Life in the Trenches

What was life really like in the trenches of the First World War? In this episode, we step into the mud of the Western Front to hear about the horrors that soldiers faced; from artillery bombardments and sniper fire to disease, rats and relentless weather. Joining us is Joshua Levine, author of "Forgotten Voices of the Somme", to explain the daily dangers soldiers faced, and the remarkable ways they survived. Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Matthew Wilson. We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6 Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcast Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dan Snow?

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• 0:32Speaker 01

  This is a paid partnership with Apple Card. The coolest flex at brunch these days is not the Bloody Mary with the bottomless gold flake caviar topping. It's not whipping out your wallet to pay. It's not having a wallet at all. Jack's been an Apple Card user since 2019. That's the same year he tossed his wallet in the trash. Because Apple Card holders earn 2% daily cash back on purchases made using Apple Pay. It's the only credit card designed for the iPhone. I tap to pay with Apple Card at the grocery store, at the gas station, at restaurants. And yes, I use it at my second home, the farmer's market. Jack tapping to pay with his Apple Card with Apple Pay is his favourite thing to do. And the pleasant vibration and chime sound means I just got 2% daily cash back on my latest purchase. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval.

• 1:15Speaker 01

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• 1:23Dan Snow?

  The worst time and place in history. Maybe life in the trenches of World War One. It wasn't just about facing the enemy, it was about surviving all sorts of other things. The filth, the disease, the frostbite, the psychological challenge. Imagine mud stretching as far as the eye can see, wooden planks barely keeping your feet from sinking, sandbagged walls rising only a few feet around you, walls in which remains of the unburied dead stuck out. The air is thick with smoke, the thrum of artillery shakes the ground beneath your feet.

• 2:07Dan Snow?

  Around you, soldiers lived shoulder to shoulder. There are rats and filth. You know that at any moment, a shell could explode, a rifle bullet could tear into you, or a deadly cloud of gas could drift over that parapet. For four long years, millions of men endured this harsh claustrophobic reality, where even the smallest injury or illness could prove fatal. In today's episode, we're going to be exploring how soldiers managed to survive this relentless environment, what threats lurked in the trenches beyond enemy

• 2:47Dan Snow?

  fire, and the human ingenuity, the resilience, the camaraderie that kept them alive through one of history's deadliest wars. And not just alive. In fact, for some of them, they even enjoyed it. I'm joined by Joshua Levine, author of lots and lots of wonderful books, most pertinent today's discussion, Forgotten Voices of the Somme, and that draws on firsthand accounts to document the day-to-day struggles of trench life and the heat of combat during the Battle of Somme. Right, let's get into it.

• 3:23Dan Snow?

  Joshua Levine, good to see you.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  Lovely to be here, Dan, thanks.

• 3:26Dan Snow?

  Let's take the biggest question out of the way first. We talk about trench warfare, we talk about the Western Front. So from, let's say, late 1914 to 1916, that era, what is a trench? What would it have looked like?

• 3:39Speaker 02

  So well, let's define what a trench is in the first place, because it's not necessarily straightforward. A trench, clearly, is digging in in order to defend yourself from whatever the enemy is throwing at you, whether it's coming at you, whether it's firing at you, and has been around for thousands of years. It's a really basic, fundamental idea. And over the years, it became more elaborate. You did have trench systems, but they were only ever intended to be temporary, you know, in the American Civil War, in the Boer War, the years leading up to the First World War. But at the time of the First World War, None of this, none of what happened was in any way anticipated. It was going to be

• 4:21Speaker 02

  a mobile war. At the beginning, it was a mobile war, but you had the Germans held up as they were advancing at the Marne, and then you had them building a series of trenches, and the British, in response, built trenches. And I've got this extraordinary account that I found in the National Archive from an observer, so someone flying alongside a pilot, because the aeroplanes at this point were doing reconnaissance, looking down and on the aim on the 13th of September, so, you know, really soon into the war, seeing the Germans building trenches. That's really the, that's the kickoff point for the First

• 5:03Speaker 02

  World War as we know it. So then the British would build, or the Allies would build trenches, and that began the race to the sea. And what that meant was basically trying to outflank, trying to outflank, trying to outflank, but every time an outflanking move was made, another trench was built. So trench, trench, trench, trench, trench, all the way to the North Sea on one side, and the frontier with Switzerland on the other side. So what, over 400 miles you're talking about?

