Even though it's been days since the last
time the Germans tried to drown your trench in poison, you can’t get the acrid tang
smell of the gas out of your nose. You were lucky that day, you'd been awake
and on sentry duty so you had plenty of time to throw on your mask even as you shouted
warnings to others. But it's hard to shout in your gas mask and
be heard, even more so when the men in your platoon are sleeping in dirt holes dug a dozen
feet into the French mud. You did your best, running from hole to hole
and sticking your head in, but the gas beat you to many of the makeshift barracks. Heavier than air, it swamped the man-made
caves sleeping a dozen or more men, filling their lungs with death. That's why it's the sleeping that's the most
terrifying part of the front for you. Other soldiers say it's the terrible barrages
which can last days- and they're not wrong. When Jerry is working up for an attack you
can always tell, because the bombardment doesn't let up for a day or two, sometimes three. If there is a hell it pales in comparison
to living through seventy two straight hours of constant shelling. The never ending cacophony breaks the men
the artillery doesn't kill, but as long as they can still hold a rifle in their hands
they're good enough to be at the front. Even if those hands are shaking so badly they
can hardly aim. Barrages are bad, but the thought of waking
up in a hole choking to death on poison gas terrifies you more than any German shelling. You can't help but think about it every time
it's your turn to head down into your makeshift tomb and grab a few hours of shut-eye. As you slip into unconsciousness you're all
too aware that the next time you wake up, it could be fighting for breath as poison
destroys your lungs. But there's other dangers that'll kill you
while you're sleeping. To protect from enemy artillery, the men of
the front have dug themselves deep into the ground, and most of the time without any experience
digging tunnels or anything of the sort, and with absolutely zero materials for reinforcement. Not that you'd find any anyways, every tree
for miles around has been blasted into oblivion by years of shelling. All of eastern France is a moonscape of craters,
punctuated only by the shattered trunks and limbs of the few trees to remain upright,
stabbing up into the sky like broken skeletal fingers. There was a forest all across this land once,
and green grass, and deer, and babbling brooks. Now there's only mud, blood, corpses, and
shit. Without reinforcing planks, the tunnels and
underground living spaces you construct are under constant threat of collapse. They're meant to protect you from German shelling,
but in reality run the risk of collapsing from even a glancing blow. Sometimes, there's not even a need for artillery-
with the wettest season on record for this part of France, some of the underground quarters
simply collapse in a heap of mud, burying alive everyone sleeping inside. You've even heard of rivers of mud drowning
men sleeping on the floor of the trench, completely overwhelmed and too exhausted to notice and
wake in time. If this war is going to kill you, let it at
least be the conventional way. That damned rain has only recently let up. Back home you're used to heavy rains, but
this- this is something else entirely. It's like the heavens opened up on just this
one specific area of France, as if God himself wished to add to the hellish misery of the
western front. Things could hardly get any worse, but you
know better because they're about to get a lot worse. With a pause in the rains, someone up the
chain of command decided this is it, the opportunity they've been waiting for. It's time to attack. The rationale is simple- the enemy must be
as miserable as you, and after nearly drowning in mud and piss in their trenches, surely
the last thing they would be expecting, or even ready for, is a full-force assault across
a wide section of the front. Hell, maybe they're right, after all it's
certainly the last thing you would expect them to do. Probably because it's such a goddamned stupid
idea. Orders are orders though. Even when they're suicidal- which really makes
you think... you and the hundreds of your fellow soldiers
are all armed to the teeth. Who exactly would stop you all from simply
refusing the obviously suicidal order to attack? You shake such treasonous thoughts from your
head and double check your equipment for the nineteenth time. You're not carrying much, you never do when
you go over the top, because you don't really need much. When the war first started both men ordered
their infantry to assault with full packs on their backs, expecting to take large tracts
of land at a time which would require the men to dig in and live off their own supplies
