The living conditions of the trenchesImage of solider on the western front in a flooded trench from: Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images
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The First World War started with a lot of movement around the Western Front but then started to settle down when the trenches started. The living conditions of the men in the trenches consisted of constant death, rats, lice, different weather conditions (heat, cold, rain, snow). Death was a constant companion in the trenches as there would be death on the very first days of every battalion serving the front lines also most men died on the first day due to a precisely aimed sniper bullet. The big problems in the trenches were lice, rats, and infections. Rats were a constant problem in the trenches there were two common types; brown and black. The most common thing that the rats would do was gorge themselves full of human livers, eyes, fingers and ears and also they would grow to the size of cats in which terrified the soldiers. Men would try mean different thing to rid the rats of the trenches, gun fire, stabling them with bayonets and clubbing them with the ends of their guns but everything ended in failure. Every would be expected to serve a spell on the front line, Even while at rest men might find themselves tasked with duties that would place them in the line of fire. The biggest problem that everyone hated about the trenches was the smell. The trenches would smell mostly of creosol and chloride which were used to fight of the constant infections and diseases’ the trenches would always smell of cigarette smoke, lingering poison gas, rotten sand bags, and stagnant mug. Also the biggest smell was the rotting carcasses of the dead soldiers every turn (firstworldwar.com, 2009).
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