• 5:29Dan Snow?

  The firepower revolution has happened, so the air is so full of supersonic shell fragments and shrapnel and rifle bullets, machine gun bullets, that actually to be, to stay alive, you have to go underground.

• 5:42Speaker 02

  And if you think about the developments that have been made, so this is a time of incredible development in terms of weaponry. So what were some of these developments? Well, you know, in terms of artillery, you know, guns didn't have to be recalibrated. You know, in the old days, they would, you know, jump backwards and you'd have to mount them, set them up again. Didn't have to do that now. So, you know, your rate of fire was so much quicker, and also the, you know, the power, the strength of them. You know, I was trying to work it out the other day, that one of the, you know, the stock field gun, British field gun, the 18-pounder, I think it could, what could it fire to? It could fire, if you put it in Charing Cross, I think I'm right in saying it could, it could hit Golders Green.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  Want to, but but but you could. And and even the machine guns, you know, the the the development of the machine guns, you know, you had the Vickers gun, which was the heavy gun on British side. The Lewis gun, which was the the light machine gun, could be carried by one man. It could be fired from the shoulder, fired from the hip or set up on a bipod. You know, that could, that could reach Camden Town, I worked out, you know. These were, and firing hundreds of rounds a minute.

• 6:51Dan Snow?

  So one man effectively is now able to have pack the punch of an entire battalion of infantry in the hundred years previously.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  And if you look at communications, um, for example, field telephones which relied on wires. Much easier to go backwards, you know, if you're if you're advancing, you basically lose communication. Um, the developments in defenses like barbed wire, which could channel people into killing zones as they came forward. All of these developments were really helping the defenders. You know, they weren't, they weren't useful particularly to the attackers. And in a situation like that, the ultimate defense is a trench. You know, you can get into a trench, you can, you're not safe. You know, in the in the early years, in the later years, if a shell, you know, as artillery becomes more and more

• 7:42Speaker 02

  important and there's more and more of it and and the the economies of the nations gear up to building more and more guns. You know, a shell lands in your trench. Lands near you, you know, you're you're you're for it. Um, and there are snipers everywhere. You always have to be careful of snipers. There are a lot of ways to die in a trench. But they're a hell of a lot safer than being above ground. So this is why they developed and this is why the war became one of stasis for so many years.

• 8:12Dan Snow?

  And our the our sort of i- image of the First World War is people, not not even necessarily the big offensives, the big battles, it's just people, the way they lived and just sort of fought attritionally in these trenches for for for months, for years on end. Now, ta- tell me, would i- is it, is it, is that, is that a myth? Is it true? Did would would would units be living in this sort of muddy trench?

• 8:36Speaker 02

  No, um, I I think that is one of the myths that, you know, people arrived in the trench. They stayed in the trench and they came out of the trench on Armistice Day, you know, that that's not what happened. I mean, and there were practical reasons for the rotation. Well, basically, you would be in the frontline trench. Four, five, six days at most, then you would probably go back to the support trench, which was behind. So the frontline trench, basically, you had, you had a fire step. It would be what, it would be, you know, a bit taller than a man. It would have a fire step that you would stand on in order to see over the top, to see what was ahead. You probably have a periscope there.

• 9:18Speaker 02

  It would be quite heavily riveted, it would be built up with sandbags, it would be built up with wood. And you would have, you might have funk holes at the front, which were.

• 9:29Dan Snow?

  Little, what, dugouts, almost like a little bunk bed, like one of those Scandinavian bunk beds.

• 9:33Speaker 02

  Just a, just a little hole, really, that a man could squeeze into. And they were actually discouraged because they were sort of undermining the trenches. But people did it because they did it. And you would have dugouts, not particularly elaborate dugouts, but, you know, enough for officers, for whatever, really. I mean, people like to say, oh, yes, this was for X, this was for Y. You know, you've got a, you've got a huge system of trenches covering hundreds of miles over, over four years. I mean, they did, they were used for what they were used for.

• 10:06Dan Snow?

  And so you spend not, not that long, a couple of days.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  You spent a few days in the frontline.

• 10:11Dan Snow?

