western front

• the western front was the area in France and Belgium where many of the most important battles of WW1 took place
• the British sector of the western front was the section controlled by the British army
• a salient is an area of battlefield that extends into enemy territory and is surrounded by the enemy so is in a vulnerable position
• Hill 60 was a hill near Ypres that allowed the army who controlled it to have an excellent view of the surrounding area
• during the first battle of Ypres 1914, the Germans launched an attack to advance towards the sea and the British lost 50,000 troops but managed to keep control of Ypres and the channel so they could get supplies however Germans captured Hill 60
• During the second battle of Ypres (April-May 1915) the British took by Hill 60 by tunnelling under the hill and placing mines to blow the top off. It was the first time the Germans used chlorine gas when fighting back
• During the battle of the Somme (July-November 1916) the British tried the new strategies of creeping barrage and tanks to take ground from the Germans and there were over 400,000 casualties
• During the battles of Arras (April-May 1917) the British linked existing tunnels to create an underground network and built a fully functioning hospital. The men hiding in the tunnels aimed to break through German lines and the British advanced 8 miles
• During the third battle of Ypres (July-November 1917) The British army advanced the edge of the salient back but there was heavy rain and lots of men drowned
• During the battle of Cambrai (October 1917) the artillery barrage was changed so that the Germans got less of a warning before attacks
• The royal army medical corps was a branch of the army that was in charge of medical care
• In 1914 the RAMC had 9000 men and in 1918 they had 113,000
• stretcher bearers carried wounded from the front line exposing themselves to gunfire, mud, craters and crowded narrow trenches
• stretcher bearers carried basic supplies such as bandages and morphine
• there were 16 stretcher bearers per each battalion (up to 1000 men)
• 4 men were needed to carry one stretcher and sometimes this was 6-8 if there was thick mud or bad weather
• the field ambulance was a large mobile medical unit manned by the RAMC
• there were 300 nurses in 1914 and 10,000 in 1918
• due to the number of casualties volunteer nurses were accepted
• nurses helped in operating theatres, scrubbed floors, cooked and washed clothes
• the volunteer aid detachment (VADs) were a branch of volunteer nurses who were mainly middle and upper class women who were initially used for menial tasks but by 1917 proper nursing
• FANYs (first aid nursing yeomanry) helped the French and Belgium troops because the British wouldn't make use of them until 1916 when they were used to drive ambulances, mobile bath, motorised kitchens and boosted moral of trrops
• initially ambulances were horse drawn carts however they couldn't keep up with the number of casualties and the troops were shaken about worsening their injuries
• in October 1914 motorised ambulances were used however the muddy terrain meant sometimes horses still had to be used
• in muddy terrain horse drawn ambulances often needed 6 horses instead of the usual 2
• wounded men were transported by train or boats on the canal to base hospitals
• there were 4 ambulance trains in 1914 and 28 1916
• ambulance trains carried up to 800 men and had space for the stretches on each side in the carriages and sometimes contained operating theatres
• the chain of evacuation: regimental aid post, dressing stations, casualty clearing stations, base hospital
• the regimental aid post was 200m from the front line in communication trenches or deserted buildings and it didn't deal with serious injuries
• the regimental aid post had stretcher bearers and a regimental medical officer giving first aid to as many men as possible
• the advanced dressing station (ADS) was 400m from the RAP
• the main dressing station (MDS) was half a mile away from the ADS
• often there was only a main or advanced dressing station and not both
• the dressing stations were often in abandoned buildings or bunkers to offer protection although sometimes they were tents
• each dressing station had 10 medical officers, medical orderlies and stretchers bearers from the RAMC unit called the field ambulance and from 1915 there were also nurses
• the field ambulance could care for 150 men but often had more however they could not care for them for longer than a week before they had to return or go to a CCS
• casualty clearing stations (CCS) were close enough to the front line for ambulances but far enough away to have some protection from the enemy and they were set up in abandoned factories or schools
• CCS specialised in operating on critical injuries and triaged the men in order to do this (walking wounded, in need of hospital treatment and those with no chance of recovery)
• the CCS started doing operations that were generally left to base hospitals as soldiers started developing gangrene