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​World War I Trench - 1917

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​​​​This World War I Trench scene illustrates some of the conditions soldiers of the Great War used to face from 1914 to 1918.  In many cases, the front line hardly moved at all over the course of the war.  In areas where fighting had been severe, it was not uncommon for many bodies to decay between the lines in No Man's Land.  The stench of the front lines would greet soldiers on their way to the trenches miles before they ever got there.  Rats, lice and disease were rampant among the trenches.  In some cases, the mud would be deep enough for a man to drown in if he stepped off the wooden duckboards.  Add to all that the elements of poison gas attacks, frequent artillery bombardments, nightly trench raids, full-out assaults back-and-forth between front line trenches, belts of barbed wire in No Man's Land to delay infantry mobility, machine gun nests and the advent of airplanes as weapons of war, and conditions on the front made World War I one of the most horrific wars to endure and difficult to survive.