Living Conditions

• Rats

  • Millions of rats infected the trenches - 1 rat = 900 babies a year
  • Brown rats ate dead bodies
  • Sometimes size of a cat
• Lice

  • Men could not wash often
  • Bred in snitching of filthy clothes
  • Caused huge itching - drove men wild
  • Carried disease - pyrexia, better known as Trench Fever
• Trench Fever

  • Shooting pains in legs
  • High fever
• Trench foot

  • Caused by men's feet being constantly wet in the trenches
  • Resulted in rotting, sometimes resulting in amputation
• Food

  • Boring, and often bad tasting
  • Often ate: Bully Beef, stale bread, jam, cheese, hard biscuits
  • Biscuits were so hard, that it had to be soaked for a long time before being edible
• Water

  • Transported in petrol cans, adapting the taste
  • Treated with chemicals to kill germs
  • Water for personal hygiene was in short supply, causing hygiene to suffer
• Disease

  • Typhus, cholera, influenza, were widespread from the crowded conditions, causing many deaths