In addition to chemical warfare, troops on the Western Front had to withstand the crude unsanitary conditions. To illustrate, Victor Silvester, a British soldier, wrote in his diary, “ I put my hand down and my fingers closed on a big rat. It has nibbled through my haversack, my tunic and pleated kilt to get at my flesh.” Rats were everywhere. They would spread disease and bit many men. The rats kept reproducing and sustained themselves from the corpses of the dead soldiers. Soldiers began to bury the bodies and as Leonard Thompson describes it, “ We pushed them into the side of the trenches, but bits of them kept getting uncovered and sticking out… The bottom of the trench was springy like a mattress because of all the bodies underneath.” …show more content…
In the trenches soldiers were filthy since they did not bathe frequently. Unwashed men, along with urine and nearby latrines filled with fecal matter, lead to the increase in lice within the trenches. Lice would get into the soldier’s uniform and hair, which was exceedingly difficult to get rid of. Therefore, according to John Hamilton, “ The men sometimes used candles or matches to burn the lice from the seams of their clothes, but it was a tricky operation to kill the lice and keep the clothing from catching on fire.” Lice were also abundant and spread easily during the cold. Therefore, when temperatures dropped, soldiers, “would huddle together for warmth making it easy for lice to pass from one host to another.” In effect, lice would carry a disease called pyrexia, which was also known as trench fever. Troops during the Great War were not aware that the lice caused the disease, it was not until after the war when scientist found the origin of trench fever. This disease caused fever, dizziness, and intense headaches, and many other illnesses. All in all, lice through the trenches was caused by unsanitary conditions soldiers lived upon, spreading even more hardships troops had to