  But you'd get muddy and filthy.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  You'd get absolutely muddy and filthy, and again, it depended where you were. You know, it depended on the time of year, and it depended on many, many things. But yes, I mean, it is true to say that a lot of the time you were living in filth. You were living with rats, you were living with lice, you, you might have trench foot. You know, trench foot was, you know, the boots were leather, they were perfectly good. I think they got better boots in nineteen fifteen. But, you know, twenty thousand people had trench foot by the end of nineteen fourteen. And your feet got wet, cold, they never dried out, and they almost started to rot. You know, people ended up with gangrene, they were losing toes, they were losing.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  And so, you know, you had, you had foot inspection, you know, in the morning, where officers, it's a surreal picture. Officers were sort of inspecting the feet of their men. It's almost like the, you know, the pope kissing the feet of the, of the people. And, and they would rub whale oil in, into their feet, into their socks, the, the boots.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Where the, you know, changed slightly so they were rough on the outside so you could rub oil in and make them more waterproof. In certain very wet areas, Flanders for example, um, people were given uh rubber waders or rubber boots. So that was, you know, that way. And then after, after they'd more or less eradicated it, it was um, it actually became a crime. It was considered a self-inflicted wound to have uh, to have trench fever. Trench fever, you got from the feces of lice, um, and basically you had the lice you'd be scratching and the feces would get inside or the poison would get inside. And that was a really nasty disease. It took a while to incubate and then you were, you know, high fever and pain

• 11:59Speaker 02

  for five days. It would go, it would come back. And then it was one of these kind of things. We'll probably move on to this, but you know, because you were out of action potentially for three months, didn't kill you. Um, people saw it as almost as good as a blighty wound. You know, you were out of the line for three months. You felt terrible, but you weren't going to die. Um, so you know, there was that, there was the mud, there was the cold.

• 12:21Dan Snow?

  And the unburied dead from previous attacks?

• 12:23Speaker 02

  Unburied dead, unburied dead inside the trenches. You know, that you sometimes the walls were built up. You know, there, there was um, a story, one man uh, was talking about walking down one of the communication trenches, you know, to get to the front line. And he said there was an arm sticking out and we never moved it because it became a sort of friend. You know, we'd, we'd, some people would shake his hand, some people would say, you know, hello chum. And it became, you know, it's part of the grim humor, but, but you know, it's, it also shows that there were people inside the, you know, the, the fabric of the trench. One man said, you know, he moved into a trench that had recently

• 13:01Speaker 02

  been a French trench and he was doing some wiring one night in front and he, he fell into basically um, some bodies, some decomposed bodies. And he said it was the most disgusting feeling. He sort of pulled himself out of it. It was a little, I think he said it was like jam. And he pulled himself, I mean, can you imagine just the, the astonishing?

• 13:26Dan Snow?

  And we haven't really talked about enemy fire particularly yet, but so that's the condition in the frontline trench. You mentioned the communication trench, so they have a lot of time on their hands, a lot of bodies, so they're they're digging back to a second line of trenches and even a third line, are they? And but so the troops are sort of rotating through, so after some time in the frontline, you might go back to second line. So you'd have a very different experience and then beyond the third line, you might go back to have a bit of R and R way back. So your experience on the western front would be very different depending on your rotation.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And, you know, like I said, there is this idea you were always there, stand to, and you're always ready to go over the top. Of course, that's not true. The support trench, which would be, I don't know, about 100 yards behind, you'd have been a kind of reserve troop and there'd be supplies in there, there'd be soldiers ready to move forward if necessary. You'd have a reserve trench quite a lot further back, 500 yards further back, and there you might have a regimental aid post, you know, the first of the the medical posts, you might have a command post, you might have a, I don't know, some kind of.

• 14:35Dan Snow?

  Bit of a bigger kitchen perhaps.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 14:38Dan Snow?

  Punching out some hot food.

• 14:39Speaker 02

  And then you at the rear, and then you have communication trenches leading all the way back. You know, it was a proper maze. If you were arriving in the trenches, you would hopefully have a guide to bring you forward because, you know, it was very complicated to know exactly where trenches had names. You know, communication trenches had names, the junctions had names, you know, from wherever the local troops were from. If they were Scottish, they'd be Glasgow names, London might be Piccadilly Circus. And so it was a complicated business. You would go back to the reserve trench. You would go behind the lines, whereas you say you would have some, you know, you'd have a bath for one thing. You'd be able to clean up, you'd be able to go and see a concert party, you could, you know, there were things you could do.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  And then you might get some leave, you know, every year, 18 months, you might get to go home. And that's another story again, because you were living such a different life to anyone at home that it could be a great relief to be home, or it could be a massive culture shock and a disappointment.

