"World War I Project" (Reaction Essay and Letters Home)

Life in the trenches was like a living hell for the men. They lived with fear, hunger, thirst, and with the physical extremes of deafening noises of the dead corpses being gnawed away by the maggots, sudden flashes, extreme cold, and agonising pain. The soldiers encountered such problems as mud, trench foot, the unbearable cold, an abundant amount of dead bodies, huge rats that will eat humans and the rats disease, lice and their disease, itch mites, maggots, flies contaminating all the food, and way more.

The trenches were ankle-deep in mud but there were occasions when men had to stand for days up to their waists, or even their armpits, in freezing water and where the temperature was below freezing. Rainfall was the heaviest for thirty-five years and the cold being so bitter put a burden on these soldiers. Mark Plowman wrote of the trenches and said, "The mud makes it all but impassable, and now sunk in it up to the knees, I have the momentary terror of never being able to pull myself out." One man had been trapped up to his neck in mud for 46 hours and was eventually rescued but died fifteen minutes later anyways. The mud was so unbelievably horrible that men even drowned in it.

The wet conditions of rain were responsible for the the curse 'trench foot' which is caused by being days on end without being able to remove wet socks or boots. Trench foot was very similar to frostbite and the men's feet would become numb and gangrene would set in which led to many amputations. During the war, 74,711 British troops went to hospitals with trench foot or frost-bite. Soon, the soldiers were ordered to change their socks 2-3 times a day and try to dry their boots. Periods of extreme cold with mud made trenches collapse. In the packet "Natural Miseries", it stated that the cold was so bitter that they had to provide heat in the trenches using a brazier and from time to time men died of asphyxiation. Another disease admitted was nephritis which affects the kidneys and men got it by excessive exposure of wet and cold and 35,563 cases were admitted to the hospitals in France.

Dead corpses were everywhere and were a great hazard. Many men in the French lines were buried almost where they fell. The working party in digging a new trench would come across large numbers of decomposing bodies buried just beneath the surace. Corpses along with food scraps attracted rats. A canadian soldier had said 'Huge rats. So big they would eat a wounded man if he couldn't defend himself.' These rats were fecund and if they were well fed, they'd produce big litters as much as 880 in one year. Rats would eat away at dead bodies especially the livers and eyes and basically lived in these bodies. Rats contaminated food and spread disease and carried the disease Weil's Disease. In the packet "Natural Miseries," A french soldier said, "The man displayed a grimacing face, stripped of flesh; the skull bare, the eyes devoured. A set of false teeth slid down on to his rotting jacket, and from the yawning mouth leapt an unspeakably foul beast."

In Conclusion, I believe the life in trenches was in reality no life at all. Soldiers were either dying of wounds, living sickly, getting eaten away by maggots and rats, suffering the cold, drowning in the mud, getting trench foot or any other disease from rats and lice and more. I feel bad for what they had to go through. It was even the fighting in the war that killed them it was the surroundings of it. I would've never believed that the trenches were ever like that. I guess they are far worse than I ever imagined.





Mark Plowman

November 1916

2:30 p.m. in Germany



Dear Mama:

The mud makes it all but impassable and now sunk in it up to the knees, I have the momentary terror of never being able to pull myself out. Such horror gives frenzied energy, and I tear my legs free and go on...Both sides are glued where they stand...Little or nothing is done for the simple reason that the deity has not yet constructed men able to make or repair trenches when the earth at every step holds them immobile.

The Guards battalion lost sixteen men throught exhaustion and drowning in the mud. Men are drowning in the mud and sometimes is even happening in the trenches themselves. There is a great danger that the men could easily fall into a shell-hole and slowly be sucked down. I stumbled across a man who been blown into the mud that was still alive with only his head and the stump of a leg still visible and we were forced to leave the wounded man to sink slowly.



C.M. Chenu

January 1915

8:30 in Germany



Dear Mama:

I see an army of cowled phantoms, enveloped in blankets, strips of canvas, oil-cloth table covers and draped in canvas cloaks, like knights of old, wearing their helmet over their cap comforter and giving the appearance of some kind of ancient helm. Muffled up in strange woollens sent from home, their sheepskin capes made them look like the peasant soldiers of earlier days. The number of cases of pneumonia mom is remarkably low but, unfortunately, the disease nephritis is spreading and there has been 35,563 cases admitted to hospitals in France.

Rain doesn't even wash away the filth of this place. The stench of urine, excreta, and corpses fills the trenches and the air. Men are unwashed which produces uncleanliness and disease. Corpses are everywhere. They are a great hazard and are buried basically where they fall. I don't know how long I'm going to survive with the cold, the diseases, the mud, the maggots, the lice and the rats.

J.Germain

July 1915

10:30 in Germany


Dear mama:

An immense cloud of smelling of corpses swept the plateau incessantly, choking the combatants with its fetid odour. Thousands of flies with blue and green stomachs covered the countryside, shrouded our meagre rations...and hid the sky in a shimmering cloud. One morning on our shoulders fell a rain of maggots which all through the night above our heads had made a noise like rustling silk as they gnawed their way through some dead bodies. Itch mites are around that cause scabies as us men scratch the skin.

Rats are everywhere and they are huge rats. They are so big that if they encountered a wounded soldier that couldn't defend himself, it would eat him. They are fecund and if well fed they will produce more and bigger litter even as much as 880 a year. Life in these trenches isn't the greatest, but I want to make you proud mama. I am strong and I don't have the will to give up.