Life in the Trenches WW1 | Trench Warfare Explained — Transcript

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1. 0:00When it comes to the First World War,
2. 0:02there's one thing that we all think of.
3. 0:05Trenches.
4. 0:06Muddy, ratinfested hell holes with death
5. 0:10around every corner. Places so bad that
6. 0:13only going over the top could actually
7. 0:15be worse. Trenches dominate our
8. 0:18perspective. But are our perceptions
9. 0:21actually accurate? Well, today we're
10. 0:24going to answer three big questions. Why
11. 0:27did trenches exist? What were they
12. 0:29actually like? And how did the Allies
13. 0:32manage to break the trench deadlock? But
14. 0:35before we do that, a reminder to
15. 0:36subscribe to the Imperial War Museum
16. 0:38YouTube channel for more videos just
17. 0:40like this every 2 weeks. So, let's start
18. 0:44simple. How prevalent were trenches
19. 0:46during the First World War? Well,
20. 0:49trenches were really the defining
21. 0:51concept of the First World War. They
22. 0:53were literally on every front. The the
23. 0:55western front most famously in France
24. 0:57and Belgium. They're in Gallipoli.
25. 0:59They're in the mountains of northern
26. 1:00Italy. They're in the Middle East. Even
27. 1:02in Africa. Trenches were everywhere.
28. 1:05Which then begs the question, why? What
29. 1:08did trenches offer to First World War
30. 1:10armies? Well, trenches are really an
31. 1:12antidote to uh modern weaponry. When the
32. 1:16First World War comes along, everybody
33. 1:17thinks it's going to be a war of
34. 1:18movement with masses of infantry and
35. 1:21cavalry moving forward. classical old
36. 1:23style battle. The reality though was
37. 1:26very different. Attacking armies were
38. 1:28confronted with previously unimaginable
39. 1:31amounts of firepower thanks to new war
40. 1:33fighting technologies.
41. 1:35Machine guns are firing hundreds of
42. 1:37bullets a minute. A modern magazine
43. 1:39rifle that can fire 20 to 30 rounds a
44. 1:42minute. And then you have artillery
45. 1:44firing um shrapnel. These are shells
46. 1:47explode in the air and fire lead bullets
47. 1:49towards the enemy. an absolute killing
48. 1:51zone could be uh created really puts the
49. 1:55emphasis and the advantage with the
50. 1:56defender. So they begin to dig in in
51. 1:581914 and they never stop until the end
52. 2:00of the war. Initially trenches were seen
53. 2:03as a temporary measure, one which armies
54. 2:06would move on from soon enough. These
55. 2:09early trenches were more like ditches,
56. 2:11the kind you'd see at the side of a road
57. 2:13today. But over the course of the war,
58. 2:15they developed into more complex
59. 2:17systems. And you end up with a fire
60. 2:19trench, which is your frontline trench,
61. 2:22then a support trench, and then behind
62. 2:24that, a reserve trench. You've got three
63. 2:26lines connected by what's called
64. 2:28communication trenches, so that men and
65. 2:31material and supplies can move up and
66. 2:33down between the trench lines without
67. 2:35having to go over open ground. As trench
68. 2:37systems developed, sometimes particular
69. 2:40trenches were given names to help
70. 2:42identify them. As you can see in this
71. 2:43picture, sometimes those names related
72. 2:46to familiar places from home. If you
73. 2:48look at the battlements of a castle and
74. 2:50you lay them down on the ground, that's
75. 2:53the pattern you get on a frontline
76. 2:55trench. The idea is that if a shell
77. 2:57lands in one of these bays, it's
78. 2:59contained. The explosions contained, so
79. 3:01you cut down the casualty. Though trench
80. 3:03systems developed, life inside one was
81. 3:06far more rudimentary. When able to rest,
82. 3:10soldiers in frontline trenches would try
83. 3:12and shelter from the elements in
84. 3:14dugouts. And these varied from deep
85. 3:16underground shelters to small hollows in
86. 3:18the side of the trench, as shown here.
87. 3:21Most activity in frontline trenches took
88. 3:24place at night under the cover of
89. 3:26darkness. While during daytime hours,
90. 3:28soldiers would try to get some rest, but
91. 3:30were usually only able to sleep for a
92. 3:32few hours at a time.
93. 3:34And of course um rats they proliferate
94. 3:37around the trenches. They they they feed
95. 3:39on the dead bodies. Men would wake up
96. 3:42with you know face to face with a rat
97. 3:43sitting on their chest. You also get
98. 3:45problems in the summer or in hotter
99. 3:48climates from masses of flies. Of course
100. 3:51flies move from corpses to toilets to
101. 3:54food and that way spreading disease such
102. 3:57things as distant etc. So just your
103. 4:00basic daily life is is pretty
104. 4:03monotonous. And if you think trench life
105. 4:05is boring, the food was worse. According
106. 4:08to Harold Mail of the Durham Light
107. 4:11Infantry, rations were very poor. You
108. 4:13try to brew tea and you couldn't. It was
109. 4:16always cold and probably the water was
110. 4:17all tasted of petrol because it came up
111. 4:19in petrol tins which were never cleaned
112. 4:21out properly. And the tea was half
113. 4:23petrol and cold. The food they were
114. 4:26supposed to give you bacon. Well, you
115. 4:28were lucky if you got a piece of bacon.
