Canada and World War One
The Experience and Human Cost of Trench Warfare
Introduction
It is now clichéd to say that Canada became a nation in the blood and mud of Vimy Ridge. The blood has been examined in detail; this paper proposes to explore what may be called “the mud”. More specifically, this paper will explore the Canadian experience of trench warfare, from the Army’s initial encounter with the trenches in 1915, through to the end of the war. Emphasis will be placed on the trenches as a Human experience, exploring in detail the physical and psychological conditions and dangers experienced by Canadian soldiers, and the steps taken to deal with these conditions and dangers, whether caused by the German enemy or by the trenches in and of themselves.
It must be noted that this was also a heavily British experience as the Canadian Corps was part of a larger British Army, and was populated by men born and raised in the British Isles. Where possible, resort will be made to Canadian sources and materials, both primary and secondary. Where necessary, parallels will be drawn between the British and Canadian experiences, on the assumption that they were virtually the same in countless respects.
It is worthwhile keeping in mind that the price paid for fighting the First World War as a trench war - that is, with the supposed necessity of maintaining a continuously-engaged front line - was enormous. After describing the experience of trench warfare, this paper will explore the cost, in terms of lives lost and people maimed, inherent in insisting on keeping armies literally tens of meters from one another, for years on end. In doing so, the paper will attempt to quantify the number of Canadian soldiers killed and wounded in order to hold ground for no purpose other than to hold ground. These casualties numbered in the tens of thousands.
Trench warfare, therefore, was a tremendously expensive way to fight a war. The strategy of the trenches, in the sense of maintaining continuously-engaged front lines tens of meters from German armies, may also have been a choice, not a necessity. This seems possible given that both the British and the Germans started to experiment with a “defence in depth” toward the end of the war. Simply put, if placing trenches 50 meters from the enemy was a military necessary, these experiments would never have been carried out as they would have been deemed madness. Experiments with defence in depth were carried out, however, because of a change in perception regarding how to fight the war, a change in technology, and because of a change in appreciation for the value of the lives that were being lost.
Obviously these are debatable points, and it is not proposed that they be resolved in this paper. What this paper will do is attempt to add to the debate concerning the strategy of trench warfare by detailing the experience of trench warfare, and by illustrating the Human cost of the strategy of a continuously-engaged frontline. Regardless of one’s opinions concerning the usefulness of this strategy, it is suggested that the debate should at least be informed by an analysis of what it was, and of its real Human cost.
The debate should also have a starting point. Until now the starting point appears to have been one of perceived military necessity, literally smothered in a sea of national myths. It may be that starting with the horror of this experience, and with the Human cost of this perceived military necessity, is more appropriate.
Historiography
The history of the First World War has filled countless volumes, and Canada’s experience in that war has been extremely well documented. The general record of this experience, however, has paid scant attention to the experience of trench warfare, in and of itself. This is slowly changing as “glory of war” and nation-building sentiments fade, and other aspects of the First World War spark interest. Not that the experience has been ignored, however - far from it. While it is virtually impossible to read everything written about the war, it can be said that mainstream Canadian military historians have done an admirable job at noting aspects of the experience of trench warfare. Noting and exploring are different things, however. To the extent that this experience needed to be mentioned, most general sources regarding the war do mention the horrors of the trenches within histories that see battles, and the political history and nation-building aspects of the war, as more important. Within general histories, this is appropriate.
By way of example, consider two recent general histories of both the Canadian Army and of Canada at war. The first is Pierre Burton’s Marching As To War – Canada’s Turbulent Years, 1899 – 1953, in which Burton describes the trenches as follows, “The neat, sandbagged trenches that have been preserved for the curious visitors who tour France and Belgium bear no resemblance to those foul ditches, calf-deep in gumbo, redolent with the stink of rotting flesh, the stagnant water alive with frogs and beetles. The dugouts swarmed with rats that scuttled over the bodies of the living and fed off the corpses of the dead.” Later in his book, he devotes a paragraph to describing the horrible conditions in the trenches leading up to the Battle of Passchendaele, including mention of corpses and, of course, the mud.
Burton also goes to some length within his book to attempt to describe the waste and futility of the war, and he intermixes this with descriptions of the trenches as “hell” and “horror”. He delves into the myths surrounding the war and notes both that the memorials to the dead often portray them as anything but, and he discusses wartime propaganda and its attempt to sanitize what was actually happening at the front. At the same time that Burton describes the futility of the war, however, he himself contributes to its myths. He does this partly by lauding the achievements of the Canadian Army during the war, describing the assault on Vimy Ridge, for example, as “brilliant”. He specifically mentions the place that this battle has in Canadian myth and history as follows:
For Canadians, this was the defining moment not only of this war but of all the smaller wars in which their soldiers had prevailed. More than Chrysler’s Farm or Chateauguay, more than Cut Knife Creek or Batoche, more than Paardeberg or Ypres, Vimy provided the shining vision that still illuminates our folk memory. We carry it with us, for it has been drilled into our minds by constant repetition, a tale retold, like a looped movie – the heart-thumping spectacle of the entire Canadian Corps clambering up that whale-backed ridge, enduring the dreadful din, and hugging dangerously close to the creeping curtain of high explosives that stupefied the burrowed defenders.
Of course Burton’s own book on Vimy contributed mightily to this. Burton also mentions the nation- building aspects of this particular battle, and he again lauds the Canadian Army’s performance during the last 100 days of the war when it was used as the shock force of the British Army. All of this is appropriate within a general history.
In spite of the horrors of trench warfare, Burton devotes far more time in his book to describing the effects of the Halifax Explosion of 1917, and the influenza epidemic that swept the country in 1919, than he does to describing, in detail, the life in the trenches. While he states that the experience was a waste, he at no time questions the fact of the trenches themselves, or even explores their origins. In the end, Burton leaves the reader with the impression that Canada became a nation during the war, and that the trenches were an unfortunate aspect of this growth. This is the traditional approach to the history of Canada’s involvement in the First World War.
Regarding Pierre Burton himself, it must be noted that many historians have concerns about Burton as a historian seeing him as more of a “pulp historian”, and in fact his book contains many inexcusable factual errors. Regardless of this, his recent book on Canadian military history was a national best-seller. Given that he has added mightily to how Canada sees itself, and given that the issue here is how the experience of trench warfare has been treated in terms of the historical literature surrounding the war, it would have been a mistake not to include Burton’s recent work. In fact, for a great many Canadians Pierre Burton’s vision of Canada is Canadian history. His enhancement of many of the myths surrounding the war will work to keep them alive for some time.
Jack Granatstein is a military historian, not a generalist like Burton. His recent work, Canada’s Army, mentions the experience of the trenches, including a brief discussion of trench life, and a description of the construction of the trenches themselves. When Granatstein mentions the trenches however, it is more often as an aspect of a particular battle. The overall result is a clearer and more specific discussion of the actual conditions of trench warfare than is found within Burton’s history.
By way of example, in describing the trenches that the Canadian Army occupies before First Ypres Granatstein states as follows:
The Canadians were not happy with what they found in their trenches. The French, their huge casualties notwithstanding, still believed in preserving the spirit of the offensive, and their generals felt that constructing good trenches helped to create defensive attitudes. Moreover, the French, unlike the British, thought in terms of a defence in depth, and they relied on artillery and reserves to halt German attacks. As a result, their trenches were scarcely connected, very shallow, and, the Canadians claimed, full of dead bodies and human excreta. Their use of barbed wire, too, was strictly limited. At once, the Canadian set to work to bring their position up to “British standards”.