until new supply lines could be linked up with the front. Machine guns and miles of trenches put a real
quick stop to that thinking. Now advances were measured in dozens of meters,
sometimes even a hundred if things went incredibly well. If anyone wanted to resupply a successful
assault often all they really needed was a strong pitching arm to lob fresh ammo over
to the next trench. In some places opposing trenches were barely
a basketball court's width away from each other and people shot each other with pistols,
not rifles. As you prep to go over the top, you'll only
be taking the absolute short-term essentials. That means helmet, rifle, bayonet, ammo pouches,
canteen, knife, and gas mask. You're not important enough to get a pistol
for a side arm, typically only officers get those- but as officers die or enemy officers
are killed, more and more rank and file grunts are picking them up for themselves. You want to leave the heavy wool jacket you're
wearing behind, but it helps protect you from mustard gas and the nights get really cold
out here on the front. You just hope that wherever you end up tonight-
back here in defeat, or in the enemy trench in victory- you have a chance to dry it off
over a fire. Unlikely, again there's no wood to be found
anywhere. You check and double check your rifle, your
literal life line out here on the front. One unlucky jam at the wrong time and you're
as good as dead. It's not just a good routine though, it's
calming. Checking your rifle is in working order gives
your anxious mind something to do, and a little bit of peace and security in a chaotic world. You can't control the war, you can't control
who is or isn't shooting at you, but you can keep your weapon functioning. Suddenly, a loud piercing whistle breaks the
stillness of the early evening air. Like floodgates bursting in a storm, more
whistles quickly join in, immediately followed by the roar of hundreds of human voices. It's time, and without even thinking you're
already up and over the top. Your voice joins in the battlecry, though
you're not sure if you're roaring in victorious defiance or screaming in blind panic. To be fair, there's plenty of both going on
all around you. Five meters, ten meters, fifteen meters! You estimate your progress as you join in
the battlecry. How many meters to the enemy lines? Was it a hundred or a hundred and fifty? How much further to relative safety? It doesn't matter, because on your next step
your boot sinks in the soft mud all the way to your ankle and you go tumbling down onto
your face. It's a wonder you didn't snap your ankle,
but the accident saves your life because a breath later and German machine gunners open
up on the far trench, unleashing a blistering wall of lead on the advancing infantry. Men are cut down mid-charge by the dozens
as machine gunners sweep in wide arcs, unleashing death to the tune of hundreds of rounds a
minute. Ahead of you, like stars twinkling evilly
in the dark, hundreds of muzzle flashes from machine guns and rifles spell out death for
the attackers. But sitting in no man's land is not an option,
because you know exactly what's coming next- and are not disappointed. With a sickening thump, German trench mortars
begin their horrible work. Shells land amongst the advancing soldiers,
blowing limbs off and killing others with shrapnel. Staying low to the ground may seem the safer
option, but the only real safety is to get across no man's land and into the enemy trench
where machine guns, mortar, and artillery can't reach you. At least then you only have to worry about
rifles and knives. So you struggle to pick yourself up, tugging
at your damned foot, now buried to the shin in mud. With a sickening squelch you pull your foot
free- and straight out of the boot, which remains buried a foot deep. The hell with your boot, if you don't start
moving and start moving now a missing boot will be the least of your problems. You pick yourself up and start hobbling forward
again. Running is impossible. The thick mud makes it a chore to move at
any amount of speed, and looking left and right reveals that you're not the only person
battling to free limbs from the thick, soupy mud. Those men are easy targets though, especially
once the sky lights up with illumination flares fired from German mortars and artillery. German snipers pick off the stuck soldiers
like mice caught by a glue trap. It's a wonder the machine guns haven't found
you yet, even as you can hear the sickening splat sound of rounds impacting the thick
mud around you. Nothing you can do about it though so you
push the thought out of your mind and continue running forward. But the damned mud is exhausting to work through-
you can't. You have to take a break. You hurl yourself into a small shell crater,
