Articles from Trench Warfare
Some of the trenches have two stories, and at the back of many of them are subterranean rest houses built of concrete and connected with the trenches by passages. The rooms are about seven feet high and ten feet square, and above the ground all evidence of the work is concealed by green boughs and shrubbery.
‘The German Concrete Trenches” (NY Times, 1915) Read More »
An experienced Canadian trench fighter wrote the attached columns offering sound advice to the American National Guardsmen he knew were bound to enter the war at some point.
Men enthuse over descriptions of bayonet charges. They are no idle pastimes, so it behooves all soldiers not only to become absolutely perfect in bayonet exercises, but to practice getting under way, keeping abreast with your mates and having a firm hold on your rifle. The soldier may say, ‘Oh, that bayonet exercise isn’t practical in a charge. No? Very well, that may appear right to some, but I should advise every one knowing every parry, thrust and counter so thoroughly that after they become second nature you can then do whatever your intuition at the moment directs.
Trench Warfare Tips from a Veteran (NY Times, 1916) Read More »
Cooties, in the World War One sense of the word, were tiny little bugs that lived in the seams of uniforms for that unlucky multitude who lived in the trenches. Being an equal-opportunity sort of parasite, they plagued all combatants alike, regardless of one’s opinions concerning Belgian neutrality, and were cause for much complaining, scratching, discomfort and the creation of way too much juvenile verse.
The attached article from 1917 tells the tale of some fortunate Doughboys and their encounter with a U.S. Army Cootie Graveyard (read: delousing station):
They entered a bedraggled, dirty, grouchy lot of sorry-looking Doughboys. They came out with faces shinning and spirits new. They knew they had before them the first good night’s rest in some time and sans scratching.
As far as cooties were concerned, the American infantrymen of the Great War had it far easier than his European comrades and counter-parts, for he only had to contend with them for the mere six month time that he lived in the trenches, rather than the full four years.
The Battle of the Cooties (NY Times, 1918) Read More »
Mr. Junius B. Wood, correspondent of the CHICAGO DAILY NEWS with the A.E.F. recently spent a week in the sector held by the American Army Northwest of Toul. He lived the life of a Doughboy, slept a little and saw a lot. He spent his days in and near the front line and some of his nights in No Man’s Land. Here is the second and concluding installment of his story, depicting life at the front as it actually is…
Click here to read an article about the German veterans of W.W. I.
Night Patrol in the Toul Sector (Stars and Stripes, 1918) Read More »
The manner in which front-line soldiers in a war are able to stave off boredom has been the topic of many letters and memoirs throughout the centuries, and the attached article will show you how one Frenchman addressed the issue – it is a seldom seen black and white photograph depicting an acrobatic stunt being performed above the parapet and in plain view of German snipers.
Foolhardiness on the Western Front (Literary Digest, 1917) Read More »
A 1915 diagram from a French news magazine depicting the depth of a German front-line dugout. John Laffin makes it quite clear in his World War One book, The Western Front Companion:<img src=http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=oldmagazinear-20&l=as2&o=1&a=075091520X width=1 height=1 border=0 alt= style=border:none !important; margin:0px !important;:, that the term dugout seems misleading when applied to the Germans:
From 1915, the remarkably well developed German positions, notably on the Somme front, reflected their strategic advantage. They were on enemy soil, the Germans held the initiative and they could afford to settle down in their dugouts. Hence, most had electricity, drainage, sewage system, piped water, a telephone system and many were heated. The soldiers could lie down on mattresses resting on beds made of stacking stretched over wooden frames, and -and because of deep overhead cover – 30 to 40 feet of it, they were safe even during heavy shell fire.
This article appears on this site by way of a special agreement with L’Illustration.
Click here to see a 1915 ad for British Army military camp furniture.
Click here to read an article about life in a W.W. I German listening post…
German Dugouts (L’Illustration, 1915) Read More »
The seasoned war correspondent from THE NEW REPUBLIC filed this essay some five months into the war in order to clarify for his American readers the exact nature of trench warfare. His observations are based upon the trench fighting that he witnessed both in France and during the Russo-Japanese War, some nine years earlier:
There is an illusion that the range and effectiveness of modern arms tend to keep armies far apart. On the contrary, there is more hand-to-hand fighting today than at any time since gunpowder was invented… at this rate the French will not drive out the Germans in months, but on the other hand a frontal attack, and every attack must now be frontal, even if successful would cost several hundred thousand men.
The article was written by Gerald Morgan; by war’s end he would serve as General Pershing’s press chief (ie.censor).
W.W. I Trench Fighting (The New Republic, 1915) Read More »
An informative article from World War I concerning the doctors of all the combatant nations and how they dealt with the filthy conditions of stagnant warfare and all the different sorts of wounds that were created as a result of this very different war:
This is a dirty war. Gaseous, gangrene, lockjaw, blood poisoning, all dirt diseases… Colonel G.H. Makins of the Royal Army Medical Corps longs for the clean dust of the Veldt, which the British soldier cursed in the Boer War.
Trench Medicine (Harper’s Weekly, 1915) Read More »
The war has changed many things, and it may have altered conceptions of military smartness as well. For from Paris, the home of ‘mode’ and ‘chic’, comes a daily fashion hint from the front that is upsetting. It is from Henri Barbusse (1873 – 1935), author of the novel Under Fire
Barbusse Described the Winter Trenches (Collier’s Magazine, 1917) Read More »
An article by the admired British war correspondent, Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett
Everything has changed; uniforms, weapons, methods, tactics. Cavalry had been rendered obsolete by trenches, machine guns and modern artillery; untrained soldiers proved useless, special battalions were needed on both sides to fight this particular kind of war that, in no way, resembled the battles your father or grand-fathers had once fought.
A good read.
War in the Trenches (Hearst’s Sunday American, 1917) Read More »