• 15:42Dan Snow?

  And they're year round, and in a way, it's that rotation that allows you, because in the in winter, some of those frontline trenches. If if you kept men in for a long time, they they die. So but it but it's the fact that we got the sophisticated system, massive state funded, state backed. Uh, you know, sophisticated modern nation states are able to keep these sort of people in these trenches.

• 16:06Speaker 02

  To keep a city, to keep.

• 16:07Dan Snow?

  Keep a city in the field.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  It's not even a city, because it's over such a wide, you know, it's way bigger than the city. And and yes, so so they had to keep that absolutely going. You know, you had massive, you know, bakery behind the lines that would be delivered. You'd have people constantly.

• 16:24Dan Snow?

  Light railway bringing supplies.

• 16:26Speaker 02

  Railway, well, light railway and then, you know, heavy railway, you know, going back to the ports. And so you had a so let's give examples of this. You had a system, a med, you had a kind of a medical system and a postal system working in reverse of each other. So essentially, if you were wounded, you have the stretcher bearers picking you up. They would take you, you know, back to the regimental aid post. You would then go back to a whole series of further medical posts. Um, you know, a a advanced posts, main posts, then back to a a a spot where you could actually have surgery. And then back to a main hospital and then back to the port where you'd be taken back to England.

• 17:11Speaker 02

  All of this was so carefully worked out. Now, it didn't always work, but like the health service, it didn't always work, but it was there for you. And so, you know, you would only get, you know, the preliminary spots, you'd get triage, basically. You know, you might, you get at the regimental, the first one, you get some morphine. And then more could be done for you. The Thomas splint, I don't know if you've heard of this Thomas splint. You know, this extraordinary development where, you know, if you had a femur injury, it was really a death sentence before this. You know, you would be carried and you'd have the ends of the bones against each other. The pain would be astonishing and you would lose so many people to to to to to gangrene and to to to whatever else.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  This was a splint, you know, it would, it would keep the, the leg steady. And it meant that people could be carried long distances and they could live. Credible development, all, you know, it was, it was actually pre-war, but it was perfected at this time. And this was all part of the medical system that would allow you to be taken further back as was necessary. Until you could actually be operated on. Now, don't get me wrong, the, the purpose of all this was to bring you back into action. As quickly as possible, you know, this wasn't, you know, to give people a nice, you know, bit of rest and. Um, but having said that, it was done well.

• 18:42Speaker 02

  And a lot of people uh ended up, you know, back in England with, with honorable discharges. Now, I've just found recently fantastic story of a man who was sent all the way back, you know, in great pain. Ended up in a hospital um in England and he was visited every day by one of these sort of do good, do good women. Sort of a, you know, a certain class who visit him and she kept asking him. Um, where were you hurt? Where were you wounded? And he tried to put her off by saying, um, you know, in France and, and she said, no, no. Where we, and eventually he got fed up and he said, madam, if you were wounded where I was wounded, you would not have been wounded at all.

• 19:22Dan Snow?

  Yikes.

• 19:22Speaker 02

  And she left and she never came back and, and so, you know, th- this is the idea, you know, all these different kinds of wounds, injuries. Some were able to come back. So, you know, for example, if you had trench fever, you were taken off for a bit of a, you know, a bit of a rest. And then you were brought back as soon as possible. But if you had something more serious, you ended up as one of those unfortunate people back in. Back in England who, you know, after the war ended up begging on the streets. So, you know, it, it, it. But the reverse of that was the postal system. Because the, the authorities were very clever. In the same way that they rotated, they didn't rotate because they wanted people to have a, a decent time. They rotated because they knew if you were in the front line for too long. You were useless.

• 20:07Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  You know, you weren't getting any sleep. You were getting, if you're lucky, four or five hours of of broken sleep a night lying on the on the fire step. So, you know, you were doing all of these incredibly stressful jobs. So you had to be, you you were no use. You had to be brought back and and allowed to have more rest. Well, another thing that was very practical was the postal system. It kept morale up. You had, if people were getting letters from home on a regular basis or getting fruit cakes.

• 20:36Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 20:36Speaker 02

  Or chocolate.

• 20:37Dan Snow?