Granatstein also described trench life in some detail, as follows:
The trenches filled with water, and there never seemed to rubber boots to go around. Trench foot was a perpetual threat so much so that officers had to conduct daily foot inspections. Trench fever was a constant peril, and fit young men developed rheumatism. Illness took more soldiers out of the line than battle casualties, primarily because warmth was impossible to achieve under a sodden greatcoat, and only rarely could fires large enough to provide any warmth be lit in the front lines. Even the blessed rum ration provided only a brief once-a-day fillip...In the line food was usually cooked by small groups of soldiers over alcohol burners. It was then eaten from the pot or slopped into mess tins, often cold when the last man got his share. The daily rations were heavy on meat... bread, rock-hard army biscuits and tasteless plum and apple jam – all from British sources and dislikes intensely by the Canadians. Strong tea was consumed in quantity, but the men missed good drinking water, which was often unavailable or so purified with chlorine as to be vile-tasting. Still, many soldiers took it as a matter of pride to live as well as they could.
In Granatstein’s book, the horror of the trenches is also closely allied with mention of the Canadian Army’s achievements in that war. For example, in describing the period up to the middle of 1916, he states that, “The Canadians had not won every battle they fought, to be sure, but they had unfailingly given a good account of themselves in conditions of such horror that, eighty-five years later, we can still scarcely believe they existed.”
Finally, he does not shy away from making mention, in footnotes anyway, of the specifics of the horrors of the trenches. One footnote mentions an account of a person dying as a result of a gas attack as follows, “The wheezing and frothing from his mouth like a horribly bloated bull- frog, the dilated eyeballs, the pondscun-green discolouration of face a neck, and the gurgling sound issuing from his throat.” This approach, in that it outlines the actual experience in detail, mirrors his early work with Desmond Morton concerning the Canadian experience of trench warfare called Marching To Armageddon – Canadians and the Great war 1914 – 1919, in which a range of photographs were provided to illustrate the experience.
Granatstein doesn’t question the wisdom of the policy of the trenches, however, or explore their origins. The facts are presented completely and accurately, and Canada’s Army is a superior piece of history, marking a real advance in terms of the history of the war and of Canadian military history generally. Having said that, the essential experience of the trenches is not questioned within Granatstein’s work. No matter how well the facts are presented, it is suggested that this begs further exploration.
Regimental histories of the Canadian Army are also illuminating in respect of the treatment of the trench experience. While it was not possible to read the history of every single regiment involved in the war, some notable histories exemplify the normal approach adequately enough. For example, one may consider The Royal Canadian Regiment – 1883 – 1933, the history of the Royal Canadian Regiment (RCR) - the senior regiment of the Canadian Army, in its first fifty years. The history of the RCR first notes trench warfare as follows. “...in 1915 the opposing forces, locked from Switzerland to the sea, had at intervals tried in vain to free themselves from the shackles of costly but unproductive trench warfare.” The history then goes on to mention the “domination of trench warfare” which gripped both sides.
The necessity of trench warfare is assumed within this work. In describing the conditions, the history states that:
Writing of conditions in the line at this time, one diarist mentions the menace of innumerable rats. ‘The trenches,’ he states, ‘swarm with them – black rats, brown rats, all kinds and sizes of rats, rats that fed on the bodies of the dead, rats that bit sleeping men, and rats that some-times, when cornered, would snarl and show fight. The danger of the spread of disease by these swarming vermin was recognized and we were ordered to capture a number of them and send them back to the medical authorities for bacterial examination.
This is virtually the only place in this book where specific mention is made of such conditions. It is worth noting that the RCR had at least 19 killed, 63 wounded and 20 sick casualties in the trenches before it even had its first battle. This represented about 10% of its establishment strength. The history refers to these as, “...the inevitable additions to the list of killed and wounded...”
Another example of the regimental histories is Canada’s Black Watch: The First Hundred Years – 1862 – 1962. This later work describes the Canadian Army’s first taste of trench warfare as follows:
On February 24th two companies went into the front trenches at night for instruction from British units. There they suffered their first casualty when Private G.W. Eadle was killed. The next day the other two companies went in. It was a comparatively quiet front, made up of breastwork trenches, but the enemy in their lines was only sixty yards away. Two more line tours followed. By early March the First Canadian Division was considered sufficiently trained to take over the frontage of a British division.
In terms of the conditions in and around the trenches, the regimental history states in reference to some training exercise of the regiment prior to The Somme, that, “No Man’s land, dugouts and the trenches swarmed with thousands of huge rats.” Of note is the attitude reflected within the regimental history toward the trenches. At one point, with respect to The Somme, the history notes that, “After months of attacking....British and Anzacs had gallantly done their utmost to break through the enemy’s defences and end the war of the trenches.” Again, the trenches themselves are taken as a given – even something to be conquered along with the enemy.
Beside the general histories and the regimental histories, there have recently been some useful attempts to grapple with specific aspects of the experience of trench warfare. Two such examples are Surviving Trench Warfare – Technology and the Canadian Corps, 1914 – 1918 by Bill Rawling, and No Place to Run: the Canadian Corps and Gas Warfare in the First World War by Tim Cook. Both of these works push the history of Canada in the First World War well forward. In particular, and as the titles suggest they delve into specific aspects of the experience of trench warfare in great detail.
Rawling’s work provides a treasure trove of information concerning how the trench war itself was fought, from a technical perspective. While more about soldiers and the tools of war than the trench experience per se, it still manages to cover the experience of trench warfare in some detail.
Tim Cook’s book is also illuminating. In that regard, it is interesting to note Tim Cook’s rationale for writing his book, part of which is as follows, “Even though poison gases caused over a million casualties, were used in coherent offensive and defensive tactical doctrines, and were powerful psychological weapons, the gas war has been relegated to the periphery of First World War history. In most comprehensive works, only a few concerted pages deal with gas – generally focusing on the gas cloud attack at 2nd Ypres and the British retaliation at Loos – with sporadic additional references.” In short, he attempted to “fill in a blank” in the history of the war. It is submitted here that the same thing could have been said about the entire trench experience itself, and with this, the need to perhaps begin to seriously question the rationale behind it.
Of course, there have also occasionally been works devoted exclusively to the experience of the trenches, including many personal accounts. This could hardly have been otherwise given the huge amount that has been written since the war. It must be said, however, that these works do not constitute a substantial portion of the mainstream of literature about the war, and in fact, they are rather hard to come by.
One such example is Eye-Deep in Hell: The Western Front 1914 – 1918, by John Ellis. First published in 1976, it was republished in 2002. It is a very complete summary of the trench experience even exploring, in part, the tactical rationale for the trenches. It will be referred to throughout the paper.
Finally, mention should be made of the work of the National Archives of Canada. The National Archives has done an excellent job bringing the experience of trench warfare to life on its website in a way that has escaped the work of most historians for 80 years. It is not just a matter of the technology. By covering such things as trench culture, and by providing access to the diaries and journals of those who actually lived through this horror, the National Archives has provided a rare glimpse into the specifics of an experience that has been barely documented in the mainstream literature.
