Landscapes of the Western Front by Ross Wilson

Author:Ross Wilson [Wilson, Ross]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War I, Europe, Great Britain, General, Western, Modern, 20th Century
ISBN: 9781136500077
Google: vcJd-sTaQ6gC
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-06-17T01:17:58+00:00

5 In the Trenches

INTRODUCTION

The battlefields and trenches were always central to the soldiers’ experiences of being stationed in France and Belgium. Despite the contacts with home, the activities set up by the General Staff and charitable organisations, as well as the attractions of life in the cities, towns and villages in another country, moving ‘up the line’ was still the occupation that governed their lives. Within the spaces of the trenches, dugouts and the battlefield landscape of no-man’s-land the soldiers moved through and attributed a ‘sense of place’ and meaning. These areas were imbued with values and associations that reflected the soldiers’ lives, their experiences and their perceptions. Alongside these processes of meaning-making and acclimatising to a very different and potentially hostile place, the trenches were also spaces which were highly governed and organised. Within this area the soldiers’ lives were rigorously monitored and structured by the General Staff to ensure that the ‘fighting spirit’ was maintained within the ranks. Therefore, the area of the front line was itself a multilayered phenomenon. As the landscape of the battlefield was criss-crossed by the network of trenches, so too were the meanings of that war landscape. This specific space was overlaid with personal associations, military objectives and distinct social worlds for those who inhabited and fought in the area. Whereas the connections between the soldiers at the front and their families and friends in Britain were maintained by a variety of material, cultural and social ties, ‘the trenches’ were a unique experience for the soldiers of the British Army. From regulars, territorials, volunteers and conscripts the battlefield was the war that they knew.

This specific experience of the war, of inhabiting the places and spaces of the conflict and handling the material of battle, marked this group of men as distinctive amongst themselves and how they perceived others around them. This was the distinctive feature of the war landscape: just as the soldiers of the British Army remade the battlefield using heavy artillery, digging new features into the earth and spreading barbed wire and debris across the countryside of France and Belgium, the battlefield in turn fashioned the soldiers who operated within it. This is a fundamental point of a variety of approaches of studying the relationships between individuals and groups and the places they inhabit (Relph 1976; Werlen 1993). It enables the study of understanding the network of associations and meanings that individuals create within the world around them. In this case, the reciprocal relationship between the soldiers and the war landscape produced further examples of the ‘war culture’ within the British Army. This formed a means for soldiers to endure the difficult conditions and the fluctuating extremes of being in the trenches. These fluctuations are aptly summarised by Peacock who describes in his memoirs the overwhelming experience of many soldiers in the British Army:

Life in an infantry unit in the Western Front was one of hardship, discomfort and boredom punctuated with intense fear and excitement.

(Peacock 1974: 63)

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