  A sock, socks knitted by your heroin, yes.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Um, we can come on to that, but but um, or socks. Exactly, socks. Or whale oil, I don't know where that came from. But, you know, then they were going to be happier. You you wanted people, clearly, you want, didn't want people complaining all the time. They're going to do that anyway, so you, but you didn't want them to do it too much. So this postal system was astonishing. You know, you would have millions and millions of letters arriving a day. And they were, you know, they'd be brought to a sort of couple of central hubs in London, I think City, Regent's Park, and then brought to the coast and then brought over in steamers and then brought again in stages, very much like going back on the hospitals.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  They'd be brought to basically um, a a sort of trench post office, a sort of frontline post office, and be delivered into the trenches. And I think that's remarkable, actually. And all of this set up in such a short period of time. When it mattered, they could do it. And uh, and it also gives you a sense of what the the authorities had to set up quickly. You know, how how the economy had to change, how industry had to change, how everything had to be changed, when a very large portion of the British public were now living in France.

• 21:52Dan Snow?

  It's amazing what we can do when we put our minds to it.

• 21:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:55Dan Snow?

  It's extraordinary. It's a shame it tends to be in the face of war and.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:59Dan Snow?

  Uh, Joshua, more from you in a second. Don't go away, folks. This is Dan Snow's History. We're talking about trench warfare. This episode is brought to you by Decagon. If you've ever been trapped in phone tree hell, pushing zero 50 times while a voice robot pretends not to hear you, you know true psychological warfare. It's brutal, folks. Thankfully, that kind of horror is now confined to the history books. Customer service has evolved. Decagon helps companies create personalized, concierge-style customer experiences with AI agents across chat, email, voice, and SMS. They're available 24/7, feel natural to talk to, and can resolve customer requests on their own so businesses can keep up with requests without losing their personal touch.

• 22:42Dan Snow?

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• 23:16Dan Snow?

  This episode is brought to you by TikTok. I never thought about the history of coffee. You make it, you drink it, nothing more to it. Then I've had a TikTok video about how people in the 1700s would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it. I love that sort of discovery. A detail, but suddenly you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialized. Now I wonder what will baffle historians about us? Mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.

• 24:00Speaker 01

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• 24:42Speaker 01

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• 24:51Speaker 03

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• 25:35Dan Snow?

  Josh, that gives a sense of the trenches, a dangerous, often boring place to be at the best of times.

• 25:44Dan Snow?

  Let's talk about the worst of times. A place like Flanders, people will be familiar with, very, very famous in the First World context, low-lying, below sea level sometimes, or at sea level.

• 25:54Dan Snow?

  Drainage systems smashed, so marsh, bog, so the trenches become those drainage systems, so you're wading around in water, effluent mud, sewage, muck. January, December, February, I mean, night, nightmarish. As well as all that, you've got the enemy. So you've got no man's land, and then what's got, you've, what, you've got snipers. Tell me that, what, how, how many ways to die are there in a trench?

• 26:20Speaker 02

  Many, many ways to die in a trench. So, I mean, I suppose you've got to make the point that the trench was relatively safe. You know, if you were going over the top on an advance, you know, you were, you were in a great deal more danger. But there were many ways to die in the trench, or indeed at night, coming out of the trench. So, you, you're, I suppose, your, your biggest danger was, on a day-to-day basis, was artillery. So the trenches would all be, they wouldn't be straight, they would be zigzagged. And of course, if you think about it, that makes perfect sense. You'd have these traverses.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  And the idea being that if a shell exploded in the trench, the, the, the force of it couldn't go all the way down. It would be broken by these crenelations, if you like. And it also meant that if somebody got into your trench, enemy got into it, they couldn't fire all the way down. Or indeed, if a group got in, you know, they couldn't just run all the way down, they were sort of held up as they, as they moved along. So, that made perfect sense. It wasn't just the frontline trench, but certainly the frontline trench had to be, had to be like that. So it was miserable inside, but it also had that level of protection, particularly against artillery shells. Now, people coming into a trench for the first time were in quite a lot of danger because they didn't know how to live in it.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  And the first thing you do, always, was to keep your head down. Because the trenches were at variable heights. You know, they weren't all built to a, to a specification. You know, these weren't Ikea trenches, they were just placed there. They were, they had to be built, and they had to be built, given whatever was there, the geography and the conditions at the time. So people arriving in would either be sort of lackadaisical and wouldn't know to get their heads down. You only had to pop your head up for a second, the sniper would take your, take your head off. Or they would throw themselves down at the slightest noise. And, and in fact, what's something that the, the frontline officers liked to do was, you

