24 Hours in The Trenches – Notes From a Lecture (Part One)

Note: as with all my other First World War articles on Triond, the author’s share of the per-view revenue this page generates is being donated to St Dunstan’s – a UK charity which assists blind and partly-sighted ex-Services men and women. So just by reading this far you have helped ensure a better life for these veterans. See my article here  for details and for links to the other articles donating in this way.

Having a real interest in the First World War, I try to attend the monthly talks organised locally by the Western Front Association, of which I’m a member. One of the most fascinating recently has been the talk on life in the trenches, entitled “24 Hours in the Trenches,” by Major John Cotterill. In this article I will try to get across the key points that I took away from that excellent lecture. Note that any mistakes are most likely from my own misunderstandings rather than errors by the lecturer.

The trenches are almost synonymous with the First World War Western Front in France and Belgium. Whilst the major battles rightly get a lot of attention, the day to day existence and routine of the men manning the trenches during quieter periods is just as fascinating and worthy of study because it forms a part of the experience of those soldiers.

Major Cotterill began his talk by describing the construction and layout of trenches to help us form a mental picture of them. Front line trenches weren’t straight. From the air they would have looked like the battlements of a castle, made up of bays around 15 feet long. This was so that during a bombardment a single artillery shell could only destroy a short section of trench. It also impeded attackers who got into the trenches from working their way along them.

The front line trenches were ideally dug to well below head height, though where the water table was shallow this would be difficult without the trench filling up with water. As a second-best alternative the front and back parapets (though the back is technically the parados) could be built up with sandbags to compensate for a shallower trench. This became less necessary as pumps improved and powered pumps were introduced, though even the best trench was still very muddy in bad weather.