Daily Life in the Trenches

Trench warfare imposed routines that seemed designed to destroy both body and spirit. Days began before dawn with "stand-to," every man at his post expecting attack. After morning hate—ritual artillery exchanges—came weapons cleaning, repairs, and endless battle against mud, rats, and lice. Nights brought patrols, raids, and work parties repairing wire and trenches under constant threat of sniper fire.

Food arrived cold and often contaminated. The standard ration included hard biscuits, canned beef (singe—monkey meat), dried vegetables, and wine—the daily liter of pinard that provided both courage and forgetfulness. Hot food, prepared in rear kitchens, rarely survived the journey through communication trenches. Henri Barbusse wrote: "We eat like animals, hurriedly, fearfully, grateful for whatever reaches us."

Water was precious and foul. Shell holes filled with rain became breeding grounds for disease. Drinking water, carried forward in containers that had held petroleum, tasted of oil. Washing was impossible; men went weeks without removing boots, developing trench foot that rotted flesh from bones. Lice infested every seam of clothing, spreading typhus and driving men to distraction.

French medical services, overwhelmed from war's start, struggled to evacuate wounded through narrow communication trenches. Stretcher bearers—often German prisoners or colonial troops—performed heroic work under fire. The journey from front line to aid station could take hours, wounded men dying from shock or blood loss. Chaplain Pierre Teilhard de Chardin observed: "The stretcher bearers are saints. They venture where others fear, bringing hope to the dying, salvation to those who might survive."