• 28:26Speaker 02

  know, when you had a staff officer coming up from behind, they enjoyed it when the staff officer came up and was so scared that they threw themselves down at every, you know, that was, you know, that, that constant sort of, you know, competition and rivalry and sort of antipathy between the staff officer and the frontline officer. That was, that was very much at play. But, so there was a great danger, and you know, snipers were, were a great danger. So people, not only did they have to keep their heads down, not only were the signs up, you know, reminding people to keep their heads down, people, you know, they had different ways, you know, war being the mother of invention. I, I read about one man, we used to be able to isolate snipers. What we used to try to do, we'd

• 29:06Speaker 02

  put a turnip on the parapet. And then the sniper hopefully would fire and fire through it. And you could see the direction of it coming. Then you'd put another turnip up at a different point. And you'd fire through that. And you'd be able to sort of work out Triangulate, really? Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure how successful that was, but you know, it's what, it's what, it's what we used to do. And you had to be very, very careful of snipers. You had your own snipers, obviously. And so periscopes were, were, were probably, they even had a setup where you could sort of remotely fire a gun through some sort of mechanical. So you didn't even have to put your head up over, over, over the trench. Sometimes people were incredibly lucky, found lots of accounts, lots, but accounts of, of shells

• 29:47Speaker 02

  landing inside a trench, but they were duds. And one man said, a shell landed right next to me. And he said, I was so fascinated, I, I picked it up, you know, pulled it out, picked it up. And an officer, an artillery officer came along and said two things. First of all, never, ever touch it again. It could have gone off. And secondly, if you'd left it where it was, we could have worked out where it came from. So, you know, I suppose, you know, people didn't, shouldn't really have needed the instruction, don't lift it up once it's landed. But then there are also different kinds of artillery. So.

• 30:24Speaker 02

  You know, the mortars, mortars are interesting because obviously they, you know, they could be in the trench opposite. And you could hear it fire. You could often hear the whoop, whoop, whoop as it came over and you could also see it.

• 30:36Dan Snow?

  Arcing, arcing sort of very fired from not very far away, but through this very high trajectory.

• 30:43Speaker 02

  And, and if you saw it, you could get out of its way. At night, it was more frightening because you couldn't see it. And so this was one of the things about being, you know, becoming experienced. You knew when to keep your head down, you knew basically how to be safe and you also knew sort of almost instinctively how to stay safe from, for example, um, a, a mortar that was, that was coming over. So there were diff-, you know, you, you had to kind of learn this new existence of, of how to stay safe. So both safe in terms, you know, from, from the weapons that were going to hit you,

• 31:22Speaker 02

  fire at you, but also from, you know, how to stay healthy, you know, in the trench as, as well. And how to get enough sleep, um, and how to, you know, how to eat properly and how to, and also bear in mind that the trenches, you know, we, we have again possibly an idea that no man's land was this sort of consistent, um, belt. Of course it wasn't, you know, some trenches could be a thousand yards, you know, miles, well, you know, miles, but you know, a long, long way away. Um, in which case, you know, your, your interaction with it was, would be, or day to day interaction with it would be less. Um, and then perhaps the average would be two, three hundred yards.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  But then you had places where it was literally fifteen yards away. And the enemy trench, and you know, council somebody said, you know, I'd get up in the morning and, or get up in the morning, I'd, I'd, I'd be there in the morning, they didn't sleep eight hours overnight, but, um, and a voice would come over, morning Tommy and I chucked back, morning Fritz. That's what it was, you know, you had a sort of weird. Sort of communication and that's actually now I think of it sort of widened itself out in terms of the the routine in the in the in the trench in the frontline trench. Because you would have first thing in the morning, you would have stand to.

• 32:47Dan Snow?

  So everyone's on the fire step.

• 32:48Speaker 02

  Everyone's on the.

• 32:48Dan Snow?

  Staring out into the mist in case the enemy attack at dawn.

• 32:51Speaker 02

  And that was the most vulnerable time. But there's almost something sort of ritual like or religious about it, that everybody would get up and almost pay their respects to the other side and they were doing it to you as well. And you'd have what they called very euphemistically the mording hate. Which was artillery fire, which would, you know, come in the morning from both sides. Again, ritual is they almost like clearing the throat in the morning. Getting it out the way and then it stopped so that either side could have breakfast.

