The Trench

From the end of 1914, trench warfare illustrated the importance of special artillery suitable for use in the trenches: sort-range and relatively light-weight, it would fire powerful projectiles on a high trajectory. This led to the creation of trench mortars, known as crapouillots.

Observation posts allowed soldiers to observe the battlefield and adversary (their main role), sound the alarm in the event of assaults or attacks, and guide artillery fire. This small battlefield construction had to be camouflaged and well protected (armoured dome or bunker). It would often have means of communication.

This one is a mine tunnel entrance: an underground tunnel dug by sappers to carve out a mine chamber under enemy trenches before causing an explosion. They could be either active or abandoned. Tunnel warfare, or mining, involved tunnelling under enemy positions and destroying them using explosives. Camouflets were used to neutralize enemy counter-mine tunnels.

These features were built into the design of trench profiles, incorporating a parapet and a parados. The parapet was an edge protecting the trench from enemy fire. It was made of soil and consolidated using sandbags. The parapet also included defensive features like firesteps, which were made out of wood, soil or sandbags and were used by soldiers as benches or firing positions. Soldiers were therefore protected and could lean against them to fire while resting the barrel of their rifles on the embrasures, which was less tiring. Embrasures were gaps in the parapet, which were left to observe the enemy and fire rifles. The parados protected fighters from behind and was formed of a bank of soil, sandbags, and a palisade of defensive stakes. The ground was often covered with duckboards, formed of wooden planks with gaps that were placed at the bottom of trenches to even out and consolidate the ground and enable soldiers to move around despite rain, mud and accumulating water.

This was a front-line shelter that protected soldiers only from bad weather. They were cavities dug into the soil for one or two men.

Machine gun positions could protect the trench leading to the listening post, from either side.

Listening posts were often advanced beyond the barbed wire, to about 50 metres forward of the trench. They were protected by their own small barbed wire network. They were accessible via a communication trench, which was either underground or covered with barbed wire. The listening post would be occupied by lookouts, and bombardiers or grenadiers. Soldiers deployed to the listening post were responsible for listening in on enemy activities and gathering intelligence, warning the trenches to the rear in the event of an assault, and holding out until the last moment with rifles and grenades. After withdrawing, the soldiers from the listening post would activate an automatic blocking system built into the listening post’s access trench.

No man’s land was the neutral, devastated and uninhabited strip between the positions of the two adversaries. Its width would vary from a few dozen metres to a few hundred. The bodies of dead soldiers, various types of debris (ruins, remains of trees) and thousands of abandoned metal and wooden objects (such as cartridge cases, munitions crates, helmets, canteens and corkscrew pickets) were scattered across this cratered zone. Supporting defences were placed all across no man’s land, and particularly barbed wire. These defences, placed a few dozen metres forward of the trench over a strip about 10 metres wide, aimed to block, slow and channel the progress of the enemy. Countering these defences required destructive means (it took a large quantity of artillery munitions to destroy a section a few metres long) and designing ways to neutralize them (cutters, mobile shields, grappling hooks, and various explosive devices like strings of charges).

Rudimentary field latrines (holes, abandoned trenches) were used, which were hidden from sight with branches. They were accessed through special trenches. The holes were deep to avoid having to replace them too often.

Shelters were central to the daily lives of the soldiers. They lived there, and the quality of the construction was a question of life and death. There was a wide variety of shelters, ranging from basic holes covered with tarpaulins or canvas to deep underground constructions, sometimes with several levels, which were more comfortable, potentially built with concrete, and might even have electricity. Living conditions in the shelters varied considerably, depending on the nature of the terrain, the violence of the fighting, how long the shelters had been occupied, and soldiers’ rank.

Shelters were dug deep, always had one narrow entrance (occasionally a second), were often propped up with wood, and could be furnished (bunk beds, tables, chairs, candlesticks, etc.).

We present here a small front line aid post, to provide initial treatment before evacuation to the rear.