After the failure of the Schlieffen Plan, both sides dug trenches to stop the other from advancing. These trenches stretched from the English Channel to the Swiss border. The war settled into one pointless attack after another.

Trenches were under constant fire and each side launched surprise raids into enemy trenches. The soldiers on duty lived in constant fear of their lives. The normal method of attack in trench warfare was to go “over the top”. Soldiers would line up in the trenches closest to the enemy and on the sound of their officer’s whistle they would clamber up the trench ladders and into No Man's Land.

No Man's Land was the term used by soldiers to describe the ground between the two opposing trenches. Its width along the Western Front could vary a great deal. The average distance in most areas was about 250 yards (230 meters). However, at Guillemont it was only 50 yards (46 meters) whereas at Cambrai it was over 500 yards (460 meters). The narrowest gap was at Zonnebeke where British and German soldiers were only about seven yards apart.

No Man's Land contained a considerable amount of barbed wire. It was used to defend the trenches. In some places the wire was more than a 100 feet (30 meters) deep.

If the area had seen a lot of action, No Man's Land would be full of broken and abandoned military equipment. After an attack No Man's Land would also contain a large number of bodies. Some soldiers who were wounded did not make it back to their trenches and could not be retrieved. Advances across No Man's Land were always very difficult. Not only did the soldiers have to avoid being shot or blown-up, they also had to cope with barbed wire and water-filled shell holes.

Soldiers were only occasionally involved in a full-scale attack across No Man's Land. However, men were sometimes ordered into No Man's Land to obtain information about the enemy. Small patrols were sent out at night. They would have to crawl forward on their stomachs in an attempt to get close enough to find out what the enemy was up to. If possible, they would try and capture a sentry and bring him back for interrogation. To stop British night patrols the Germans used light-shells. Suspended from a small parachute, the flare blazed brightly for a minute giving the defending troops a chance to kill the soldiers who had advanced into No Man's Land.

Soldiers had to put up with awful living conditions. Most of the trenches were in northern France, an area with high rainfall all year round. Front-line troops were seldom dry, even in the summer when it was hot and humid. Colds and flu were commonplace.

The battlefield is fearful. One is overcome be a peculiar sour, heavy and penetrating smell of corpses. Rising over a plank bridge you find that its middle is supported only by the body of a long dead horse. Men that were killed last October lie half in swamp and half in the yellow sprouting beet fields. The legs of an Englishman, still encased in puttees, stick out into a trench, the corpse still being built into the parapet; a soldier hangs his rifle on them. A little brook runs through the trench, and everyone uses the water they have. Nobody minds the pale Englishman who is rotting away a few steps farther up. In Langemark cemetery a mound has been piled up, for the dead must have lain about ground-level. At one point I saw twenty-two dead horses, still harnessed, accompanied by a few dead drivers. Cattle and pigs lie about, half rotten; broken trees, avenues razed to the ground; crater upon crater in the roads and in the fields. Such is a six months' old battlefield.

Rudolf Binning, a German soldier, Jungdeutschland Division

The main work of the trenches was digging. Every day, damage was done by the previous nights' gunfire had to be repaired. Water had to be pumped out, and mud shoveled over the top. As one soldier said: "We stoop and crouch, and someone is scratching at the earth on his knees. Others are working full length; they toil, and turn, and turn again like men in nightmares. The earth, whose first layer was light to lift, becomes muddy and sticky; it is hard to handle, and clings to the tool like glue."

Sentries were posted to watch over No-Man's Land all night long. The sentries had to keep alert for 2 hour shifts. If a sentry fell asleep at his post, he could expect 21 days of 'crucifixion' for 2 hours a day - he would be strapped in a standing position to a cart wheel or crossed posts.

Try to sleep with a belt full of ammunition around you, your rifle bolt biting into your ribs, entrenching tool handle sticking into the small of your back, with a tin hat for a pillow; and feeling very damp and cold, with 'cootie' [lice] boring for oil in your armpits, and the air foul from the stench of grimy human bodies and smoke from a juicy pipe being whiffed into your nostrils

Guy Empey - Canadian soldier

Many soldiers fighting in the First World War suffered from trench foot. This was an infection of the feet caused by cold, wet and unsanitary conditions. In the trenches men stood for hours on encl in waterlogged trenches without being able to remove wet socks or boots. The feet would gradually go numb and the skin would turn red or blue. If untreated, trench foot could turn gangrenous and result in amputation. Trench foot was a particular problem in the early stages of the war. For example, during the winter of 1914-15 over 20,000 men in the British army were treated for trench foot.