• 33:23Dan Snow?

  Yes, it was rather mean to it shelled when breakfast is being brought up.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  There are certain things you do not do. Um, I'm being a little facetious because I mean, obviously.

• 33:32Dan Snow?

  Change units.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  They were trying to kill each other, but at the same time there were rules within. You know, within it and you didn't, you know, that was, that was a rule. Um, and so, you know, there was, there was a lot to get used to that the, the trench had a life of its own. You were living absolutely between the in this huge state subsidized city. And if you're in the frontline, you were, you know, you were really in the West End, if you like, but. But but within that you had to learn how to be an, you know, a city animal. You had to learn how to, how to live and to be wise to everything that was going on and, and it, and it did take a while. And that included, you know, breakfast would come up. You had to know how to, how to make your breakfast. You had to know what you were eating.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  You had to know how to get the best of it. You had your rum ration in the morning. That was incredibly important.

• 34:24Dan Snow?

  And it was.

• 34:25Speaker 02

  You know, it was, and it wasn't, it was two tablespoons, you know, it wasn't going to get you drunk.

• 34:29Dan Snow?

  So everyone got two tablespoons of rum.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Unless, I mean, I'm sure there were people who.

• 34:32Dan Snow?

  Well, sure, but that was the government issue.

• 34:35Speaker 02

  That was a government issue and it wasn't constant, you know, there were times when it wasn't coming and there were times when it came in the evening, et cetera, et cetera. But basically you got your, you got your rum out of these great big. Um, sort of earthenware jars and, and it was important because, you know, it sort of fortified you and it was also a sense that people cared about you. You know, they were, they were giving you something that helped, you know, it wasn't just keeping you alive. It was doing something more for you, it was fortifying, it was keeping your spirit, keeping your spirit up. And of course, you know, there was a lot of, there was a big temperance movement at the time. Um, and so there were lots of people back at home saying these, they shouldn't be, this is quite wrong.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  And there were a lot of people in, in the trenches saying, how dare you? You come, you know, you, you temperance people, come and stay out here for a bit and then see how you feel about, you know, um, a- about this. And even, you know, Woodbine Willie, you know, the, the, that wonderful, um, uh, padre, who came out and, you know, would hand cigarettes out to, to the soldiers. I mean, he was temperance and he spent some of his time, you know, saying that they shouldn't be getting alcohol. I think, I think he, I'm not sure about this, but I think he may have changed his view in the same way he changed his view about war. That give them something, you know, they're living a hard life out here, give them something. So, you know, and then your meals, you'd, you'd have your McConaughey's meat and vegetables.

• 36:03Speaker 02

  And if it was, you, you did a video on this, didn't you?

• 36:06Dan Snow?

  I've.

• 36:07Speaker 02

  You've eaten it, haven't you?

• 36:08Dan Snow?

  I've spent, I've done a lot of eating in trenches over the years.

• 36:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:11Dan Snow?

  Josh, this is the, end if you like, on, on one of the hardest things to talk about. And it's something that a lot of people watching this video may get almost offended by. In, in all the research you've done, you've looked at so many sources. Is there a sense that at certain times, at certain places, people actually quite enjoyed it?

• 36:28Speaker 02

  Yes. Yeah. And it's almost difficult to say.

• 36:30Dan Snow?

  Yeah.

• 36:31Speaker 02

  You know how consensus builds up about all different events over the years? And whether it's this or nine 11 or whatever it is. And you're not really allowed to, you know, to, to, to, to kick against the, but yes, they did. Some people did. Now, clearly, nobody had a wonderful time and thought, you know, this next year I'm going to the trenches, not Skegness. That was not how it was. However. There were people who said, you know, um, well, no, I qualify that. There were people who very sheepishly after the war said this was, this in some ways was the best time of my life. Because, not because of the danger, although I think it, you know, certain people do experience,

• 37:15Speaker 02

  you know, heightened excitement and to kind of get, you know, to get off on that kind of thing. But I think more for the comradeship, more for the fact that, you know, in, back in Blighty, people lived their lives and their lives could be terribly mundane, they live and they die and, you know, they didn't particularly get close to others. I think here people became very, very close. They laughed together, they relied on each other. Um, you know, you, what you might have remembered about the morning was, you know, less the, the, the shelling and more the fact that someone made you a cup of tea.

