Soldiers from the Cheshire Regiment in their trench during
the 1916 Battle of the Somme
Photo by John Warwick Brooke
This is photograph Q 3990 from the collections of the
Imperial War Museums (collection no. 1900-13)
The Battle of Mons, which saw the death of Second Lieutenant John Pepys, was a battle of movement, unlike most of the succeeding encounters with the enemy. Both the Allied and the German generals soon saw that with neither side willing to retreat a stationary form of warfare would be the only option. Sir John French, the first Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force gave the order to entrench on 14 September, and on the Western Front for the next four years the conflict took the form of trench warfare which has made it notorious.
Almost 10,000 kilometres of trenches were dug on both sides. The first efforts at trench-building consisted of shallow pits in the soil and were generally ineffectual because of the lack of equipment, but the results improved with greater organisation. Temporary units of entrenching battalions were formed by the Army and construction methods were standardised.
3467 Private George Watson. The
photo was taken in early 1918 when he was aged 22, following his stay at the VAD Redde
Hutte Hospital
in Budleigh. It shows his three-year service chevron and silver thread wound stripe.
Image credit: Fairlynch Museum
Private George Watson, of the Royal
North Lancashire Regiment, was posted to the
4th Entrenching Battalion
in 1915 and found himself working in the Somme region of Picardy, Northern France.
After being wounded he spent time
convalescing at ‘Redde Hutte’ - now named ‘Stapleton’, pictured above - in Budleigh Salterton’s West Hill Lane - and
his memories were recorded and presented to Fairlynch Museum.
“Our job in the Entrenching
Battalion was to work at constructing trenches, redoubts and dugouts/tunnelling
and general jobs like drainage,” he recalled.
“There was no fighting then in the Somme
area, just the occasional shells, but that was before the offensive and the rough stuff began.”
Care needed to be taken nonetheless to avoid
attracting unwelcome attention. “I remember once working in a tunnel heading
towards the German lines. It was very
low and kneeling down we used short spades for digging. The earth was shovelled
to the rear and passed along. It was
then carted well behind the trenches and spread in piles making it appear that
construction was going on there, which attracted shellfire.”
Trench construction became an art, explained George
Watson. “To make a trench it was dug in a straight line but buttresses were
left in about 20 feet apart. If a shell exploded in the trench the buttresses
stopped the blast from going along the trench thus providing shelter for most
of the men. The communication trenches were dug zig-zag so that the enemy
couldn’t enfilade them, that is shoot straight along the trench. We drained the
trenches by digging channels according to the slope of the ground. Sometimes we
dug sumps or baled or pumped out the water. We made dugouts in the sides of the
reserve trenches, covering the tops with timber, wattles and soil. Benches of
soil were left were left in the dugouts on which the men could sleep clear of
the water and mud.”
The quagmire of the trenches
Officers of the 12th Royal Irish Rifles wading through
the mud of a fallen in communication trench, the result of a thaw after weeks
of snow and from Essigny, 7 February 1918. They had recently taken over from
the French 6th Division. Photo by Second
Lieutenant Thomas Keith Aitken. This is photograph Q 10681 from the collections of the
Imperial War Museums
© IWM (Q 10681)
That was the theory anyway. But torrential rain could
transform the trench into a quagmire. George Watson quoted an amusing instance
of this.
“Once we were digging a 'sap' from the trench,
underneath the barbed wire, to make an
observation post. Three men manned the post,
one looking out over the ground,
another ready to take his turn and the third one relaxing. This meant digging
outwards towards the German lines. The
weather was very wet and the trench became full of water and mud. We had to bring a hand pump to clear the water. Two of us were
carrying it on a long crowbar. I was leading, chest deep in water, when I became stuck in the mud. Two of
our mates crept along the top of the trench and took the pump
off us. They then yanked me out of the
mud. I was gripped so tight that my waders and
trousers were left behind, stuck in the mud. I bet they're still there.
