World War I by Zachary Kent

Author:Zachary Kent [Kent, Zachary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4645-0416-7
Publisher: Enslow Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2011-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

Life in the Trenches

American troops began reaching the Western Front in great numbers during the first months of 1918. In the Picardy sector, the American First Division began its life in the trenches. The deep trenches were wickered and sandbagged, and long crosscuts were added to prevent damage by shell bursts and mortar fire. Most trenches were deeper than a man’s height and about a yard wide. The walls were reinforced by a kind of fence work made by interlacing wooden sticks. “Duck boards,” a kind of wooden sidewalk, stretched along the bottom to make walking easier.

The soldiers rose at dawn and breakfasted on hardtack crackers, bacon, and coffee. Rolling kitchens behind the lines prepared hot food and sent it up. Cooks made mush from cornmeal and fried tinned salmon, which they called “goldfish.” The soldiers called beef stew “slumgullion” and the stringy corned beef they ate “monkey meat.”

During the winter months of 1918, the Western Front experienced no great battles. Poisonous gas clouds sometimes drifted over. The night skies over the shell-cratered middle ground often glowed with artillery fireworks. Soldiers were killed or wounded by snipers while on guard duty. At night, patrols crawled out into No-Man’s-Land to listen for any enemy activity. Sergeant Merritt D. Cutler of the 27th Division remembered, “it was frightening to realize that you were only fifty to a hundred yards away from some men whose main aim was to kill you.”

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