ground at the front, usually by the infantry soldiers who would occupy them for weeks at a time, were designed to protect World War I troops from machine-gun fire and artillery attacks from the air.

Rats and lice tormented the troops by day and night. Oversized rats, bloated by the food and waste of stationary armies, helped spread disease and were a constant irritant. In 1918, doctors also identified lice as the cause of trench fever, which plagued the troops with headaches, fevers, and muscle pain.

Troops serving in the trenches received a regular supply of food called rations. The daily ration for a British soldier consisted of measured amounts of fresh or canned meat, bread, vegetables, bacon, cheese, jam, tea and sugar, rum and tobacco. Mr. Patenaude describes the preparation and transportation of rations.

It smelled bad because there were open latrines everywhere. There were bodies rotting everywhere. Nothing could be done about them. You could throw a shovel full of quick lime on them to take some of the smell away, but the odor of the trenches was appalling.

But the majority of loss of life can be attributed to famine and disease – horrific conditions meant fevers, parasites and infections were rife on the frontline and ripped through the troops in the trenches. Among the diseases and viruses that were most prevalent were influenza, typhoid, trench foot and trench fever.

A typical day would begin with 'stand to arms' at dawn, with all men manning the front line trench. Weapons would be cleaned, a tot of rum and breakfast consumed. Day sentries would be posted, with other men allowed to sleep until lunchtime. Meals would often consist of tinned food, sometimes served cold.

Most soldiers were just happy to get food, even if it was the same thing, again and again. The most common food given to soldiers was bread, coffee, and salt pork. The typical ration for every Union soldier was about a pound of meat and a pound of bread or flour.

How was WW1 cleaned up? ›

Mostly it wasn't completely cleaned. Unexploded artillery shells from WW1 are still discovered today. In many places of the battlefields of WW1, clothing, weapons, even parts of skeletons from WW1 are still discovered today. Much of it was covered by a plow or the normal actions of nature.

How did so many soldiers survive the trenches in WW1? The simple answer is that, as the other answers have suggested, not every soldier was on the front lines all the time. Most of the time your battalion would be rotated off of the front line, to the support echelons.

They didn't really have protection from enemy artillery and machine gun fire, the shells rained down shrapnel and debris. The most protection they could get was from digging deeper trenches and dugouts, which provided more cover from the artillery with sandbag walls for the machine gun fire.

At regular intervals, soldiers not on front line duties were given an opportunity to have a warm bath and change their clothes. Baths were usually large, communal spaces and often in makeshift locations, such as breweries.

Stay warm and dry

Protective clothing and footwear were also vital for survival. Soldiers were issued with heavy woolen uniforms designed to provide some protection from the elements. However, the damp and muddy conditions in the trenches often meant that these uniforms inadequate.

By far, artillery was the biggest killer in World War I, and provided the greatest source of war wounded.

Trench life involved long periods of boredom mixed with brief periods of terror. The threat of death kept soldiers constantly on edge, while poor living conditions and a lack of sleep wore away at their health and stamina.

Trenches were long, narrow ditches dug into the ground where soldiers lived. They were very muddy, uncomfortable and the toilets overflowed. These conditions caused some soldiers to develop a problem called trench foot. There were many lines of German trenches on one side and many lines of Allied trenches on the other.

Though trench systems developed, life inside one was far more rudimentary. When able to rest, soldiers in front line trenches would try and shelter from the elements in dugouts. These varied from deep underground shelters to small hollows in the side of the trench – as shown here.

Day-to-Day Work. Following morning stand-to, inspection, and breakfast, soldiers undertook any number of chores, ranging from cleaning latrines to filling sandbags or repairing duckboards. During daylight hours, they conducted all work below ground and away from the snipers' searching rifles.