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Snipers. Communication trench. Waterlogged Communication trench. Duck Boards. Trench Life. 4 days at the front, 4 days in a reserve trench, and 4 days at rest Life at the front many times consisted of horrible conditions – trench foot, rats, lice, dysentery, gas
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Trench Life • 4 days at the front, 4 days in a reserve trench, and 4 days at rest • Life at the front many times consisted of horrible conditions – trench foot, rats, lice, dysentery, gas • Trenches were seven feet deep and six feet wide
Lice- Private George Lobbard • “A full day's rest allowed us to clean up a bit, and to launch a full scale attack on lice. I sat in a quiet corner of a barn for two hours delousing myself as best I could. We were all at it, for none of us escaped their vile attentions. The things lay in the seams of trousers, in the deep furrows of long thick woolly pants, and seemed impregnable in their deep entrenchments. A lighted candle applied where they were thickest made them pop like Chinese crackers. After a session of this, my face would be covered with small blood spots from extra big fellows which had popped too vigorously. Lice hunting was called 'chatting'. In parcels from home it was usual to receive a tin of supposedly death-dealing powder or pomade, but the lice thrived on the stuff. “
Gas • Extremely deadly • Would burn the skin • Wind could change direction of gas • Could stay for days in shell holes • Wintry conditions would stay on clothes as liquid, and then when they were in a dugout would turn into a gas
Trench Rats • “If you left your food the rats would soon grab it. Those rats were fearless. Sometimes we would shoot the filthy swines. But you would be put on a charge for wasting ammo, if the sergeant caught you. “ Richard Beasley
Frank Laird • “Sometimes the men amused themselves by baiting the ends of their rifles with pieces of bacon in order to have a shot at them at close quarters. “
Major Walter Vignoles • “Rats. There are millions!! Some are huge fellows, nearly as big as cats. Several of our men were awakened to find a rat snuggling down under the blanket alongside them! “
Robert Graves • “Rats came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly. While I stayed here with the Welch. a new officer joined the company and, in token of welcome, was given a dug-out containing a spring-bed. When he turned in that night he heard a scuffling, shone his torch on the bed, and found two rats on his blanket tussling for the possession of a severed hand. “
Sergeant Harry Roberts • “If you have never had trench feet described to you. I will tell you. Your feet swell to two or three times their normal size and go completely dead. You could stick a bayonet into them and not feel a thing. If you are fortunate enough not to lose your feet and the swelling begins to go down. It is then that the intolerable, indescribable agony begins. I have heard men cry and even scream with the pain and many had to have their feet and legs amputated. “
Dysentery • Inflammation of the large intestines due to bad drinking water • Symptoms include diarrhea An Australian soldier at the Somme in 1916 later wrote about how in the winter men obtained water from ice in shell-holes.“An axe would be the means of filling the dixies (iron stewing pots) with lumps of ice. We used it for tea several days until one chap noticed a pair of boots sticking out, and discovered they were attached to a body.”
