Have I Told You About WWI? Mud.
We don’t think much about mud these days. It’s an occasional annoyance on rainy days. But on the Western Front in World War I, mud was a constant fact of life. It was universal and inescapable, and created problems both minor and life-threatening. This is the story of mud in the First World War.
Origin. By some perverse luck, the Flanders region in Belgium and regions in northeastern France saw some record rainfall levels during the four years of World War I. Additionally, in the British section in Flanders, the water table was unusually close to the surface. Often the “Tommies” didn’t even finish digging a trench before it would fill with standing water. Regardless of where they were, the Allies occupied the low ground. Following their defeat on the Marne in 1914, the Germans retreated to fortified positions on hillsides or ridges, leaving the Allies with the worst trench-digging ground. Finally, all these factors were coupled with the constant shelling, which tore brush, trees, and buildings away to leave a pockmarked, mucky wasteland in a band along the front, as attacks and counterattacks moved the line back and forth.
Dealing with it. Soldiers of all nationalities in the war adopted gaiters or the cheaper puttees as part of their uniform to protect against the ubiquitous mud. Puttees were long strips of cloth wound around the lower legs over the boot top and pant cuff, which served the same purpose as a gaiter by keeping the mud and/or dust, snow, etc. from creeping down ankles and up calves. Even the Scots used gaiters under their kilts, though the limited reach meant mud still advanced up their knees and thighs.
To keep from sinking and slipping along muddy trench bottoms and across battlefields, the armies deployed duckboards. Though they were made to sound like a grand solution, they were nothing but glorified planks of wood, occasionally raised above the standing water, but often just as slick after hundreds of boots had tracked them with wet mud. They did provide a path through torn battlefields and no-man’s-land for soldiers and stretcher bearers who might otherwise get lost in the featureless landscape.
Finally, with standing water up to their ankles and rain falling on their heads, many soldiers developed the invaluable skill of sleeping standing up. French soldiers were sometimes permitted to dig shelter holes into the sides of their trenches, but British soldiers often were denied even this small comfort, and grew accustomed to remaining exposed to all elements when in the front line.
Dangers. Soldiers who stood for days in water or mud without drying their feet developed a nasty condition called trench foot. I’ve refrained from including a picture in deference to my more delicate readers, but it presents a lot like frostbite. Feet continually damp and often very cold would first become swollen and inflamed, but eventually necrosis would set in and the flesh would turn black and smelly, literally rotting in the mud. Trench foot, like frostbite, can develop very rapidly given the right conditions, and if not treated early enough, the only option was amputation.
Mud also invited gangrene and necrosis in most other wounds, because it coated everything on the battlefield. In artillery bombardments, which caused the majority of casualties, everything that pierced men’s bodies, from shrapnel to barbed wire to bits of clothing, was covered in filth. Even the occasional wound from a bullet or a bayonet was often infiltrated with mud. It created a breeding ground for infection in every wound. Battlefield medicine, in response, evolved the widespread use of antiseptic. When available, it saved many limbs and lives.
Perhaps the worst that mud could do was the fate of those who never made it back to field hospitals or casualty clearing stations for treatment. Wounded men who fell face down or slipped into shell holes could be drowned in the water and mud. Even healthy, able-bodied soldiers sometimes got stuck in large shell holes, the treacherous mud making it impossible for them to climb out. Survivors of the war recalled being told by superiors that if a comrade fell into a shell hole, he should be left behind. Anyone who tried to get him out risked falling in himself, and then there would be two drowned soldiers.
The Western Front was not glorious. The men who fought along it were rarely inspired by the heroic cause they served, and certainly saw little evidence for it on the ravaged battlefields. The First World War was, above all, a battle of endurance. And along the Western Front, the first and last enemy to be endured was the mud.
