OH, WHAT A LOVELY WAR
The first myth to dispel is the notion that trenches must be equated only with death and disfigurement. Casualty rates were highest when the war was fluid and mobile - as it was in 1914 and 1918 - and were comparatively lower when bogged down in mud and inertia. Trenches, in a strange way, saved lives and, though they weren't always pleasant, were always preferable to going over the top and taking one's chances in no-man's-land.
Second, trenches shouldn't always be visualised solely as tunnels of squalor and misery. Earth, rain and primitive sanitation can combine to produce vile conditions, but this wasn't a universal experience. In some places and at some times, trench life could be quite agreeable. The testimony of too many enlisted men is impossible to ignore:
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German soldiers relax round a piano during a quiet moment in the war
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British soldiers enjoy a tug-of-war behind the lines
(NARA) |
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'I'm with officers and sergeants who are great fun. There is lots of schnapps and wine and every day we get so drunk we forget whether we are at war or in civvy street.'
A German soldier writing to his brother (Munich State Archives)
'We sometimes got out of the trench into the tall grass behind, which the sun had dried, and enjoyed a warm indolence with a book [not Infantry Training, I think]. The war seemed to have forgotten us in that placid sector.'
Lieutenant Edmund Blunden
'I feel great. I have never lived so well and probably never will again. I have just joined our sports club. This evening someone got a football. Now we can play football, racing, long-jump. Chocolate is the prize, donated by our platoon commander.'
Diary of August Bader, a German soldier (Bibliothek für Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart)
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