likely a previous impact from a large mortar. There's big shell craters all over the field
around you, some of them from enemy or friendly artillery that fell short of their targets. Others were created on purpose in anticipation
of an assault. They're meant to provide shelter for advancing
infantry, give them a place where they can drop down into and recover for the final leg
to the trenches. But you know better than to dive into one
of the larger craters- it's been raining for days and all that water has collected inside
many of the deep craters. There it's been churned together into thick,
soupy mud- a death trap for anyone seeking shelter. Not everyone is as keen as you, and men hurl
themselves into perceived safety only to find themselves trapped by the mud. It's exhausting work to tear yourself free,
you watch a man to your left covered head to toe struggle to free himself, only to get
to the lip of the crater and have his head blown off. Some won't even make it that far though, drowning
in the mud. It doesn't help that the rain is starting
to pick back up again, slow and steady for now but you know a torrential downpour can't
be far behind. On the one hand, you're glad for the cover
even a little bit of rain gives you. On the other, you know it spells doom for
all the men stuck in the mud. The shell craters will fill up and drown every
last one of them, their only hope is that you can take the enemy trench fast enough
to send help back for them. What had started as a massed, mad rush for
the enemy trench, has largely been broken up into sporadic runs by smaller groups. Some of them even make it, diving into the
enemy's trench and blessedly reducing the volume of fire murdering you and your friends
still out in no man's land. A lot don't even make it halfway. You though, you've made it halfway, and you're
determined to make it all the way. Ahead and to your right another soldier is
huddling in his own crater, and you both catch each other's eyes as you survey the hellscape
around you. With an unspoken nod between you, you both
leap up and begin the dash to the enemy anew, emboldened by each other's presence. He takes three steps before a machine gun
round blows his left hand off. He stumbles forward in shock and goes to scream
but more rounds stitch a pattern up his chest. You don't even hear him hit the ground as
you rush past and dive into another shell hole, someone's screaming so loud it's actually
overpowering the machine guns and mortars. When your voice finally breaks you realize
it's you. A series of explosions ahead of you snaps
you out of the dazed reverie inside your all-too-shallow hole. Somewhere not too far ahead men have run into
the enemy's barbed wire fortifications. These have been set in rows of threes a few
dozen meters ahead of the enemy's trench, and are meant to slow infantry down and make
them easy pickings for machine guns and rifles. Mortars and grenades can even be dropped directly
on top of them and do little more than turn the neat rows of barbed wire into a single
twisted mess of gouging steel- they might be even better at their job this way. There's three options for dealing with barbed
wire. Well, technically four, but number four involves
you getting blasted as you try to figure out a way through it and nobody likes that option. Number one is to cut your way through with
wire cutters. This is an excellent way of dealing with barbed
wire, if it wasn't so damned slow. Each strand has to be cut individually, clearing
a path for the rest of the assault. It's so painstakingly slow that wire cutters
are only brought on an assault as a last resort- options two and three are preferable. Instead, saboteurs will often try to sneak
across no man's land in the dead of night and snip the wire under cover of darkness
in advance of an assault. Sometimes they even survive the attempt. Option number two is to use explosives. The British have developed a special type
of explosive called the Bangalore Torpedo. Doesn't look much like a torpedo, so no clue
why they named it that. All it really is, is several lengths of explosives
inside metal tubes which can be screwed together. Then a sapper simply shoves the lengths of
pipe through the barbed wire, lights one end, and finds whatever cover he can. The resulting explosion blasts the barbed
wire apart, creating a neat channel to pour through and past the obstacle. Option three is almost as bad as option four,
but better than option one. For everyone except you of course. If there's no wire cutters nearby, no explosive
charges, or you're simply taking casualties at a truly frightening rate, then it's up
to some brave soul to simply hurl themselves on the barbed wire and allow his buddies to
use him as a human bridge. This is surprisingly effective, but rarely
ends up well for the volunteer who gets left behind, struggling to extricate himself from
tangles of razor-sharp wire. Hopefully the assault is successful and your
buddies can come back to cut you out, but if it isn't- well then you can only hope the
enemy is merciful enough to put a bullet in you for a mercy killing. Beats slowly bleeding out over days on a tangle
of steel. Sometimes though soldiers will bring heavy
blankets to throw on the barbed wire and try to crawl over it that way. A few inches of blanket isn't nearly as protective,
but better than nothing. Today though you're lucky, the sappers have
actually survived the mad dash across no man's land and a series of explosions blasts a way
through the obstacle. The good news is that the way through the
jumble of razor blades is clear. The bad news is that the breeches in the wire
make for very narrow funnels through which dozens of men must pour through- perfect targets
for machine guns. But there's more explosions across the front,
and more breeches in the enemy's defenses. By the time it's your turn to dash past the
wire there's so many holes, and the assault is so close, that enemy machine gunners are
having a hard time keeping up. Most of them have been firing non-stop for
minutes now, pausing only briefly for ammo belt changes. Their water-cooled barrels are red-hot in
the dark and in danger of catastrophic overheating. Their accuracy is way off thanks to deforming
barrels, but at close range the machine gun fire is still withering. Your side is doing it though. Men are making it to the trench and hopping
down. You can hear the muffled sounds of rifles
firing inside the eight foot deep trenches, and the screams of the dying and wounded. Just a few more seconds of running.. you're almost there. You can feel machine gun rounds whizz by you
with a sharp thwack! It's the sound of furious hornets flying by,
but none manage to strike you. And then finally, you're there. You don't bother to climb down, you hurl yourself
into the trench, smashing against the far wall and landing awkwardly on your back. Something soft has broken your fall though,
and as you twist and flail to try and stand up you realize why you can't get your footing-
you're standing on fresh corpses. You crawl forward and free yourself, the bodies
are so covered in blood and mud you can't even tell which side they belong to. Not that it matters, because nothing matters
but taking and securing this trench. You didn't run all the way across certain
death and a muddy hell just to die now, and you sure as hell aren't running back through
it all again either. A figure turns the corner of the trench and
you instinctively raise your rifle. Everyone is so filthy and looks so bedraggled
that you both hesitate, unsure if you're looking at friend or foe. You're quicker to notice the pattern of the
uniform underneath the grime and dirt than he is though, and you squeeze the trigger. One German down, several million to go. The trenches are built with occasional sharp
right and left turns so as to create only small, straight sections. This helps limit the damage from a direct
hit inside the trench from an artillery shell. It also makes it a twisting maze where every
turn could put you face to face with death. More than once you nearly blow the head off
one of your own, with them returning the favor. You group up though, running through the corridors
of the trench. By the time you run into your fourth group
of Germans, you've already given up your rifle. It's all but useless in the tight confines,
and both you and your enemy fight with knives, clubs, sharpened metal stakes, bayonets, and
even your bare fists. Outside the trench it's the early 20th century,
replete with the monstrous inventions of industrialized warfare that kill men at a rate that would
have made Genghis Khan or any great general of antiquity shiver in envy. Here in the mud, it's war as man has waged
it since antiquity- with sharpened metal, muscle, and blood. The rain is falling in earnest now, drowning
out the sounds of the battle above and around you. Visibility falls, your world is now nothing
more than the few meters in front or behind you to the next bend in the zig-zagging trench. You're exhausted, lungs on fire as you lift
up your knife to parry a blow from a German soldier. It's a half-hearted parry, barely able to
deflect the incoming attack- but that's ok, because it too was a half-hearted attack. Both you and your mortal enemy collapse into
the mud, panting for breath. When people die the bowels loosen, adding
foulness to the blood-drenched mud quickly turning into a vile soup at the bottom of
the trench. It covers you, seeps through your thick coat
and uniform, but there's no room or energy to complain. Lying in filth and death both you and the
German soldier struggle to catch your breath, spent far beyond normal human capabilities. You both stare at each other as you gasp for
breath. There's an unspoken plea in each other's eyes-
“wait”, “one more breath... another... ok just one more”. You're both silently asking the other for
just a little more time. Why fight? You both wordlessly ask each other. What possible reason is there for us two,
covered in mud and shit, to keep fighting? You're the first to put a stop to the silent
conversation. You try to push the guilt away and out of
your mind as your knife sinks deep into his chest. But you have to look away as the knife does
its work. Why keep fighting? I don't know. Because if I don't, maybe you'll let me live. But your friends probably won't. So I have to kill you, and all of your friends,
so there's more of my friends than your friends, and then am I guaranteed to live. You pick yourself up off the muddied bottom
and look up, a group of figures have turned the corner, rifles at the ready. But nobody fires, and as they get near and
you wipe the grime out of your eyes you realize why- they're friendlies. And more than that, their uniforms are relatively
clean- which means one thing: they didn't cross no man's land hurling themselves into
muddy death traps to avoid strafing machine gun fire and enemy mortars. They’re reinforcements. The assault was a success, the enemy's guns
silenced. How long has it been since the whistles? Couldn't have been more than five minutes,
but one of the new guys tells you it's been nearly a half an hour since the attack began. A half an hour! Impossible, but you take the news with a shrug
of your shoulders. Miraculously, you aren't wounded save for
a few scratches here and there, but you are completely spent. You barely have the energy to stand. So you don't. You fall right where you are and one of the
new guys helps lift and drag you to a place a modicum cleaner than the muddy blood and
guts where you fell. He breaks open a tin and pulls out a few pieces
of cracker and salted meat. It's not much, but you devour it nonetheless,
then reach for the canteen at your side. It's gone though- well half of it at least. A piece of shrapnel or maybe machine gun fire
sliced the thing nearly in two. A few inches over and it would've been your
leg, with you bleeding out in a shell hole somewhere, your remains lost in the mud forever. The new guy slaps his canteen into your hand
and you take big, greedy gulps. When you're done he takes it back and moves
to place it back in his holder, but you smack his hand to get his attention. Grabbing the canteen again, you unscrew the
top and stick it in the mud, letting rain fall into the canteen and slowly refill it. It's a bit of veteran knowledge, hard-earned
from six months at the front. You never know which way the war's gonna go-
today's victory could be tomorrow's reversal, and in less than twenty four hours you might
be going over the top in the opposite way to escape a brutal enemy counterattack. You can't rely on resupply in these situations,
no telling when you might be getting fresh water again. That's when you finally take in the soldiers
huddled around you in the trench, nervously fingering their rifles and trying to do their
best to ignore the dead bodies at their feet. Clean-shaven, young faces, uncreased by horror
or exhaustion. No wonder they weren't in the first wave over
the top, they're kids, fresh from a few accelerated weeks of military training and fed directly
into the meat grinder. The only small mercy they received was avoiding
being first over the top. But that mercy has been dispensed and is now
over, because casualties for the first wave are always high. You took the trench, but now it's up to them
to hold it. And already you can hear the whistles coming
from the wrong side of the trenches signaling that the Germans have something to say about
you occupying their defensive works. With a groan you pick yourself up on your
feet and search around for a usable rifle. It's not hard given the multiple Germans and
friendlies, but you pick one from your side since you're still carrying plenty of ammunition
for it and you're not really sure if German rifles take the same rounds. You find a spot on the trench and lift yourself
up so just your rifle and head are exposed. The kids in the trench with you realize what's
going on and quickly move to follow suit. Up ahead barely seventy five meters through
the falling rain you can already pick out rushing figures. Already machine gun fire is reaching out to
them, and you press your rifle to your shoulder, pick out a target, slowly exhale and squeeze
the trigger. Now go check out Surviving Actual Military
Combat- True Story, or click this other video instead!