116. 4:29It was all cold and greasy. I mean, you
117. 4:32couldn't get any. And the cooks,
118. 4:34probably if a man was a chartered
119. 4:36accountant, they'd make him a cook or
120. 4:38something like that because it was
121. 4:39always square pegs in round holes, you
122. 4:42know. They couldn't cook. We used to say
123. 4:44they couldn't boil water without
124. 4:46spoiling it or something. The food was
125. 4:49terrible,
126. 4:51though. The food was nothing compared to
127. 4:53the everpresent danger. an artillery
128. 4:56shell, a sniper's bullet. Those are two
129. 4:58of the most random ways you can die. The
130. 5:02shells supposedly aren't aimed. They're
131. 5:03just aimed at a particular area of
132. 5:04trench. If you happen to be there at the
133. 5:06wrong time and potentially you're going
134. 5:08to get killed. One minute you were
135. 5:10talking to your best mate and the next
136. 5:12minute he could be gone. And that almost
137. 5:14random death took a real psychological
138. 5:17toll on the soldiers. For that reason,
139. 5:20the armies tried to rotate people
140. 5:22through the line. So the idea you'd stay
141. 5:24in the front line for say four to six
142. 5:26days and then if possible you move back
143. 5:28to the support line for a similar period
144. 5:30of time and the reserve line and then
145. 5:32you get a period of time actually behind
146. 5:34the lines. Naturally being behind the
147. 5:36line was a favorite time for many
148. 5:38soldiers. You could get a hot bath, a
149. 5:41good night's sleep, and a clean pair of
150. 5:43clothes. Many played sports, took part
151. 5:45in amateur dramatics, or even got to
152. 5:47head back to Britain for home leave.
153. 5:50During all this time, there were many
154. 5:52attempts to break the deadlock. Large
155. 5:55and small, new ideas were being
156. 5:57continuously experimented with. The
157. 5:59First World War is is almost like an
158. 6:01arms race between the defense and the
159. 6:03offense. So, the defense develop a new
160. 6:06way of holding ground. Then the
161. 6:08attacking side has to find a way of
162. 6:10overcoming that. If they achieve that,
163. 6:11then again, the defense needs to come up
164. 6:13with a new tactic. Despite the many
165. 6:16welldocumented disasters from the Som to
166. 6:18Pandale, all the time armies were
167. 6:21learning. Officers who had been trained
168. 6:24on classical battle techniques were
169. 6:26beginning to learn how trench warfare
170. 6:28worked while generals were beginning to
171. 6:31master the management of giant armies.
172. 6:34And they try a number of things. They
173. 6:36use mass artillery fire. So they have
174. 6:38these what they call barrage elits where
175. 6:40they fire on set lines for a certain
176. 6:42period of time and they lift forward and
177. 6:44fire again. They lift forward and fire
178. 6:46again and the infantry follow up. They
179. 6:48use poison gas as well. The idea of
180. 6:50poison gas floating and and then later
181. 6:53shell into the lines. The idea is it
182. 6:55makes you put on a gas mask. Once you
183. 6:57put a gas mask on, it's very hard to see
184. 6:59or hear anything. It's hard to breathe
185. 7:01and it just debilitates your ability to
186. 7:03actually fight. So 1916, the British
187. 7:06bring the tank onto the battlefield.
188. 7:08Initially, it's not very successful.
189. 7:09Later in the war, they redefine the
190. 7:11tactics and the way it's used and the
191. 7:13numbers of tanks used. They have new
192. 7:15infantry tactics. You now have light
193. 7:18machine guns, rifle grenades, trench
194. 7:21mortars. The light machine guns,
195. 7:23mortars, etc. lay down fire and then the
196. 7:25infantry would move forward and occupy a
197. 7:27position. It's all of these weapons were
198. 7:29invented at different times. And in 1918
199. 7:32to the allies they all come together. At
200. 7:35the battle of Amy in August 1918, the
201. 7:38largest combined arms offensive of the
202. 7:40war. The allies were finally able to
203. 7:43break the trench deadlock. Those four
204. 7:45years of turgid learning finally brought
205. 7:48about the resumption of open warfare. In
206. 7:51just one day, the allies had made almost
207. 7:53unheard of advances. pushing into the
208. 7:56German line 11 km deep on a 24 km wide
209. 8:00front. It was so successful that General
210. 8:04Ludenorf called it the black day of the
211. 8:06German army. I think the trench capture
212. 8:10captures public imagination probably
213. 8:11goes down as the defining feature of the
214. 8:14first world war. The current view is
215. 8:16that every day was like the first day of
216. 8:17the song which he blatantly wasn't.
217. 8:20Casualties were terrible on a terrible
218. 8:22scale, but we were fighting uh a total
219. 8:25war at that time. The whole trenched
220. 8:28experience was was a was a terrible
221. 8:31experience, but but the men fought
222. 8:32through it and they never lost sort of
223. 8:36their faith in the fact that they had to
224. 8:38fight that war to a successful
225. 8:39conclusion. I think that that's a really
226. 8:41important part to draw out.