The work of Cook and Rawlings, with perhaps Granatstein’s work, and the work of the National Archives of Canada represent a change in approach to the First World War. Burton’s general history approach, and that of the regimental histories, is being supplemented by a more thorough understanding of the trench experience, which largely was the First World War. It is suggested that this can only lead to a major re- evaluation of the entire experience, and of what the war means to Canadians.
Much of this could have been mentioned within the paper itself. In light of this, it may be asked why this historiography has been included?
The first reason is obvious, and it was to illustrate how the experience of trench warfare has been dealt with in the literature of the war to date. Beyond this, the historiography was included to show that the specifics of trench warfare, including the experience of trench warfare and the rationale for it, have not been extensively explored within mainstream literature, at least until recently - even Ellis’ work was not written until almost 3 generations after the conflict. Why this is so remains a mystery.
One reason why this experience has not been dealt with in detail may include the fact that it is simply too horrible for most people to bear. As the following section detailing the actual experience shows, this was likely the most horrible thing that any large group of Canadians, soldiers or otherwise, ever had to go through.
More than that, it may be that any in-depth historical analysis of the trench experience, in and of itself, can only lead to the conclusion that this was a waste of Human life, and it may be that this has simply been too difficult to admit. Calling the sacrifice of any soldier a waste is anathema in any society, no matter how obvious that waste may be.
Of course various aspects of the waste of Human life related to the First World War have been highlighted for generations now, albeit in certain specific ways. For example, various generals have been singled-out as variously being “butchers”, or not, depending on the sentiments of the author in question.
Emphasis has also been placed on various battles which have been called “meat grinders”, and the value of said battles seriously scrutinized. This aspect of the waste of Human life has also been highlighted in works of fiction, although less so in this country. Other than certain generals, specific battles and works of fiction, however, not much else has been said.
More to the point, the experience and Human cost of the trenches in and of themselves is usually accepted without much, if any, scrutiny - as a necessary fact of life in that war. In mainstream historical works which note the experience of the trenches, it appears that it has been easier to just generally state the facts, and move on to the actual battles.
Even in 2001 and 2002, neither Pierre Burton nor Jack Granatstein would state that Canadian soldiers were uselessly expended as a matter of policy and as a result of the primary strategy concerning how World War One was fought, which was in trenches within tens of meters of the foe.
Furthermore, it must also be noted that how that war was fought is also how it is still largely remembered - and it is this memory that may be the real stumbling block. It may be that to question the wisdom of the trenches themselves is to question the myths built up around them, many of which, as Burton alluded to go to the core of who we are as a people. Any visitor to either Canada’s War Museum or even Britain’s Imperial War Museum can actually take a stroll through a model trench in order to relive the experience.
Citizens aren’t called upon to relive waste; they are invited to participate in myths. Consider, in light of this, what General Currie wrote after the war regarding this experience, and the men who lived through it:
Death had for them no peril....Our men could give lessons of stoicism to Roman soldiers...Selfishness was unknown to our soldiers, even when suffering bitterly....Thank God, the war has proved that the ‘guts’ are still in the British race, otherwise, it might well be that we at this moment would not be dictating the terms of peace.
Currie’s main point was that Canadian soldiers endured, and emerged victorious. What they endured was almost four years of trench warfare, and the fact that they did actually endure this horror underscores virtually every myth about the war, and many about the country itself. Currie at no time mentions what it is that his men actually endured however, except in the most general of terms. His treatment of the actual horrors is similar to the general history/regimental history approach noted above. Certainly, he never questions the wisdom of placing trenches tens of meters from the Germans for years on end.
In light of this, it is suggested that no one wants to say that the tens of thousands who died or were wounded simply living in trenches for no useful military purpose were not heroes, but simply pawns in an insane game not of their making. Again, the purpose of this paper is not to reach a final conclusion regarding the necessity or wisdom of this strategy, but simply by trying to add to the debate, no matter how painful this debate may be. This will be done by showing, in some detail, what the experience of the trenches actually was, and by calculating the Human cost of this strategy. The author’s sentiments regarding this debate should be fairly obvious.
The Experience of the Trenches
What follows is a detailed description of the Canadian experience of trench warfare. It will be divided in to three sections. The first will cover the construction of the trenches, from 1914 to the end of the war, including how the trenches changed and were developed over time. The second section will deal with life in the trenches themselves, including the dangers inherent therein, and attempts to limit these dangers. The third will deal with the dangers from the enemy as faced by Canadian soldiers who lived in the trenches for days on end. This section will also deal with what was done to limit the dangers. Wherever possible, sources in the form of the testimony of the actual participants will be utilized.
The Construction of the Trenches
The armies dug in during the late fall of 1914. In general, the first trenches in the Ypres sector simply evolved from infantry pits into trenches. For example, “Shelter pits, which one man could dig at the rate of one cubic foot of earth removed in three minutes, or enough to give him cover in half an hour, became trenches when joined up. More often, the first shelter was an existing ditch or field stream.” The future water control problems inherent in placing trenches in ditches and streams should be obvious. The British also constructed trenches to a specific plan. They used a system of frontline trenches, with support, reserve, and communications trenches in the rear. This ideal is described by Granastein below:
The trenches, if the ground was firm and the water table low, ordinarily allowed a man to walk upright without being seen; ideally, they were wide enough that two or three men or a stretcher party could pass. Traverses broke up the straight trench line to prevent enemy soldiers from taking a few yards of trench and killing all the defenders to their right and left. Sandbags protected the front (parapet) and rear (parados) of the trench, and, in good units, corrugated iron or wood made up revetments to keep walls from collapsing under fire or rain. Firing steps in bays let soldiers shoot at the enemy, while roofed dugouts provided the crudest of living spaces. Officers might have a roomy dugout that provided real shelter, and sometimes they even had cots and furniture. Barbed wire lined the front of the forward trench line, and, as the war went on, the belt got thicker. Behind the front trench were the support and reserve lines, all connected by communications trenches. It was another world, where artillery shelling and sniper fire, mixed with night-time patrols, work parties to repair the wire or deepen the trenches, and stand-tos at first and last light, made up the routine.
The trenches also were not uniform, even in terms of their design. John Keegan in his work, The First World War noted that,
In wet or stony ground, trenches were shallow, with a higher parapet in front, build of earth, usually sandbagged. The drier and more workable the soil, the less need for supporting “revetments” of timber or wattle along the internal trench walls, and the deeper the dugouts; these, which began as “scrapes” in the side of the trench nearest the enemy, excavated thus to protect from incoming shells, developed quite soon into deep shelters...
As noted, the trench systems became more complex as the war progressed. The ideal was rarely achieved, however, and the reality of the actual construction of the trenches was normally far different, and substantially less safe, than the ideal would suggest. For example, the Canadian trenches at 2nd Ypres, were actually constructed as follows, “The French had made little effort to dig in and their front line defences were not connected. Instead, they had relied on a series of half-moon positions, with limited protection from sandbags and almost no barbed wire out in front to impede an attack by German infantry. In many cases the thin sandbag walls protecting the men were incapable of stopping the enemy’s rifle bullets.”
