Stalemate/Trench Warfare

1. Stalemate/Trench Warfare

2. Germany starts the offensive • World War I officially began with the German army storming through Belgium, into France. • At the First Battle of the Marne, the German runs into French forces • A stalemate occurs

3. Trench Warfare sets in • Trench Warfare is battle in which both sides have dug trenches to stand their ground • Artillery fire (cannon) was used to keep the enemy off-guard

5. What were the trenches? • Trenches were generally holes, dug about six feet deep • Why? • Trenches were a lot like a maze on both sides, with bunkers used for communications and storing ammunition

7. Conditions in the trenches

8. Death, on a daily basis • In the busier front-line sectors: • constant machine gun and artillery fire • Don’t peer over the edge of the trench • Estimated 1/3rd of the deaths for the Allied Powers were in the trenches.

9. Shell fire • Germans used mortar fire (large shells that explode on impact) against the allies • These shell attacks were more deadly than gunfire • Why do you think that is?

10. Rats… • Rats, which numbered in the millions infested the trenches • Two kinds: Brown & Black • These rats gorged themselves on human remains • As a result, some were as big as cats.

11. Rats continued… • A single rat could produce 900 offspring, so it was impossible to get rid of them • What do you think rats contributed to the trenches?

12. Lice & Trench Fever • Lice, another problem with the trenches • Caused never-ending itching • Clothes that were “de-loused” almost always still had lice eggs on them • Condition called Trench Fever • Caused by lice • Horrible fever/severe pain

13. Trench Foot • Trench foot, a fungal infection caused by standing in water for long periods of time • Especially bad at the beginning of the war • Conditions improved in 1915

15. Poison Gas • In 1915, the Germans began to use poisonous chlorine gas in some shell attacks • The poisonous gas caused violent choking spells

16. Mustard Gas • Created by the Germans, mustard gas caused painful blisters inside and outside the body. • Remained in the soil for weeks, making its effectiveness questionable • While deaths from gas attacks were not large scale, they caused those attacked to live the rest of their lives scarred/useless.

17. The stench • Chlorine gas from the gas attacks still lingered in many places • Rotting carcasses lay around in their thousands. • For example, approximately 200,000 men were killed on the Somme battlefields, many of which lay in shallow graves

20. This was in the summer of 1916.  In the plain on our right the flash and rumble of guns was unceasing.  It was the beginning of the Somme offensive we learnt afterwards, but even if we had known one of the big battles of the War was in progress at our elbows I doubt if we should have been deeply stirred.  To every private in the line the War was confined to his own immediate front.

21. Lice and wind-up came into my life about the same time.  At stand-to one morning a flight of whizz-bangs skimmed the top of the trench.  The man next to me went down with a scream and half his face gone.  The sand-bag in front of me was ripped open and I was blinded and half-choked with its contents.

22. My first spell in the line lasted three weeks.  Water was scarce, and even the tea ration was so short there was none left over for shaving.  I had a nine days' growth of beard when we went down to rest.  Some of us looked like Crimean veterans and we all began to feel like it.  My socks were embedded in my feet with caked mud and filth and had to be removed with a knife.

23. Now it’s your turn • Write a narrative as if you were an soldier in the trenches of World War I. Talk about the different things you sense or are around you: (smell/hear/see/taste/touch)