Trench Routine

5am - 'Stand-to' (short for 'Stand-to-Arms', meaning to be on high-alert for enemy attack) half an hour before daylight 5.30am - Rum ration 6am - Stand-to half an hour after daylight 7am - Breakfast (usually bacon and tea) After 8am - Clean themselves, clean weapons, tidy trench Noon - Dinner After dinner - Sleep and downtime (one man per ten on duty) 5pm - Tea 6pm - Stand-to half an hour before dusk 6.30pm - Stand-down half an hour after dusk 6.30pm onwards - Work all night with some time for rest (patrols, digging trenches, putting up barbed wire, getting stores, replacement of unit of soldiers every five days)

trench routine

world war I

very crowded

they didn`tsleep much

Their Routine

Trenches were long, narrow ditches dug into the ground where soldiers lived all day and night. Soldiers in the trenches did not get much sleep. When they did, it was in the afternoon during daylight and at night only for an hour at a time. They were woken up at different times, either to complete one of their daily chores or to fight. During rest time, they wrote letters and sometimes played card games. The trenches could be very muddy and smelly. There were many dead bodies buried nearby and the latrines (toilets) sometimes overflowed into the trenches. Millions of rats infested the trenches and some grew as big as cats. There was also a big problem with lice that tormented the soldiers on a daily basis.