Many of the soldiers who served in the trenches in the First World War were not much older than people in a modern sixth form. None had experienced anything like it before, and a large number of men kept diaries or accounts of their life at the front. Some of the accounts have been made into books and films which tell us about conditions on the Western Front. We can also read the diaries themselves and can look at old photographs.

The work done by the soldiers.

After breakfast, the routine of the day went on. There was not long to wait before an officer appeared with details of the soldiers' duties for the day. Weapon cleaning and inspection, always an important task, would soon be followed by pick and shovel work.
 
 

Trench maintenance went on all the time, a job without an end.

Owing to the weather or enemy action, trenches required repairing, deepening,, widening and trengthening, while new support trenches always seemed to be wanted. The carrying of rations and supplies from the rear also went on all the time.

Weapon cleaning was obviously of great importance. Boiling water was poured down the rifle barrel to clear away dirt and rust, and then a 'pull -through' (a piece of string with a slim piece of metal at one end and a piece of oiled gauze at the other) was pulled through the barrel to oil it and p-event further rust. A pull-through was kept, together with a small oil- bottle, in a hole inside the butt of the rifle, and it was often difficult to open the hole in the brass end of the butt to get the Pull -through out. The working (moving) parts of the rifle, especially the bolt, also had to be cleaned and oiled. David Jones described the difficulties of weapon cleaning in the trenches:
A lean lance-jack [lance corporal] ... called over the revetment. Get on those rifles at once.- get on with it. Oll right Corp -got any gauze. Wot we want is gauze. Wot we want is boiling water, boiling bleedin' water. Got any boiling water? Then was great to-do and business, then were butt- heel-irons opened, and splintering of thumb nails with the jammed metal, and jack -knife blades.
Fred. jot any oil ?
Why don't You go to Sergeant and get for yourselves. Why didn't you ask the Quarter-bloke back there? Only a drop, china, just for the bolt -just a spot, be a kind virgin - he's coming round the bend - he's doing No. 5 -just a spot.
Then was a pulling-through of barrels and searching of minute vents and under-facets with pins, and borrowing of small necessities to do with this care of arms . Then began prudent men to use their stored -up oil freely on bolt and back -sight- flange. And harassed men, and men ill -furnished, complained bitterly And men improvising and adventurous slipped away along the traverses, to fetch back brimming mess-tin lids or salvaged jam tins steaming. How do you get hot water in this place of  cold water up to the knees. These worked quickly least it should cool off, and eyed their barrels' bright rifling with a great confidence and boasted to their envious fellows, and offered them the Lukewarm left over. So that one way and another they cleaned their rifles -anyway the oil softened the open cracks in your finger-tips
 
 

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