I had to
make my way back to the billets in the village in my underpants and
bare feet. Of course there were no villagers about
then.”
A case of trench feet
suffered by unidentified soldier in 1917
Photo credit:
Library and Archives Canada/PA-149311 /
Not so amusing was the medical condition known as
trench foot, caused by prolonged
exposure of the feet to damp and cold conditions. Affected feet could become
numb and turn red or blue as a result of poor vascular supply; the early stages
of necrosis would result in a decaying odour. If left untreated, trench foot
usually resulted in gangrene, causing the need for amputation.
It's been estimated that as many as 20,000
soldiers in the British Army alone during 1914 fell victim to the disease.
In poor weather conditions, and especially in the
dark, soldiers could lose their way in the maze of trenches. “One
night when we were carrying supplies to the front line, during a ‘rest period’ it
was difficult to find the way as there was no proper communication trench,”
recalled George Watson. “The route was lined with white tape to show the
way. Unfortunately the tapes had disappeared in the mud and as it was almost
dawn my pal Tom and I tried to find our way back without success. In the
daylight we would have been in danger from snipers so we took shelter in a large shell crater. This meant waiting
until nightfall to try again.
In the crater were two dead British soldiers, one with
wide open staring eyes. This made us
feel so uncomfortable we turned him over. When
night came we left the crater to
try to find our way. Stumbling along we were challenged by a British
soldier. We explained that we were
trying to find our way back to our unit in the reserve trenches. With a laugh he informed us that we were
heading for no-mans-land, so we had to
turn about and go the opposite way. We managed
to get back to our unit just before
we were posted as missing.”
The trenches today: Sanctuary Wood, a few miles east of Ypres, in Belgium
Image credit: Mo Sandford FRPS
©
Mo Sandford FRPS 2014
The author Michael Morpurgo has described her work as "deeply moving and interesting." More of Mo Sandford's remarkable photos of World War I battlefields can be seen here
Added to these grim conditions was the insanitary
nature of trench life which inevitably led to outbreaks of disease. Basic human
functions were catered for in a primitive fashion. “Latrines were always a
problem. We dug them as a long narrow behind the front line trenches with a
narrow trench leading to them. A latrine was made with short cross-poles at
each end, with a log pole or tree trunk between them to sit on, all open to the
sky.”
Not suprisingly, soldiers in the hell of the trenches found
that black humour was a vital weapon in their battle for survival.
Cartoon by Bruce Bairnsfather. It shows a soldier writing a card home: "Dear ____, At present we are staying on a farm..."
One of their great allies in this respect was Captain
(Charles) Bruce Bairnsfather, renowned as a wartime humorist and cartoonist. His
only connection with Devon was that he was educated at the United Services
College in Westward Ho!
'Coiffure in the trenches' The caption reads: "Keep yer 'ead still, or I'll 'ave yer blinking' ear off." A shell whizzes past overhead.
In 1914 he joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and
served with a machine gun unit in France until 1915, when he was
hospitalised with shellshock and hearing damage sustained during the Second
Battle of Ypres.
"There goes our blinkin' parapet again."
Posted to the 34th Division headquarters on Salisbury
Plain, he developed his humorous series for the Bystander magazine about life
in the trenches, featuring 'Old Bill', a curmudgeonly soldier with
trademark walrus moustache and balaclava.
The best remembered of these is shown above. It shows Bill with another trooper in a muddy
shell hole with shells whizzing all around. The other trooper is grumbling and
Bill advises: “Well, If you knows of a better 'ole, go to it.”
Despite the immense popularity with the troops and
massive sales increase for the Bystander, initially there were objections to
the "vulgar caricature". Nevertheless, their success in raising
morale led to Bairnsfather's promotion and receipt of a War Office appointment
to draw similar cartoons for other Allies forces.
Grateful thanks are due to Jan Oke for allowing reproduction of the Bruce Bairnsfather cartoons from her collection of World War One postcards
‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!
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