Soldiers' Life

While most of the men that volunteered to serve in the Expeditionary Force did so out of duty, many men signed up for the opportunity of travel and ‘adventure’.

However, they endured dreadful conditions. They experienced the very hot and humid conditions in the Middle East which led to dysentery and enteric fever. They suffered biting cold winters on the Western Front (they also endured winter at Gallipoli) where it rained almost non-stop, creating muddy quagmires (particularly after massive artillery barrages).

The technology of war had changed as well – the Great War was the first time that poison gas was used as a weapon. Barbed wire covered the front lines, which soldiers had to charge through while being harassed by machine-gun fire and heavy artillery. Thousands of men suffered from shell-shock.

Diary Extract (Battle of the Somme), 15 September 1916 – 5/ Sergeant George Frederick Hulme
“9a.m. and the planes are buzzing around and the weather is clearing, there is an awful smell of dead men all around, a shell landed in amongst our fellows and killed and wounded a few.

10a.m. Left these trenches and lined up with the 3rd Company, Capt Herman led the way, and we filed up over old trenches, and craters, and shell-holes, men were lying all over the place, pieces of arms, legs, feet protruded from the ground, further on a head, here a foot in a boot, and there a Hun burned to a cinder with liquid fire, and oh! The smell was enough to give one the plague. I can see a Hun who had been caught with liquid fire, the face was burnt out, the chest was the same, the inside was black as charcoal; wounded lined all the way up, fellows delirious, yelling, moaning, beckoning, some just looking pitifully as we passed. What sights, the bloodshed, the “Slaughter of the Somme”. I look to my right and fifteen yards away is a Tommy sitting on his horse, the heads of both being blown away, the same kind of sights all the way up, more men lying dead blown in all directions.

The Huns are shelling us now… and their shrapnel is spraying on the right and left, we are nearing a farm, every yard there seems to be a huge hole caused by high explosives, we are reaching a cutting in the road about 6ft in depth, the H.E. are landing right in our path, at intervals of one minute, the first of the line dashes past, then the whiz of a shell approaching stops us for a moment, then another dash and so on, but even then those short stoppages cause many deaths, for a big gun was now dropping huge shells right into our line, and together with heavy shrapnel that was now bursting our men suffered many casualties….

After another dash across an open part we were in a trench, where the 3rd Brigade were located. This trench was littered with dead and wounded Hun, and many of our own lads; as we went along I looked down some of the deep German dug-outs, there the Huns were lying, as our men of the third Brigade had bombed and killed them, their brains, arms, legs were blown all over the inside of the dug-outs….

We leave the trench and run across the open through a gap in the wire entanglements, there were many of our lads lying around together with the Huns. This part and Fleurs were taken by our 2nd & 3rd Brigade, and the Grenadier Guards, two days previous. On my right in a huge crater was a Tank lying helpless and deserted, one sight in this particular part was one of our third Brigade lads (a big 15 stone man) with his bayonet right through a little Hun, and the Hun had his bayonet right through “our lads” throat, both were dead. Leaving this scene we went through many ruined buildings till we reached a road in the left part of town, this road was full of dead Germans, dying and wounded. Here our lads were lying in numbers, many badly wounded some dead, the Red Cross stretcher bearers were there dressing wounds, and bearing the brave lads away as best they could; although many never lived to reach the dressing station.

We stopped in this street in Fleurs for an hour… we are resting in the “Street of the Dead” as I shall call it, I must tell you of a sight that is indelibly impressed on my mind. This street we were in had sunk, and on either side was a hedge on top of a bank, of course there was hardly any of the hedge left, for the bombardment had been one of the most terrific on the Somme, that had brought Fleurs to a heap of ruins by our guns prior to our advance. On the side of the road facing the trenches, that our infantry left to attack Fleurs was a Hun, he had crawled up out of his dug-out, as our boys advanced, when he reached the top of the bank he leaned up to take sight and fire at our lads, but as he must have sighted and [was] just going to pull the trigger a bullet must have hit him in the head, or heart for he must have just opened his hands and dropped his rifle, but the rest of his body remained rigid, and there he was kneeling in that position stone dead, and yet he looked so much alive, as if he was just going to pick up his rifle and fire.”
[Archives Reference: AD 78/ 25 A F16/33]

Extract of letter, 18 December 1917 - 43381 Fitter George Cumming Fraser
“I am getting on in the same rut as before, but don’t think much of the tucker they give us. One day they flavoured the stew with kerosene, pretty strong too. I didn’t care for it done that way. The porridge is very seldom cooked, neither the rice, which the fellows name “Shanghai Ballast”. If I couldn’t cook porridge I would go away and hide myself, and rice is easier still to deal with.”
[Archives Reference: AD 78/24, A/B17/26]

Extract of letter, 6 January 1918 - 17397 Rifleman Vincent Livingstone Fraser
“I’ll just tell you any news over again. We didn’t have such a rough spin last time in as the first, although the weather was pretty crook. The tucker was better and the chaps didn’t get so weak, so were able to get out much easier. The first time half of them were coming into camp behind the lines all the day after. By jove the outfit looked dead rough when we lined up next day for inspection. Mud up to the neck and two or three weeks whisker on and a hang dog look on most of the faces. We got a pretty good smash up that time and lost some good mates, but its all in the game and the wonder is that any came out at all the way those iron works fly about. I don’t know how old Fritz gets on as our fellows send over about 10 to every one he gives us so it must keep him awake. If you get drawn in the ballot and have to come over here you want to take plenty of time over it and wait for a Commission as it’s no good here if you haven’t got a star up, and even then it is no good, so take my tip and hang out as long as you can. I tell you I’ve seen it and know so you can give the Captain a straight tip to appeal if he is called.”
[Archives Reference: AD 78/24, A/F18/17]

Extract of letter, 7 March 1918 - 43381 Fitter George Cumming Fraser
“Once you hear a gas shell come over and land you can tell them as soon as you hear them coming, and on hitting the ground they give a “plop” instead of the crash of an ordinary shell. They make a peculiar noise when going through the air, much like this – “Wong-wong-wong-wong”, and so on partly run into each other, faint at first (a few seconds after you hear Fritz’s gun going off) gradually growing louder, ending up with a “Plop” (or “Flop”). The high explosive shell has a different sound, a high noted “Whizz-z-z” when you hear it first, and gradually growing into a lower note, also getting louder in its whine, until the “Crash-h-h” ends it, a shower of dirt, water, sticks, and perhaps more, depending on where it lands. When a large shell lands a few hundred yards you can feel the ground heave like a severe earthquake, pieces dropping for minutes after it seems.”
[Archives Reference: AD 78/26, B/B18/56]

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