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Over the Top!
Trench Warfare
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• It reached peak brutality and bloodshed on the
  Western Front in the First World War.

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What did they look like?
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Birds Eye View
Zig-zagged pattern
Communication traverses
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Why the zig-zagged pattern?
It prevented the enemy from being able to shoot
down the length of the entire trench
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This meant that a soldier could see no more than
10 meters along the length of the trench.
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Why barbed wire?
It was difficult to cut, and shelling it would
only make it more entangled, providing an extra
barrier from attack.
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Trench Cross-Section
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Why duckboards a drainage sump?
It reinforced the stability of the walls, and
allowed for drainage of rainwater, blood, and
other body fluids
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Why sandbags?
They protected soldiers from bullets and shrapnel
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Why were trenches necessary in World War I ?
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Vickers Machine Gun
This new and powerful weapon could mow down
soldiers trying to attack
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Machine guns needed 4-6 men to work them and had
the fire power of 100 guns
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Gas Attacks
Chlorine and Mustard gas would slow down
attackers, causing burns and suffocation
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Blind Alleys
These led nowhere and were built to confuse and
slow down the enemy
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Underground Saps
These tunnels were dug under enemy trenches so
that explosives could be placed under them and
detonated
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attackers couldnt cross no mans land fast
enough to avoid casualties
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no mans land varied in distance depending on
the battlefield. On the Western Front it was
typically between 100 and 300 yards, though only
30 yards on Vimy Ridge.
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Small trenches rapidly grew deeper and more
complex, gradually becoming vast areas of
interlocking defensive works
British trenches
German trenches
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What was lifelike in the trenches?
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Sanitary conditions in the trenches were quite
poor, and common infections included
dysentery, typhus, and cholera
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Rats became common, and grew large as they would
eat the soldiers food
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Medical services were primitive and life-saving
antibiotics had not yet been discovered
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Relatively minor injuries could prove fatal
through the onset of infection and gangrene
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Poor hygiene also led to conditions such as
trench mouth and trench foot
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official truces were organized so that the
wounded could be recovered from no man's land and
the dead could be buried
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But what was life REALLY like in the trench?
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At the age of 92, Arthur Savage was asked about
his memories of life on the Western Front.

• My memories are of sheer terror and the horror
  of seeing men sobbing because they had trench
  foot that had turned gangrenous. They knew they
  were going to lose a leg.

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• Memories of lice in your clothing driving you
  crazy. Filth and lack of privacy. Of huge rats
  that showed no fear of you as they stole your
  food rations. And cold deep wet mud everywhere.

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• And of course, corpses. I'd never seen a dead
  body before I went to war. But in the trenches
  the dead are lying all around you. You could be
  talking to the fellow next to you when suddenly
  he'd be hit by a sniper and fall dead beside you.
  And there hed stay for days.