Was the Four Years on the Western Front the Generals´ fault?

Fitted with interrupter gear, the Vickers was also standard armament on all British and French aircraft after 1916. These guns played a vital role in defending the trenches; they shot down oncoming enemies with ease.

Living in the Trenches

Soldiers in the First World War did not spend the whole of the time in the trenches. The British Army worked on a 16-day timetable. Each soldier usually spent eight days in the front line and four days in the reserve trench. Another four days were spent in a rest camp that was built a few miles away from the fighting. However, when the army was short of men, soldiers had to spend far longer periods at the front. It was not uncommon for soldiers to be in the front line trenches for over thirty days at a time. On one occasion, the 13th Yorkshire and Lancashire Regiment spent fifty-one consecutive days in the line.

Being in the front-line was extremely dangerous. Almost every day some enemy shells would fall on the trenches. One study suggested that one-third of all casualties on the Western Front were killed or wounded while in the trenches.

Soldiers in the front line would also be hit by their own artillery. Despite the use of a high parados in the front-line trenches, it has been estimated that about 75,000 British soldiers in the war were killed by British shells that had been intended for the Germans. The conditions in the trenches were atrocious, and many soldiers died from the terrible conditions in the trenches and lack of food and clean water.

Trench Foot

Many soldiers fighting in the First World War suffered from trench foot. This was an infection of the feet caused by sold, wet and unsanitary conditions. In the trenches men stood for hours on end in waterlogged trenches without being able to remove wet socks or boots. The feet would gradually go numb and the skin would turn red or blue. If untreated, trench foot could turn gangrenous and result in amp ...