This was in keeping with French tactical doctrine at the time which preferred a defence in depth to closing right up to the enemy line, as the French General Joffre thought that the British and the German practice was an unnecessary waste of Human life. In short, when the Canadian Army first took over a section of the frontline from the French from the 14th to 17th of April 1915, they found a trench system that was anything but. It was described by Captain T.C. Irving, Canadian Engineers as follows:
The right flank and the next portion to the left had a parapet of mud heaped up in front approximately 2 feet thick at the bottom and from 4 inches to 1 foot at the top with the occasional loophole punched through the earth...In front of these sections are numerous dead bodies in a decomposed state lying on the surface of the ground, also in the trench itself and round about there are numerous bodies buried at a very shallow depth making it impossible to excavate at all...There is also human excreta littered all over the place...This trench has no traverse and is directly enfiladed from the German trenches to the North.
These trenches offered little if any protection to the Canadian infantry when the Germans attacked the sector on April 22, 1915. This was the famous gas attack at 2nd Ypres. The danger to Canadian soldiers in the trenches from gas is discussed below.
From February of 1915, until late in 1918, the trenches became home to some hundreds of thousands of Canadians. As noted, they did not meet the ideal plan, and their status varied depending on the type of terrain, the level of shelling underway in a given area, and the competence of the men occupying them. By way of example, here is a description of a well-constructed and maintained front line trench occupied by the Fourth Battalion immediately following Vimy:
Sullivan Trench was in rather better condition than the average front line. In had no bathmat (flooring), but at that season the walking was good, and there was enough cover. Like all front line trenches its parapets and parados were littered with indestructible refuse of all kinds, biscuit and bully-beef tins mainly, with here and there a bit of discarded web-equipment, an old gas-mask or mess-tin. The parapet had been reinforced with sandbags in places and these had rotted away leaving torn shreds of moldy canvas hanging limp.
Here is a description of a front line trench far removed from the ideal. This is part of the report of Brigadier Victor Odlum, whom General Currie had sent to reconnoiter the Passchendaele front before the entire Canadian Corps moved to the area in the fall of 1917, “All you could see was shells holes with groups of men in them, and you could look perhaps 200 yards over and see Germans in the same position. Both sides were just finished. They were down in the mud and there they were staying and they weren’t even fighting.” There were, in effect, no trenches. The reason for this was the sea of mud than engulfed the area.
Throughout the war, therefore, trenches were variously effective and safe, or ineffective and unsafe depending on many factors, the ability to actually construct a trench in the given terrain being a primary consideration. It is worth noting that although the Germans followed similar tactics to the British in maintaining close contact with their enemy, they made sure to construct substantially better trenches.
The following section explores the difficulties and the actual dangers inherent in the trenches themselves.
Life in the Trenches: The Experience
The following general description of the trenches captures the experience succinctly, and may serve as an introduction to this section:
In the trenches, men lived in rain or snow and always in the glutinous Flanders mud. Huge rats gorged themselves on leftover food and unburied corpses. Life was always dangerous. In its first quiet tour, the Canadian division lost a hundred dead and wounded. In the germ-ridden mud, almost every wound became infected. Military medicine had made incredible strides from earlier wars, particularly in controlling and immunizing against disease, but antibiotics were unknown and blood transfusion was a dubious experiment. Pneumonia and influenza were major killers, slaying more than three thousand young Canadian soldiers.
Each of the various aspects of trench life will be explored in detail below, starting with the rats.
The Rats: As noted in the regimental histories above, rats existed like a plague wherever there were trenches throughout the war. They infested the area of “No Man’s Land”, and in all areas within the trenches themselves. The description below should suffice by way of both a general explanation of the problem, and how the soldiers themselves experienced rats:
Many men killed in the trenches were buried almost where they fell. If a trench subsided, or new trenches or dugouts were needed, large numbers of decomposing bodies would be found just below the surface. These corpses, as well as the food scraps that littered the trenches, attracted rats. One pair of rats can produce 880 offspring in a year and so the trenches were soon swarming with them. Some of these rats grew extremely large. One soldier wrote: "The rats were huge. They were so big they would eat a wounded man if he couldn't defend himself." These rats became very bold and would attempt to take food from the pockets of sleeping men. Two or three rats would always be found on a dead body. They usually went for the eyes first and then they burrowed their way right into the corpse.
One soldier described finding a group of dead bodies while on patrol: "I saw some rats running from under the dead men's greatcoats, enormous rats, fat with human flesh. My heart pounded as we edged towards one of the bodies. His helmet had rolled off. The man displayed a grimacing face, stripped of flesh; the skull bare, the eyes devoured and from the yawning mouth leapt a rat." Remedies for dealing with rats included trapping and killing them. Here are one Canadian soldier’s comments on dealing with rats:
We tried many things to get rid of them. Shooting at them was soon forbidden because there was no way of telling where a ricocheting bullet might come to rest. We tried other methods. We would scatter pieces of hardtack at night on the ground outside gun-pits. When we heard the rats gnawing the biscuit we would rush them with electric torches to blind them and then vie with each other in seeing how far we could kick them. The old army boot was an ideal weapon for such warfare. Twenty- or thirty foot kicks were common. Perhaps our warfare had some success. I do not remember much about rats in the last year of the war. Perhaps we just got used to them. The best remedy, however, was a gas attack which usually killed virtually all of them, and left the area rat- free, at least for a while. Rats did not have gas masks.
Trench Foot: Another serious problem was “trench foot”. The explanation below outlines what this was, and how it was dealt with during the war. Many soldiers fighting in the First World War suffered from trench foot. This was an infection of the feet caused by cold, wet and unsanitary conditions. In the trenches men stood for hours on end in waterlogged trenches without being able to remove wet socks or boots. The feet would gradually go numb and the skin would turn red or blue. If untreated, trench foot could turn gangrenous and result in amputation. Trench foot was a particular problem in the early stages of the war.
For example, during the winter of 1914-15 over 20,000 men in the British Army were treated for trench foot. The only remedy for trench foot was for the soldiers to dry their feet and change their socks several times a day. By the end of 1915 British soldiers in the trenches had to have three pairs of socks with them and were under orders to change their socks at least twice a day. As well as drying their feet, soldiers were told to cover their feet with a grease made from whale-oil. It has been estimated that a battalion at the front would use ten gallons of whale-oil every day.
The experience of the Canadian Army in this regard would be similar to that of their British allies. Given that they went into the line starting in February of 1915, and after this problem had become apparent, they were able to take precautions, in advance. For example, when they landed in France, they were provided with a range of equipment specifically designed for service in the trenches, including trench socks. These would not have been available to the British Army that landed in France six months before, expecting to be home by Christmas.
Trench Mouth: There was also an affliction known as ‘trench mouth”. This problem and its remedy, is described by the Canadian Army Surgeon-General as follows:
This disease of the gums is generally a complication of Vincent’s Angina. It is transmitted grossly by means of un-disinfected eating and drinking vessels, the exchange of smoking pipes, etc., etc....To save the teeth it is necessary that the case be recognized at the earliest possible moment... The patients are to be sent to the Dental Clinics to have their gums treated by Arsenic, Antimony or Flavine method until they are cured....the patients are not to be allowed to frequent the Canteens or bars...
