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Unlock This CourseBy the end of 1914 the Western Front was a line of trenches about 700 kilometres long. A trench was a deep ditch that hid soldiers from enemy fire. Each side did not dig one trench. It dug a whole system, several lines deep.
Trenches were dug in a zigzag, not a straight line. If a shell landed in one stretch, the blast was stopped at the next corner. An enemy who got in could not fire straight along the trench either.
Between the two front lines lay no man's land. It was often only 100 to 300 metres wide, a waste of shell holes and barbed wire.
Dugouts were shelters cut into the side or floor of a trench, where men could rest and take cover. British dugouts were often small and rough, because British generals thought of the trenches as temporary. German dugouts were often far deeper, some about ten metres underground, because the Germans were holding captured land and meant to stay.
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Soldiers did not spend the whole war in the front line. Units took turns. A man might spend a few days in the front line, a few in support and a few in reserve, and then go back to rest in a village behind the lines.
The day began before dawn with stand-to, because dawn and dusk were the likeliest times for an attack. Then came breakfast, a rifle inspection and jobs: mending the trench, filling sandbags, pumping out water. Men took turns as sentries. At night, parties went out to fix the barbed wire or carry up supplies. Much of the time was simply boring.
The basics were tinned corned beef, called 'bully beef', hard biscuits, bread, jam and tea. Hot stew was cooked behind the lines and was often cold by the time it reached the front. Water was carried up in old petrol cans and tasted of petrol. The food was dull, but British soldiers rarely went hungry.
Much of the British line ran through low, wet ground in Flanders, in Belgium. Rain and shelling turned it to deep mud, and trenches flooded. Men got trench foot. Feet went numb and swelled, and the worst cases needed amputation. About 20,000 British soldiers were treated for it in the first winter. After that, men had to change into dry socks and rub whale oil into their feet.
Almost every soldier had body lice, which lived in the seams of clothes. Lice spread trench fever, which gave men a high temperature and aching legs and kept them out of action for weeks. Rats grew fat on scraps of food and on the dead. Dirty water and open toilet pits, called latrines, caused stomach illnesses such as dysentery.
Shellfire caused more than half of all British wounds, and a man could do nothing about a shell except take cover. Snipers shot at any head that showed above the parapet. Some men broke down under the strain of constant shelling. This was called shell shock, and it was poorly understood at the time.
You will meet the weapons themselves in the lesson New Weapons, New Methods and the Reasons for Deadlock.
Why did most men keep going? Several things held morale up.
Morale did not always hold. In 1917, after a failed attack with huge losses, parts of the French army mutinied and refused to attack again. The British army had no mutiny on that scale.
Don't write as if soldiers lived in the front line for years or were under attack every day. Units took turns, and long quiet spells were normal. Don't say trench life was the same everywhere either. A dry trench in a quiet part of the line in summer was nothing like Flanders in winter.
Source A: From a letter by Private Gilbert Williams, a British soldier in France, to his former workmates at the Great Western Railway offices in London, 16 November 1915.
'... except for the last two days it has been raining almost steadily. The result is mud, mud and yet more mud, knee deep in places. But luckily we have long top boots from trench wear, so that the mud does not worry as much, except that is making our feet as cold as ice... We have been issued with fur jackets so we can keep our bodies warm.'
Source B: From a letter by Jack Symons, a British sergeant in France, to a former workmate at the Great Western Railway offices in London, 10 November 1915.
'The weather is simply awful, raining day after day and especially night after night...To tell you the truth, while writing this letter I am wet through to the skin and not a dry thing for a change. We have got our winter fur coats and gum boots, but the latter cause more curses than you can imagine ... While in the trenches last week John and I were up to our knees in water and got our gum boots half full.'
Study Sources A and B. How far does Source A support the evidence of Source B about conditions for British soldiers in the trenches in November 1915? Explain your answer. [8 marks]
Source A supports Source B about how wet the trenches were. Source B says it was 'raining day after day' and that the men were 'up to our knees in water'. Source A agrees: it had been 'raining almost steadily' and the mud was 'knee deep in places'. Both also show that the army had given out winter kit. Source B lists 'winter fur coats and gum boots' and Source A mentions 'long top boots' and 'fur jackets'.
However, the sources differ on how well the men were coping. In Source B the kit has not kept the men dry. Symons is 'wet through to the skin', the boots 'cause more curses than you can imagine' and they ended up 'half full' of water. Source A does not support this. Williams says 'luckily' the boots mean 'the mud does not worry as much', and the jackets 'keep our bodies warm'. His only complaint about the kit is feet 'as cold as ice'.
Overall, Source A supports Source B to a fairly large extent, because both describe the same rain, the same knee-deep mud or water and the same kit. It does not support Source B's picture of men soaked and cursing their boots, since in Source A the kit is mostly doing its job.
What lifts this to the top level: it matches short quotations from both sources for agreement and for difference, then judges how far Source A supports Source B.
Look past the topic to what each writer says about it. Both letters mention boots, but one calls them lucky and the other curses them. The same subject is not the same as agreement, so check the detail before you call it support. For more help, see the Exam Skills lesson Paper 2 Section A Question (b): How Far Does Source A Support Source B?