King's Own Royal Regiment Museum

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The Great War 1914-1918

Trench Warfare

Typical trench scene, men of the 1/5th Battalion, at Zillebeke, May 1915
Accession Number: KO0784/049

The usual precaution against ‘trench foot’ (caused by long immersion of the feet in water and mud) was to rub from above the knee to the foot with whale oil. Sometimes boots had to be cut off to expose black and rotting feat. Few trenches had adequate drainage. Some did not even have duck boarding to walk on. ‘Trench fever’ was traced to infection by the bites of lice, it was not serious, but meant a man had to be withdrawn from the front.

'Chatting' or removing the flees and lice from clothing.
Accession Number KO0784/064

There was little thought given to hygiene and sanitation. Often men killed were buried just behind the trench.

Photograph: 1st/5th King’s Own, 1915 Graves in no mans land Loos 1915
Accession Number: KO0784/121

There were no toilets. Some trenches, especially in the early days, lacked communication trenches to the rear and all movements in the ‘fire zone’ had to be undertaken by cover of darkness. Sometimes ration parties did not get to the front and troops had to go without food and water for more than twenty four hours.

Many men suffered frost bite in the winter.

Rifles and machine guns became caked in mud. Everything got bogged down.

Photograph: 1st/5th King’s Own, 1915 Captain Fawcett in support trenches.  Note the bugle used to sound the advance.
Accession Number: KO0784/036

Shelling brought down telephone wires and communications became difficult. In ‘the fog of war’ it was difficult to know what was going on - and sometimes difficult to know who was in command.

Men of the 1st/5th Battalion attempt to mend telephone wires at Loos, September 1915.
Accession Number KO0784/111

Life in the trenches was worse for the men of 2nd Battalion. They had no time to acclimatise from the Indian heat to the January cold of the Western Front.

Under cover of darkness when there was some distance between the opposing lines a party under a NCO would crawl out into no man’s land to listen for sign of enemy movement. Each moment seemed an eternity - men lay motionless whilst rats crawled over them, and owls flitted around the shattered and blackened limbs of the few trees. An occasional shell would drop nearby and men would be buried alive and have to be dug out.

Photograph: 1st/5th King’s Own, 1915 Looking back from Hohenzolleren Loos 1915
Accession Number: KO0784/122

Very lights would illuminate the night sky and every man would lie perfectly still for fear of been spotted in its bright glare. [‘That evening star shell’ by Bairnsfather. KO2090/19]

By day soldiers there was very little to do. When not on sentry duty many would snatch a little sleep. Others would get a hair cut or shaved.

13 Platoon of D Company, 1st Battalion, King's Own in the support trenches at St. Julien, Ypres Salient, Belgium, 1915.  Sergeant Mann is shaving Corporal Brierley.  The soldier in the front centre is unknown, Private Fuzzy can just be seen behind him.  The two men in the centre of the photograph are Sergeant Williams on the left and Sergeant Noble on the right.
Accession Number KO0081/12

Boredom was a big problem. Never far away was the roar of shells, and the ‘fut-fut’ of the machine guns.

Shelling Menin Road, near Ypres, Belgium, 1915.  Private Carr is sat in the trench, you can see the 'T 5 King's Own' brass shoulder title in the bottom right hand corner.
Accession Number: KO0784/047

The next evening would bring plenty work - sand bags and barbed wire damaged by shelling would have to be replaced. Each sand bag took three men to fill it - one to hold it open, one to shovel, and one to scrape the mud off the shovel.

Photograph: 1st/5th King’s Own, 1915 Shelling near Sanctuary Wood, 23 May 1915
Accession Number: KO0784/046

Horns and gongs were sounded to warn of a gas attack. Blankets, soaked with chemicals, covered the entrances to dug outs to stop the drifting gas clouds from entering.

Captain Milnes, wearing a gas mask, with Major Fawcett. Steel helmets were not introduced until after October 1915.
Accession Number KO0784/090

Firing rifle grenades, 1915.  1st/5th Battalion, King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment.
Accession Number KO0784/104

Snipers

Sniper of the 1st/5th Battalion, King's Own, 1915 wearing snipers mask.
Accession Number KO0784/052

Snipers were used by both sides - they shot at any man who moved. They were always on the look out for officers - insignia on the sleeves and shoulders gave their rank. The mask was to protect his face and to give him maximum camouflage from German snipers.

A marked difference by the winter of 1917 was that the Germans no longer had so great an advantage in their snipers. The issue of telescopic lenses and the establishment of army schools of sniping under the direction of big game hunters had done much to restore the balance.

Snipers regularly claimed a victim - as did the odd shell - amongst carrying and working parties, troops on the march or just the soldier writing home.

Machine Guns

Each battalion had two machine guns at the start of the war, this was quickly doubled to four. By 1915 this had increased to eight. From October 1915 machine gunners, and their Vickers guns, were transferred from the infantry to the newly formed Machine Gun Corps.

The machine gun was very much an offensive weapon - it could put down a barrage of fire through which advance was not possible.

© Images are copyright, Trustees of the King's Own Royal Regiment Museum.
 You must seek permission prior to publication of any of our images.