The Trenches

  1. More than twenty thousand miles of trenches were dug on the Western front.
  2. Soldiers would give nicknames to their trenches, which included references to real places (such as Bond Street or Park Lane) as well as names that referred to the units that fought from there, such as Black Watch Alley (for the Black Watch Regiment) or Munster Alley (for the Royal Munster Fusiliers).
  3. Trenches were built in a zig-zag pattern for two main reasons; the first was that it prevented enemy attacks from the side - one could generally only see 10m of the trench at any one time. The second reason was that it made them more difficult for the enemy to map.
  4. Usually, a solider would spend no more than two weeks in the trenches on the front line at any one time and would only be located there for around fifteen per cent of the year in total.
  5. 140,000 Chinese labourers worked on the Western front digging trenches for British and French troops.
  6. The open space between two opposing trenches was called no man’s land; it was almost a certainty that one would be attacked whilst trying to traverse it and therefore no man would wish to try.
  7. At a place called Hooge the two opposing trenches were just fifty yards apart.
  8. Millions of rats made their homes in the trenches. At first the soldiers tried to kill them, however they bred at such a pace that this proved fruitless and in the end they became an accepted part of life in the trenches.
  9. The climate of the Western front was extremely wet, and trenches would very often accumulate water. The troops would constantly be wading around in this which led to their feet rotting; this infliction became known as ‘trench foot’.
  10. Many German trenches were very different to those that the British troops would have been used to. They were built with the intention of being permanent (or at least very long-lasting) and had electric lights, running water and even doorbells.

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The Highland Territorials