• 37:56Speaker 02

  Uh, and I think that was important and I think when people got home after the war, they, a, a lot of people actually missed that. They didn't have that same sense of belonging, also a sense of purpose. You know, for a lot of people, there was no, you know, what are we doing? This is completely mindless. Why, why are we trying to kill other people that we don't have any hatred for? Um, but in an, at another level, it gave people a, a, a meaning, something to do that they perhaps not had, um, before. It gave people new, you know, they could, when they were behind the lines, they experienced a new culture. Now, I'm not saying that every, you know, these were culture vultures who couldn't wait

• 38:39Speaker 02

  to get to, to Paris to see the, you know, to, to go and see the paintings. But, um, on the other hand, in all kinds of different ways, you know, so many expressions we have nowadays come from that period. Egg and chips. What's more English than egg and chips? This meal they first had in France.

• 38:58Dan Snow?

  Really?

• 38:59Speaker 02

  And, um, you know, the, the, there were a lot of people.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  Going to to to different kinds of restaurants, going to to the concert parties. Um, going to brothels, all these experiences that people were having that they they wouldn't have had at home. The concert parties, I found. That's fast, you know, wonderful account from a man who played first girl. You know, his life was completely changed. You know, he he came out as a member of the corporal in the middlesex regiment. And just a little corporal, you know, average. And he applied and he he became a member of a concert party, the Ace of Spades concert party, which is, I think, a divisional concert party. And he played, he was quite small, quite slim, and he played first girl. And he took the name.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  It was Dolly Claire, I forget, anyway, he took a took a name. And he always played the girl and some sometimes it was, you know, big, broad. Music hall review, sometimes it was serious plays, melodramas. And he talked about one he was very proud of where he had a very tragic death at the end, um, playing a Native American. And he say he was a very convincing girl. And his his interviews in the Imperial War Museum, sound interview. And sometimes, you know, got really annoyed, angry when people suggested that he was anything other than a virile man.

• 40:21Dan Snow?

  Of course.

• 40:21Speaker 02

  But, you know, this was of the time, but. All the same, he was playing first girl and and doing it well. And the the Colonel was invited to one of the shows and was told there were two girls and told you've got to choose which one is the real girl. And he was chosen by the Colonel and then he was sent to see the Colonel. And the Colonel, he said, oh, he was disgusted when he found out that I was a man, but I was very pleased, you know, it's it's it's. And this was a whole, so he became an actor after the war. So I suppose my point is not everybody had a wholly negative experience. And I think you're allowed to say that. The First World War, of course, was a hellish time in term in so many ways. But it was also time of companionship, time of opportunity.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  And if you look at what came after the war for so many people, things just got worse. I mean, you know, so many of the wounded. Came home to to no kind of safety net whatsoever, just ended up on the streets begging. You know, they were promised a land for heroes, homes for heroes, and none of that materialized. Um, you know, Britain more, you know, pretty soon went into depression. So that, you know, at the end of the next war, people were bloody well sure they weren't going to get the same result after the end of that they got at the end of this war. Um, so, yeah, it's it's a much more, it's like all of these stories, you know, and it's much more nuanced, much more interesting.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Uh, and you won't get one story. So I think people should stop trying to tell one story.

• 41:59Dan Snow?

  Well, you've told many stories today. Thank you, Joshua Levine. What is the book that people can go and follow up with?

• 42:05Speaker 02

  I just happen to have, that one is called Forgotten Voices of the Somme. This one is oral history, so lots of, um, first person stories in it, which I think, uh, and a foreword by Richard Holmes, which is very nice. And and I think, yeah, I think quite an interesting book.

• 42:24Dan Snow?

  Very interesting book indeed. Thanks for coming on.

• 42:27Speaker 02

  Thanks, Dan.

• 42:28Dan Snow?

  Well, thank you very much, Josh. That brings us to an end today, folks. As we've heard, life in the trenches was defined not only by battle, but by endurance. And behind every offensive and every headline of the war were just ordinary men living, trying to survive in extraordinary conditions, clinging to routine and friendship and hope amidst all that destruction and despair. The trenches became a world of their own, one that tested the limits of human resilience and left physical and psychological scars long after those guns fell silent. And thank goodness, we've got books like Josh's, we've got accounts of of the letters,

• 43:13Dan Snow?

  the diaries, we're still able to hear those voices, those men who lived through it. Thanks again to Joshua Levine for coming on the show, and thank you for listening.

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• 44:37Dan Snow?

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