The only remedy for trench foot was for the soldiers to dry their feet and change their socks several times a day. By the end of 1915 British soldiers in the trenches had to have three pairs of socks with them and were under orders to change their socks at least twice a day. As well as drying their feet, soldiers were told to cover their feet with a grease made from whale-oil. It has been estimated that a battalion at the front would use ten gallons of whale-oil every day.

http://www.foot-pain-explored.com/trench-foot.html

There were no proper washing facilities in the trenches. Skin disease and body lice affected most soldiers at some stage of the Great War. Before soldiers were allowed to take their leave, they had to attend de-lousing centres to have nurses and orderlies clear their bodies of lice and lice eggs. The lice also lived in the soldiers’ woollen uniforms and laid their eggs in the seams of the uniforms. Soldiers used to pass the time bursting the lice eggs with their cigarettes.

Trench fever is another illness which arose as a direct result of trench warfare conditions

Causes: trench fever was directly caused by the humble body louse that every man in the trenches seemed to be plagued with

Symptoms: the symptoms would come on very quickly, the victim would develop back and headaches, the eyes would become congested and chills would develop. The site of the bite could ulcerate, even become gangrenous, and the lymph nodes on that side of the body would swell up. The victim would then develop a very high temperature of 100 plus degrees. On the 4th - 5th day a rash would develop on the chest, abdomen and the limbs. The nervous system would be involved now, the victim would become apathetic and listless by day and by night delirious, bumbling etc. the disease lasts about 14-21 days if untreated.

Treatment and Outcome: The victim would usually be evacuated. Antibiotic therapy would be helpful but in 1914-18 there were none so treating the symptoms would have been the only defence. The high temperature had to be addressed as this remained high classically for 2 weeks and would then suddenly drop.

The food that soldiers received was primitive. Bread, stale biscuits and tinned “bully” beef was the daily diet. Soldiers drank tea with evaporated milk. Food was kept in a metal mess tin to keep it dry, but also to stop rats from eating it.

http://www.firstworldwar.com/video/britishrations.htm

Many men killed in the trenches were buried almost where they fell. If a trench subsided, or new trenches or dugouts were needed, large numbers of decomposing bodies would be found just below the surface. These corpses, as well as the food scraps that littered the trenches, attracted rats. One pair of rats can produce 880 offspring in a year and so the trenches were soon swarming with them.

Some of these rats grew extremely large. One soldier wrote: "The rats were huge. They were so big they would eat a wounded man if he couldn't defend himself." These rats became very bold and would attempt to take food from the pockets of sleeping men. Two or three rats would always be found on a dead body. They usually went for the eyes first and then they burrowed their way right into the corpse.

One soldier described finding a group of dead bodies while on patrol: "I saw some rats running from under the dead men's greatcoats, enormous rats, fat with human flesh. My heart pounded as we edged towards one of the bodies. His helmet had rolled off. The man displayed a grimacing face, stripped of flesh; the skull bare, the eyes devoured and from the yawning mouth leapt a rat."Rats ate scraps of food and even the dead bodies in the trenches and in “no man’s land”. Soldiers told stories of how rats would gnaw at their feet and hands while they slept.

Not unsurprisingly, many men suffered mental breakdowns as a result of these conditions. They suffered from a condition known as “shell-shock”. Uncontrollable twitching, screaming, loss of motor control and other such symptoms were signs of “shell-shock”. Many doctors of the time believed that many sufferers of “shell-shock” were simply faking mental illness to try and avoid the fighting.

Some soldiers ran away. They were caught and shot as deserters. Others injured themselves in some way to try and get out of fighting. These men were given medical treatment and then sent back into the trenches. Some soldiers simply refused to obey their superior officer’s orders to attack. Unless they changed their minds, they were shot for insubordination. There was no escape. Soldiers could not even tell their loved ones about their situation, as their letters were opened and censored by the military.

Dan Snow is a British Canadian television presenter - he is all things history.

Please watch the following videos: