This illustration makes it all look rather pleasant, rather than absolute hell
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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Not enough pixels to show how infested with lice everyone is
I've heard stories about the allies being shocked by how nice the German trenches were when they captured them. Relatively speaking of course.
There are no showers or toilets in the picture.
There were probably no showers or toilets IRL either.
They dug latrines. At Isonzo, IIRC one side managed to flood the other's trenches with their latrines, causing a ton of deaths from disease.
To me, it makes me sad.
Is there a key for the labels? I'm curious what all the parts are called.
H is for Hussein
Unfortunately, I couldn't find a key when I used reverse image search.
Well this is neat - I think I found the "zoomed out" cutaway while I was looking:
Truly hell.
Idk why but I expected to see a red Saddam Hussein silhouette.
This is fascinating. I wish there was a detail about how the trench disposes of carbon dioxide and monoxide from breathing and burning.
It does show a chimney for the stove. They also had electric air pumps for the deeper parts, which could be kept running by a hand crank in case the power went out.
I don't see any sort of drainage system. I'll bet that filled with water during heavy rains and was miserable. The smell of all those men living together in tight quarters without adequate ventilation was probably awful. Cigarette smoke was probably downright pleasant compared to the BO. It looks like a fun place to visit as a kid, but a nightmare to live in as an adult.
do you seriously think they didn't have ventilation and drainage?
tbf, competence was not in high supply during the Great War. In places they dug trenches below the fucking water table.
right but when they were building complex underground structures like this, they called in experienced miners. every country already had lots of experience digging underground. Britain used coal miners
Notice that I said "adequate" ventilation, which I seriously doubt they had. We know they didn't have adequate drainage because trench foot was a serious problem during both of the world wars.
I wonder if the trenches in Ukraine have reached that level, yet.