Trench Life

A Day In The Life of a Soldier

A close up on the Trenches.

While some soldiers die, others keep on fighting. The only safety they have is in the Trenches, which is an everlasting punishment that no soldier can escape. After leaving all their friends and family behind, the soldiers are faced with problems beyond their control. The Trenches are surrounded with the smell of both death and fear combined. As a soldier, life in the trenches is a nightmare come true. The diseases spread among these troops are the cause of more than 1/3 of the deaths. The trenches are not only infested with rats that are bigger than cats, but with lice and frogs as well. Its no wonder why the soldiers experience common cases of Trench Fever, Trench Foot, and fungal infections. For now, all these men can do is keep their heads held high and pray that the next bullet fired doesn't have their name on it.

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A diagram of the trenches used in The Great War.

The Men Who Do All The Work

The Dough Boys

A group of dough boys

    Imagine going into the front lines to defend our county. Dealing with death. Dealing with killing. Having the possibility of never seeing your loved ones again. Well that is what our dough boys have to do everyday when they fight in war.

     Dough boys are the millions of American men who serve in this Great War. People believe that this name comes from the idea of the big bore large globular buttons on these men's uniforms. Although we, the people, may use names such as the "sammies" or the  "yanks", "dough boy" is defiantly the most popular nick name for these soldiers and the most well known throughout the United States.

   If it were not for these dough boys, the United States may have never made it this far into the war.

The Many Who Killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand: Gavrillo Princip

The Assassin

               I am here with Garillo Princip. For those of you who may not be up to date, this man assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, about a week ago.

    ME: So what was life like growing up?

    HIM: It was hard growing up for me. Many of my family siblings died at a young age and I have tuberculosis. So it was pretty tough.

Gavrillo Princip

    ME: Interesting. So when did you decide to join in a terrorist organization?

    HIM: I joined the terrorist organization at a young age. I believe that my troubled youth may have triggered my interest and drove me to do such a thing.

    ME: What exactly were you told to do? How were you instructed to kill Archduke?

    HIM: Along with me and many other guys, we were chosen because of our bad health, we were instructed to kill Archduke and then kill ourselves right after. But it didn't really work out like it was planned.

    ME: Really? How so?

    HIM: It was June 28, 1914. Archduke and his wife were in a car at the time. With six attempts of assassination from the other men, I happened to be the lucky seventh. I jumped onto their car. Along with shooting Archduke I also killed his wife. The police caught me before I was even able to kill myself. In trial, they decided that because I was only 19 I could not receive the death penalty but like in jail. And here I am now, although I think I may die soon of my tuberculosis.

    ME: Well thank you for your time Gavrillo. That was very interesting.

                  Well there you have it, Gavrillo Princip, the man who assassinated Archduke and started the Great War, telling the story straight from the source.

The Battle of Somme: Rage Is On

The War That Has Killed Millions

A few of the unlucky men who's lives were taken. 

It has now September, we've been at war for about three months now and no one knows when this nightmare will finally be over. However, we hope that times can only get better from this point forward. It is the Battle of Somme that haunts each and every one of us. 1,000,000 shells were fired at the Germans in the first 24 hours of this terrible war that only started a week long artillery bombardment on the Germans. Afterall, 21,000 troops died on the first day of war and we can do nothing but wonder how many more deaths there are to come. This war   truly symbolizes the real horrors of warfare.