Lice: Lice may have been “the great social equalizer” during the war. Everyone who entered the front lines ended up becoming completely infested with lice within 48 hours of arriving, regardless of social standing. The following description outlines exactly what lice are, and why they are a problem.
Lice are very, very small insects. In fact, they are so tiny that you can barely seem them with your eyes alone! Each louse (the name for one of the lice) is brown and gray and only about the size of a sesame seed. Lice are parasites...which mean that they live off other living things. Head lice need to be next to skin to survive - and the warmth of your skin is a perfect place for them to live. Lice eat tiny amounts of blood (much less than a mosquito does) for their nourishment and use their sticky, little feet to hold on to hair. When lice start living in hair, they also start to lay eggs, or nits. Lice attach their nits to pieces of hair, close to the scalp. If you see a small, oval blob that's white or clear on a strand of hair, that's probably a nit. Once these nits hatch, the new lice come out. Although they don't hurt, these lice sometimes can irritate the skin and make it itchy (especially at night). Too much scratching can lead to scalp infections.
Needless to say, this was a nerve-wracking and unpleasant experience, as noted below:
Located in some spots in our uniform cooties were infuriating. Artillerymen wore riding breeches that fitted closely at the knees. A few cooties lodged in the tight part where they could not be reached, just inside the end of the knee, would drive one to distraction. A favourite place was in the ribs of woolen socks, just behind the ankle. There they were hell on earth. You could take the sock off and search it carefully but when you put it back on again the pests were still there. A common sight at night was some cursing gunner running the flame of a candle along the seams on the inside of his uniform where the, little white nits turned the khaki grey. They would snap and crackle like popcorn but one never seemed to get all of them.
Not only were lice a nuisance, but they were dangerous, as noted as follows, “A soldier could find himself covered in lice within forty-eight hours of his arrival on the Front. Beyond the daily annoyance, the lice caused more serious health problems. Near the end of the war, studies showed that lice were usually responsible for trench fever an illness striking a great many soldiers. The military authorities had to employ engineering know-how to help remedy the situation.” The engineering know-how that was utilized included large fumigation chambers behind the lines. These were not always successful at removing the lice, and once a mean returned to the front, the lice would be with him again within 48 hours, at the most.
The Mud: The trenches are most keenly identified with the endless mud that permeated them throughout the war. The following description summarizes the problem:
Two of the British soldier’s greatest enemies, in every season except summer, were water and mud. The trenches were invariably ankle-deep in mud, and often the level grew much higher. It was common for the water to be at least a foot deep, and hardly rare for it to reach a man’s thighs. There were actually occasions when men had to stand for days on end up their waists, or even their armpits, in freezing water. Usually, of course, the water mixed with the earth in the trenches and turned to thick mud, making each step an effort. The shortest journey became a major enterprise.
The remedy for this included constructing higher parapets and parados, and attempting to drain the trenches, in an attempt to simply stay out of the mud. Given the nature of the area in which Canadian and British armies usually fought however, which was on the plain around Ypres, it was simply impossible to escape this aspect of the trenches.
The worst example of mud was, of course, the battle of Passchendaele. Even General Douglas Haig could comment on this as follows, “The valleys of the choked and overflowing streams were speedily transformed into long stretches of bog, impassable except by a few well-defined tracks, which became marks for the enemy’s artillery. To leave these tracks was to risk death by drowning.” The thought of a general knowingly sending his men to fight in this staggers the imagination.
Shell Shock: The psychological aspects of the war were equally taxing. The condition known as “shell shock” entered the popular lexicon after the war. It was particularly horrible, as described below:
By 1914 British doctors working in military hospitals noticed patients suffering from "shell shock". Early symptoms included tiredness, irritability, giddiness, lack of concentration and headaches. Eventually the men suffered mental breakdowns making it impossible for them to remain in the front line. Some came to the conclusion that the soldiers condition was caused by the enemy's heavy artillery. These doctors argued that a bursting shell creates a vacuum, and when the air rushes into this vacuum it disturbs the cerebro-spinal fluid and this can upset the working of the brain. Some doctors argued that the only cure for shell-shock was a complete rest away from the fighting. If you were an officer you were likely to be sent back home to recuperate. However, the army was less sympathetic to ordinary soldiers with shell-shock. Some senior officers took the view that these men were cowards who were trying to get out of fighting.
Between 1914 and 1918 the British Army identified 80,000 men (2% of those who saw active service) as suffering from shell-shock. A much larger number of soldiers with these symptoms were classified as 'malingerers' and sent back to the front-line. In some cases men committed suicide. Others broke down under the pressure and refused to obey the orders of their officers. Some responded to the pressures of shell-shock by deserting. Sometimes soldiers who disobeyed orders got shot on the spot. In some cases, soldiers were court-martialed. One poignant example of how this affected a man was as follows:
It was while I was in this Field Hospital that I saw the first case of shell-shock. The enemy opened fire about dinner time, as usual, with his big guns. As soon as the first shell came over, the shell- shock case nearly went mad. He screamed and raved, and it took eight men to hold him down on the stretcher. With every shell he would go into a fit of screaming and fight to get away. It is heartbreaking to watch a shell-shock case. The terror is indescribable. The flesh on their faces shakes in fear, and their teeth continually chatter. Shell-shock was brought about in many ways; loss of sleep, continually being under heavy shell fire, the torment of the lice, irregular meals, nerves always on end, and the thought always in the man's mind that the next minute was going to be his last.
The experience of Canadian soldiers suffering from shell-shock was essentially the same. The psychological damage from this war would wreak havoc on this society for decades afterward.
Trench Routine: It must be noted that soldiers only served in the trenches part-time as a function of a specific routine. At any given time, for example, a division of 10,000 men would only have about 1,000 in line. The rest would rotate in and out of the reserve and support trenches, usually every one week in four.
These respites outside of the trenches gave soldiers an opportunity to clean their gear, rest, and to prepare or their next stint in the line. They were also kept busy training, and on work details. In many cases getting to the front was almost as dangerous as being there, this because the roads, paths, and trenches leading to the front line were did not offer the same level of protection as the trenches themselves.
Conclusion: The health of Canadian soldier, forced to crouch in cold fetid water for hours or days on end could only have suffered, as noted below:
The soldiers faced an enemy less tangible than the danger of German weapons, but no less dangerous, namely, disease. The conditions in the trenches, the dampness, cold, the lack of variety and insufficient quantity of food led to a myriad of health problems, the most serious being trench foot. Trench foot was a condition caused by wearing boots for extended periods in wet and cold trenches. Never dry, soldiers suffered from chilblains on their feet that made the skin swell and crack. In the worst cases, they lost toes or even the entire foot. The military authorities very quickly took measures to prevent this type of problem.
In a similar vein, some soldiers suffered trench mouth or Vincent’s angina, an infection caused essentially by germs transmitted in the food, poorly cleaned utensils or sharing of pipes or cigarettes. Sanitary measures were taken to prevent this all too frequent problem in the trenches.
In terms of total casualties and the effect of the trenches, it is interesting to note that between 1914 and 1918 the British Army suffered 2,690,054 battle casualties, and 3,528,486 non-battle casualties due to sickness or disease. As John Ellis noted, “Serving on the Western Front was not simply a problem of avoiding being blown up or shot.” Clearly sickness and disease directly attributable to service in the trenches was a huge problem. What follows is a discussion of the dangers faced by Canadian soldiers in the trenches brought on by their German foe.
