Frontline trenches were usually about seven feet deep and six feet wide. The front of the trench was known as the parapet. The top two or three feet of the parapet and the parados (the rear side of the trench) would consist of a thick line of sandbags to absorb any bullets or shell fragments.
In a trench of this depth it was impossible to see over the top, so a two or three-foot ledge known as a fire-step, was added. Trenches were not dug in straight lines. Otherwise, if the enemy had a successive offensive, and got into your trenches, they could shoot straight along the line. Each trench was dug with alternate fire-bays and traverses.
Soldiers in the First World War did not spend the whole of the time in the trenches. The British Army worked on a 16 day timetable. Each soldier usually spent eight days in the front line and four days in the reserve trench. Another four days were spent in a rest camp that was built a few miles away from the fighting. However, when the army was short of men, soldiers had to spend far longer periods at the front. It was not uncommon for soldiers to be in the front line trenches for over thirty days at a time. On one occasion, the 13th Yorkshire and Lancashire Regiment spent fifty-one consecutive days in the line.
Being in the front-line was extremely dangerous. Almost every day some enemy shells would fall on the trenches. One study suggested that one-third of all casualties on the Western Front were killed or wounded while in the trenches.
Soldiers in the front line would also be hit by their own artillery. Despite the use of a high parados in the front-line trenches, it has been estimated that about 75,000 British soldiers in the war were killed by British shells that had been intended for the Germans.
*I believe that these soldiers lived very dangerous and unclean lives. These soldiers were threatened with death everyday, by the enemy and their own weapons. It has been estimated that about 75,000 British soldiers in the war were killed by their own shells that were intended for the Germans. There was also the threat of lack of food, and no medical aid. It was very likely that you would die in a trench if you did not receive medical care quickly. On the front line, soldiers could not get aid very quickly, and many of them died from infections in their wounds, along with other injuries. Conditions were also probably very unsanitary inside the trenches. With the opposing side constantly firing and throwing bombs into the trenches, the men probably could not get a chance to get outside of the trench to go to the bathroom.
The conditions of the men living inside the trenches were hard to bear. These men were faced with the threat of death everyday. They were also faced with the threat of other things such as diseases, injury, lack of food, rats, and other things.
Rats, boredom, claustrophobic, cant get away from it, little food, no clean water, could die at any moment, dirty, miserable, unsanitary, rain would cause problems.