The Ross Playfair Letters Project

...warfare in which opposing armed forces attack, counterattack, and defend from relatively permanent systems of trenches dug into the ground. The opposing systems of trenches are usually close to one another. Trench warfare is resorted to when the superior firepower of the defense compels the opposing forces to “dig in” so extensively as to sacrifice their mobility in order to gain protection.

... In making a trench, soil from the excavation is used to create raised parapets running both in front of and behind the trench. Within the trench are firing positions along a raised forward step called a fire step, and duckboards are placed on the often muddy bottom of the trench to provide secure footing.

...

Trench warfare reached its highest development on the Western Front during World War I (1914–18), when armies of millions of men faced each other in a line of trenches extending from the Belgian coast through northeastern France to Switzerland. These trenches arose within the first few months of the war’s outbreak, after the great offensives launched by Germany and France had shattered against the deadly, withering fire of the machine gun and the rapid-firing artillery piece. The sheer quantity of bullets and shells flying through the air in the battle conditions of that war compelled soldiers to burrow into the soil to obtain shelter and survive.

The typical trench system in World War I consisted of a series of two, three, four, or more trench lines running parallel to each other and being at least 1 mile (1.6 km) in depth [sic]. Each trench was dug in a type of zigzag so that no enemy, standing at one end, could fire for more than a few yards down its length. Each of the main lines of trenches was connected to each other and to the rear by a series of communications trenches that were dug roughly perpendicular to them. Food, ammunition, fresh troops, mail, and orders were delivered through these trenches. The intricate network of trenches contained command posts, forward supply dumps, first-aid stations, kitchens, and latrines. Most importantly, it had machine -gun emplacements to defend against an assault, and it had dugouts deep enough to shelter large number of defending troops during an enemy bombardment.

• “Dugouts,” Spartacus Educational website
• diagram of a trench at SchoolHistory website
• “Trench Warfare,” Wikipedia
• diagrams and more information on trench warfare at Spartacus Educational website
• Bairnsfather cartoon “The Communication Trench” (from More Fragments from France, vol. 2, p. 25)
• Bairnsfather cartoon “The New Submarine Danger” (from More Fragments from France, vol. 2, p. 37)
• Bairnsfather cartoon “Those Tubular Trenches” (from More Fragments from France, vol. 2, p. 43) showing HQ in a dugout
• Bairnsfather cartoon “What time do they feed the sealions, Alf” (from More Fragments from France, vol. 2, front cover)
• Bairnsfather cartoon "My Dug-Out" (from Fragments from France, p. 4)

On the first morning out, the army solicitously let its men sleep in, but soon they were back to the routines of “soldiering,” cleaning weapons, and trying to beat the mud from their clothes in time for a 2:00 p.m. inspection. A.M. Munro assured his father there were no complaints about fighting: “it is when we got back for rest, and buttons have to be polished, boots shined, clothes cleaned etc. for inspection by some ‘big guns’, who hand out lots of Hot Air, of which the boys have long since gotten tired.” Soldiers took the word rest literally , and assumed they would be free to lounge, gossip, and hunt for something more potent than the sour wine or thin beer offered by the local estaminet. Saluting, however, never relaxed...