The Dangers of Trench Life: The Enemy
The dangers in the trenches from the German Army were many and varied. They will be discussed below in turn, starting with the dangers from the “normal” weapons (i.e. non-gas) weapons of their enemy.
Snipers, Machine Guns and Artillery: The trenches were placed within range of German rifle and machine gun-fire and artillery. Without question, these were the most effective killers employed against the Canadian Army, and death from sniper or machine gun fire, or from artillery bombardment, was a daily fact of life in the trenches.
This melancholy litany of death and maiming started from the very first days after the Canadian Army arrived in France, and started to take up positions in the trenches. Consider the following account of the Canadian Army’s first days in France:
The 20,000 men of the 1st Canadian Division crossed the English Channel and disembarked at St. Nazaire on the French coast in February 1915. After several days of confusion, they were finally marched to a new camp where they waited for their equipment to arrive and did some light training. Their first taste of war came when they entered the trenches in a quiet sector, near Fleurbaix, on the French-Belgian border. At Fleurbaix, they were introduced to trench warfare, the mud, the rats, and the constant fear of sudden death by snipers, trench mortars or artillery. It was at Fleurbaix that the first Canadians died, mostly shot through the head by expert German snipers or killed by shrapnel released in the overhead explosions of artillery shells.
By First World War standards, this trench “wastage” was significant. Here is a description of what it was like being shelled in the front- line:
In February I experienced my closest call so far in the war. For a couple of days the Germans were firing heavy shells which were exploding in the rear of our position. We presumed they were trying to knock out our mortar as we were causing extensive damage on their position. After we had fired another six rounds we all heard a shell coming and knew by the sound it was coming close. I was about 100 feet from the rest, crouching low against the trench. The shell hit our gun emplacement which demolished everything. If that shell had been one minute sooner we would have all been killed. The concussion from the blast shot through the trenches ripping my tunic down the seam from the collar to the bottom. Most of the seams of my pants were severed, a heavy piece of shell casing buried itself in a frozen sandbag six inches from my knee and a part of a falling sandbag hit me in the head. I was just getting to my feet when our officer rushed in from the communication trench. The first thing he said after learning no one was seriously hurt was, ‘What in hell happened to your clothes?’ After realizing it was the result of a concussion he said it was hard to believe we were still alive.
Of course, a sustained bombardment lasting days on end was virtually unbearable. Men would normally lose control of themselves as the bombardment continued, often to the point of being virtually comatose upon arrival of the attacking infantry.
What of the snipers? John Ellis reports that in one two week period in December of 1915, the British Army suffered 3,285 casualties, of which 23% or about 1509 casualties. This was a quiet month, without any major battles, so it can be assumed that this represented a normal “wastage” from snipers at this time. The wounds were to the head, face and neck. This experience would have been very similar in the Canadian Army.
Besides rifles and artillery, a range of other weapons were developed during the war, and specifically as a result of the proximity of the trenches. These included trench mortars, grenades and later rifle grenades. Of course machine guns proliferated as well, in increasing numbers as the war progressed. Of all of these weapons, however, the most effective killer was artillery. As the above quote suggests, against heavy artillery, even being in a trench was no defence (although being in a deep dugout was, assuming that you could dig your way out afterward). For the men in the front lines, the game of survival followed a law of averages. When your number was up, that was it. The following description captures the experience of artillery while in the trenches and the feeling of inevitability that came with artillery in the trenches, nicely:
One is ever conscious of the huge missiles going through the air in all directions, some hissing like huge snakes, some like a street car going over a large concrete bridge, some like the engine of a motor car starting up and some like a bee buzzing by. Then there is the constant Crump Crump Crump of the huge Hun shells bursting, and the Krupp Krupp Krupp of another kind, and the Bang Bang Bang and the Crack Crack of others – Then there is the sound of our 18 pounders going off like two boards being clapped together in the distance and the howitzers that turn one around when they speak and worse still the huge 15, long barreled guns that fairly lift everything and make the whole world shake...Its not earthly and one cannot help but feel that he is in another world and very apt at any moment to be standing face to face with his maker.
Gas: The Canadian Army has the distinction of being one of the first ever gassed by its enemy at 2nd Ypres. Gas became a deadly and effective weapon by the end of the war, and was used throughout after April, 1914. The following describes the Canadian Army’s first encounter.
The greenish haze rose in front of the 3rd Brigade battalion and gradually extended to the right. It began to come over us like a fog bank...This wall of vapour, at least 15 feet in height advanced. The trench was a weird spectacle, men were spitting, cursing, groveling trying to vomit...Men’s bayonets looked as if they had been dipped in a solution of copper...the least exertion in the worst cases brought on choking, fit-like convulsions...as the fumes cleared away an attempt to attack our flank was met by so effective a machine-gun and rifle fire that 50 to 60 Germans were killed...the men wanted to kill and go on killing.
The effects of this first attack may be described as follows, “The effects of the successful gas-attack were horrible...All the dead lie on their backs, with clenched fists; the whole field is yellow...After fresh attacks a sleeping army lies in front of one of our brigades; they rest in good order, man by man, and will never wake again – Canadian Divisions.”
The gas used at 2nd Ypres was chlorine, and all armies quickly developed a range of remedies to deal with this, primarily the use of gas masks. As the war progressed, gas was delivered both from canisters, and from artillery shells. Following on the heels of chlorine gas was the use of phosgene, which is described as follows:
Phosgene as a weapon was more potent than chlorine in that while the latter was potentially deadly it caused the victim to violently cough and choke. Phosgene caused much less coughing with the result that more of it was inhaled; it was consequently adopted by both German and Allied armies. Phosgene often had a delayed effect; apparently healthy soldiers were taken down with phosgene gas poisoning up to 48 hours after inhalation. The so-called "white star" mixture of phosgene and chlorine was commonly used on the Somme: the chlorine content supplied the necessary vapour with which to carry the phosgene.
The Germans introduced mustard gas in July of 1917. Unlike the other two gasses, it was a “persisting” gas that would remain dormant for days and weeks at a time in the soil. It was very effective in that not only did it kill its victims, but it was hard to detect, and it instilled burns to whatever areas were exposed. The fact that it persisted for days also meant that it was more effective as only a few gas shells could render an area unusable. This gas and its use is further described below:
Remaining consistently ahead in terms of gas warfare development, Germany unveiled an enhanced form of gas weaponry against the Russians at Riga in September 1917: mustard gas (or Yperite) contained in artillery shells. Mustard gas, an almost odourless chemical, was distinguished by the serious blisters it caused both internally and externally, brought on several hours after exposure. Protection against mustard gas proved more difficult than against either chlorine or phosgene gas. The use of mustard gas - sometimes referred to as Yperite - also proved to have mixed benefits.
While inflicting serious injury upon the enemy the chemical remained potent in soil for weeks after release: making capture of infected trenches a dangerous undertaking. As a measure of how horrible this was, consider that the use of gas as a military weapon was banned after the war. In spite of occasional breaches of these rules of war, it has rarely been used since.
