1. Trench Warfare

2. Life in the Trenches Pests and Pain
Rats and lice tormented troops day and night
Rats were oversized from feeding off the corpses and rations.
Lice would spread a painful disease called trench fever.
Trench foot caused gangrene and resulted in amputation.

4. Threat of Death Soldiers were under constant threat of attack.
They would face hours of shelling and were always at risk of snipers.
Many inexperienced men could not resist peaking over the top resulting in their death.

6. Trench Routine

7. Stand to at dawn
Every dawn, soldiers would stand on guard at the front trench.
This was to most likely time for an attack as there was reduced visibility.
After stand to they would go through inspections, breakfast, and have their daily ration of rum.

9. Day to Day During the day they would clean latrines Repair duck boards
Refill sandbags
Write letters, gamble

10. Making Use of Shell Hole

11. Repairing Trenches

12. Night time During the night they would venture into no mans land to
Repair barbed wire
Dig new trenches
Patrol for enemies
Conduct raids on trenches.

13. Threat of Death “Shell Shock”
Troops were under constant threat of death from enemy snipers and shelling.
This constant stress lead to Shell Shock.
This caused constant crying, loss of speech, or paralysis.
Doctors now believe it was a result of physical injury to the brain from shell explosions.

14. “Wastage” This was death that occurred outside of formal combat.
Most infantry units had 800 men and 80 would die a month.
Usually by snipers or artillery shells.

15. Tending to a grave

16. Penalties and Discipline
The purpose of military law is to ensure cohesion and victory.
Violators had to be made an example of in order to discourage others from breaking the law.
Desertion, leaving one’s post, drunkenness, and cowardice were the most common.

17. Penalties and Discipline
Imprisonment, fines, loss of rank were common.
Field punishment 1 = extra labour duties and attached to a fixed object for 2 hours a day. Nicknamed crucifixion.
Field punishment 2 = just lose privileges.

18. Field Punishment 1

19. Trench Culture Slang was invented to make war seem less serious.
Stray – sniper bullets
Whiz bangers – shell fragments
Soft work – less dangerous work
Potato mashers - grenades

20. Tin Hat
Known in official parlance as “Helmet, shrapnel, steel” ; is used for
washing in,
cooking
baling out the trench
drawing loose rations, such as tea or sugar; and
The most useful article of equipment issued to the soldier.
occasionally as protection for the head during bombardments.

21. Trench Culture Troops created Newspapers, cartoons
Troops had pets and troop mascots, many were left over from the enemy.
One famous one was a bear cub called Winnie, inspired Winnie the Pooh.

25. “Keep your head still or I may cut off your ear”

27. Writing Home

28. Your Assignment
You are a WW1 soldier and are writing home. Your letter will include the following topics.
Life in the trenches, pest etc
Threat of death
Slang
Pets
Punishments
Day to day activities.