Nov 10, 2018 3 min read

This week, on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” in 1918, World War I came to an end when the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary signed an armistice agreement, surrendering to the Allied Powers of France, Great Britain, Russia and the United States.

It was a war unlike any other, chiefly because the technological advancements in weaponry – such as machine guns, advanced artillery and poison gas – made the war a defensive struggle rather than the traditional offensive war of constant attack. And so, at least on the Western Front (France and the Low Countries), “trench warfare” became the norm. Hiding in dug-in trenches, British and French troops faced similarly entrenched German and Austria-Hungarian troops across a “no man’s land” of barren earth and barbed wire. Since attacks were rare – to expose oneself to machine gun and artillery fire from an enemy protected by barbed wire and trenches was insanity – soldiers from both sides spent months and even years trapped in these trenches, which were Hell on Earth.

Even protected by trenches, death by enemy artillery was a constant worry, and any soldier exposing himself even briefly by peering over the trench was an inviting target for enemy snipers.

Rats were also a major problem. Millions of black and brown rats infested the trenches, drawn by a banquet of dead and rotting bodies they could feast upon, and many rats grew to be as large as cats, spreading diseases, causing infections and, when they weren’t dining on human flesh, contaminating the soldiers’ meager allotment of food. Also, under those conditions the rats procreated like rabbits, producing around 800 offspring a year.

Lice were a problem, as well. Given the unsanitary conditions of trench life, lice encamped in the seams of the soldiers’ filthy clothing, laying eggs that would hatch in the warmth of a soldier’s body heat, causing terrible itching and even painful trench fever that would take months to recover from. To avoid head lice soldiers would shave their heads as well as their faces.

Trench foot was another problem. The trenches were wet, cold and muddy, and the soldiers wore the same pair of boots day after day, often resulting in a fungal infection of the feet that could cause gangrene and sometimes result in amputation. And given the wet conditions in the trenches, frogs, slugs, beetles and other insects were constant companions.

Further, the soldiers facing these constant threats were fatigued by lack of sleep and weakened by an inadequate diet. As a result, approximately one third of the casualties on the Western Front occurred in the trenches.

It was, said one British officer, “a cruel, useless sacrifice of life.”

Bruce G. Kauffmann’s email address is bruce@historylessons.net.