Trench Raids: Trench raids were just that; raids across No Man’s Land into the trenches of the Germans for the purpose of killing and wounding as many as possible, and in order to capture prisoners and collect information. It was a vicious type of warfare conducted with a wide range of personal weapons including pistols, revolvers, grenades, light machine guns, and even clubs.
There is some debate over who launched the first trench raid. John Ellis notes the debate, and suggest that it was either the Canadians, or the First and Second Battalions of the Garwhal Rifles which launched a raid on the 9/10 of November, 1914. The credit in this country is usually given to the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, which according to Granatstein launched their first raid in February of 1915. Seeing as 1914 came before 1915, it seems obvious which Army “invented” this, and John Keegan gives credit to the Garwhal Rifles. Regardless of the inventor of this particular aspect of trench warfare, it became a very regular part of the trench experience for the rest of the war. The following describes a Canadian soldier’s rather exhilarating first experience with a raid:
...it was something to be out of the trench, out on the level ground, looking for Fritz. The most phlegmatic among us must have felt a little (as I felt greatly) how wonderful and mystic it was that we bookworms, clerks and peasants of the commonplace twentieth century should be on man-hunt by night under French skies. It was something to be good enough to be trusted out here, patrolling the line. And I think that deeper than the stench of the gas and the ammonia and the dead, we all sensed in our nostrils the good sweet smell of our mother earth. Surely I grew to know her better that night than ever before.
Most raids resulted in casualties, and trench raids were conducted relentlessly by the Canadian Army, which attempted to dominate the “No Man’s Land” between it and the Germans. It was not forced on Canadians by the Germans, but counts as an aspect of the war that certainly stemmed from the proximity of the trenches to them. Usually the raids were carried out by small numbers of men, but some raids were large enough to be counted as battles, and the raids before Vimy are counted as such in the analysis in the next section of the paper.
The usefulness of these raids has been debated for some time. For the purposes of this paper, it is enough to note that the raids added to a constant stream of dead, wounded, and missing to the casualty rolls of the Canadian Army. While some reconnaissance would have been necessary had the trenches been five miles instead of 50 metres apart, one doubts if regular infantry would have been sent out nightly to perform this task. More probably, the cavalry, or specialized soldiers would have done this.
Conclusion: A man could die, be maimed, or become sick in myriad ways in the trenches. The proximity of the trenches to the German Army contributed mightily to this simply by preventing work on the trenches that could have made them more livable and safer, and therefore less injurious to soldiers’ health, and by giving the Germans an opportunity to bring a wide array of weapons to bear against an enemy whose position was close and well-known. The only remedy to the first problem was to hope to not become ill and to stay healthy as best one could. To the second problem, the only remedy was to dig more deeply, and keep one’s head down. What follows is an analysis of how many Canadian soldiers did not succeed in doing the second of these, and who were either killed or wounded simply manning the front lines.
The Human Cost of Trench Warfare
In order to quantify the Human cost of the strategy of the continuously-engaged front, the following methodology will be applied. First, the total casualties will be ascertained, including killed in action (including those who died from wounds), those killed while training, those wounded, the number of victims of disease, and other casualties. Second, the number killed and wounded during the various battles fought by Canada during the war will be added up. Finally, the third step will involve ascertaining the “wastage”, as it has been called, occasioned by the decision to place the front line tens of meters from the enemy between the various battles. This number should be easily ascertained by simply subtracting the battle casualties from the total, including allowances for those killed in training. Each of these steps is outlined as subsections below.
It should be mentioned that the most difficult aspect of this calculation will involve separating battles from the “quiet times” in which the Canadian Army simply held the front line. To accomplish this, it will prove useful to develop a monthly “losses grid” which will allow for comparison of losses due to battles to those during quiet times on the Canadian front. This grid is immediately below.
The Losses Grid
The following “losses grid” reflects Canadian Army losses in each month of the war in terms of overall casualties. Where battles took place, and where they can be thought of as the primary source of the losses, this is noted in the grid ("None" = no battle). Total days either in battle, or in the zone of battle, are noted in brackets in the “Notes” column.
Canadian Losses by Month: 1915 - 1918 - Monthly Casualties (in bold) with Battle Notes (total days in battle in parentheses)
- 01/15 31 None
- 02/15 135 None Familiarization - Feb. 17 - Mar. 2/1st Trench Raid
- 03/15 455 None In line - Mar. 3 - Mar 27
- 04/15 4,156 2nd Ypres In line - Apr. 14 – 22/2nd Ypres - Apr. 22 - May 8 (17)
- 05/15 3,290 2nd Ypres As immediately above
- 06/15 1,058 Festubert Festubert - May 18 – 25 (8)
- 07/15 310 Givinchy In line/Givinchy June 15 (1)
- 08/15 263 None In line
- 09/15 334 None 2nd Division arrives
- 10/15 1,033 None In line
- 11/15 847 None In line - Messines front/Raids
- 12/15 238 None In line - Messines front/Raids
- 01/16 636 None In line - Messines front/Raids
- 02/16 571 None In line - Messines front/Raids
- 03/16 1,119 St. Eloi St. Eloi starts Mar 27/2nd Cdn in support
- 04/16 3,875 St. Eloi St. Eloi - Apr. 2 – 19/2nd Cdn (18)
- 05/16 2,596 None 3rd Division arrives
- 06/16 10,505 Mount Sorrel Hooge/Sanctuary Wood - Jun. 2 -14 (13)
- 07/16 2,329 None In line – Ypres salient
- 08/16 2,014 The Somme Mouquet Farm/4th Division arrives
- 09/16 15,350 The Somme Courcellete/Thiepval Ridge – Sept. 15 – 29 (15)
- 10/16 7,860 The Somme Le Transloy/Regina Trench - Oct. 1 - Nov. 11 (42)
- 11/16 3,498 The Somme Beaumont Hamel/Desire Trench - Nov. 13 – 18 (6)
- 12/16 1,011 None In line – Vimy area/Raids/First Day Raid –Dec. 20
- 01/17 1,411 None In line – Vimy area/Raids
- 02/17 1,579 None In line – Vimy area/Raids
- 03/17 2,562 None Heavy trench raids occurred prior to Vimy
- 04/17 14,011 Vimy Ridge Vimy - Apr. 9 – 12/Arleux Apr. 28 – 30 (7)
- 05/17 7,131 3rd Scarpe Fresnoy – May 3 – 4 (2)
- 06/17 5,612 None In line – Vimy/bombardments + gas
- 07/17 3,380 None In line – Vimy/bombardments + gas/Mustard Gas
- 08/17 10,643 Hill 70 Hill 70 - Aug. 15- 25 (10)
- 09/17 2,447 None In line
- 10/17 7,947 Passchendaele Passchendaele - Oct. 26 – Nov.10 (15)
- 11/17 9,591 Passchendaele Passchendaele - Oct. 26 – Nov.10 (15)
- 12/17 723 None In line/Raids
- 01/18 742 None In line/Raids
- 02/18 965 None In line/Raids
- 03/18 2,749 None In line/Raids
- 04/18 3,583 None In line/Raids
- 05/18 1,328 None In line/Raids
- 06/18 1,148 None In line/Raids
- 07/18 1,512 None In line/Raids
- 08/18 25,471 100 Days Amiens Aug. 8 – 11 (4)
- 09/18 16,950 100 Days Arras Aug. 26 – Sept. 3 (8)
- 10/18 18,259 100 Days Canal du Nord and Cambrai – Sept. 27 – Oct. 11 (14)
- 11/18 1,743 100 Days Valenciennes – Nov. 1 – 2 (2)
Total of 205,001 casualties and approximately 140 days in battle or battle zones
The totals above were reproduced from a book called The Communication Trench: Anecdotes and Statistics from The Great War: 1914 – 1918, by Will R. Bird, which was first published in 1933. The information contained in the Notes was gleaned from Granatstein’s work, from the regimental histories mentioned above, from Bill Rawling’s book noted above, and finally, from Tim Cook’s work, also noted above.
The Total Human Cost
The above grid outlines total Canadian casualties at 205,001 for the entire war. In his statistical summary of the war, Will R. Bird gives the following figures for killed and wounded: Killed – 56,375; Wounded – 149,712; Total – 206,087.
Bird does not note, and therefore does not explain, the discrepancy of 1,087 casualties between the figures noted in the grid above, and the figures given in another section of his book. He does note that a further 3,729 men were captured.
Bird’s figures of about 56,000 killed and 150,000 wounded are at variance with those of Granatstein and Burton both of whom quote the figure of about 60,000 dead, and Granatstein notes the figure of 172,000 wounded. It is likely that Bird’s figures, in that they were centred only on the battlefield, do not include training and other losses.
Bird’s totals would then seem to include those killed in action, those who died from wounds, and those who were presumed dead, or missing. For the purposes of this paper, however, Bird’s figures are useful as it is possible to break down the losses month by month, and to thereby ascertain losses in the time periods within which battles occurred as opposed to those wherein men were simply manning the trenches.
The Cost of Battles
What did it cost Canada in human lives lost and maimed to actually fight World War One? From the grid above, the figures for the months in which battles occurred come to 166,244, including the month before Vimy in which heavy trench raids were carried out prior to that battle. As will be noted immediately below, however, this figure is likely lower, and in the range of 155,000 total battle casualties.
The Cost of Normal Monthly “Wastage”
If 166,244 men were lost as casualties during Canada’s First World War battles, it follows that 39,843 became casualties while simply holding the line (206,087 - 166,244 = 39,843) – in other words, everyone else. This works out to about 27.5 casualties per day, every day for almost four years.
Of course, it is likely much higher than this. The reason for this relates to the fact that out of 1,410 days in which the Canadian Army was in France, starting in January 1915, the Army spent only approximately 140 days in battle, or actively in the zone of battle where high casualties would normally be expected. This means that it was also holding the line for much of the time during the “battle” months noted above - months in which no figures have been given for “wastage”. What, therefore, could have been the total “wastage” including these months?
There were a total of 20 battle months out of 47 in total noted in the grid above. Twenty months works out to about 600 days, out of a total of 1,410 days in which the Canadian Army was fighting in France, starting January 1, 1915. If the 140 “battle days” are subtracted, this leaves 460 days unaccounted for in terms of “wastage”.
With wastage of about 27.5 men per day, this would add another 12,650 men to the total, for a grand total of 52,493 (39,843 + 12,650) casualties. This 12,650 would have to be subtracted from battle casualties. In looking at the number of 52,493, and with a break down of killed to wounded of about one to three, this could imply about 12,500 dead and 37,500 wounded simply to maintain a continuously-engaged front line tens of meters from the Germans.
As noted above, the figure for battle losses must be adjusted down by 12,650 from 166,244 as these losses may have been due to “wastage”, leaving battle losses of about 153,594. Also, it must be stated that the Canadian Army was obviously not either holding the line, or fighting battles, throughout the entire war. Often, it was training for future battles, or being re-equipped following stints in the front line or in battle. The numbers noted above are, of necessity, only generalizations. The exact number of men lost in battle, versus those lost simply in the trenches cannot be known to the last man. The above represents “best efforts” in this regard.
Summary
Fighting tens of meters from your enemy, for years on end, was a very expensive way to fight a war. Of course this huge cost in terms of lives lost, and people maimed, was known to everyone involved at the time. In this regard, it is worth noting that during the war the British General Headquarters estimated that one year of constant fighting would cost the British Army 513,252 men, or about 1,500 per day. Six months of regular “wastage” would cost about 300,000, or about 1,600 per day, the most common cause of casualties being artillery bombardments. In other words, the British military professionals estimated that battle and regular trench duties were about equally as dangerous.
The figure of approximately 51,000 casualties in the trenches as compared to about 150,000 battle casualties for the Canadian Army does not support the British General Headquarters’ estimates. In the end, staying in the trenches was still safer than going into battle. This should have been obvious. Still, sitting in a trench simply holding the line was a remarkably dangerous way to fight the war. Approximately 51,000 casualties represents more than half of Canada’s casualty total in the entire Second World War which saw a casualties of 42,000 killed and 54,400 wounded for a total loss of about 96,400.
Was this actually necessary? The following section will explore the origins of the trenches from a tactical perspective, and the strategy of the continuously-engaged front line.
Conclusion
The war that resulted in trenches stemmed from a spirit of the offensive. This spirit inculcated every general staff in Europe before the war, and carried on right to the end of the war. Desmond Morton describes the matter thus, “Trapped in a stalemate, generals dreamed and schemed of the great breakthrough. Mere passive defence was intolerable. Romantic literature persuaded them that raw courage could achieve anything.” The idea of this romantic myth penetrated even into the tactical manuals of the various armies, and reflected unwillingness on the part of generals in that war to take into account the material equality between the opposing forces that made success on the battlefield so elusive. John Ellis describes this problem as follows:
The point is so basic, it is often overlooked. Before a commander can devise suitable tactics he must first appreciate the nature of the material balance. The generals of 1914 failed to do this. Because all the armies were organized and equipped in much the same way, it was thought that battle would be a close run thing in which victory would go to those that showed the greatest resolution, the greatest will to win. They completely ignored the implications of the weapons with which they had equipped themselves...Static machine guns and rifles must give almost the whole advantage to the defender. But the generals did not acknowledge this. For them the charge was a sort of limbo during which the defender nervously fingered his weapon, began to shake with fear and then simply bolted. Perhaps this conception had some validity a hundred years before. But in the trenches the defender was too sure of his weapons for this to be true. A German machine gunner looking over the sights of his Maxim gun, seeing the swaths of dead and dying, was more likely to pity his enemy’s morale than to fear it.
This is standard fare, and stems from decades of analysis of the war, and particularly the analysis of battles. What this paper has attempted to do is explore a different aspect of trench warfare, namely the strategy of maintaining a continuously-engaged front line, between battles. As noted, this strategy could have cost Canada approximately 12,500 dead, and 37,500 wounded in a little less than four years.
Many explanations have been offered regarding the need for this strategy, including the necessity to obtain information, the necessity of keeping soldiers keyed-up for battle, the fact that there was no other option, and the simple fact that trenches were there because armies were actually large enough for a constant front line to be formed. As noted, this paper does not attempt to answer the question concerning the rationale for the trenches, and the continuously-engaged front line. Its purpose was simply to point out what the experience actually was, and to note the Human cost. It will leave to others the task of justifying, or not as the case may be, the horrors that were suffered, and the approximately 51,000 casualties which were incurred.
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