Life at the Fronts

Dear Diary,                                                                                                                    January 15th, 1915                                                                                                      

Map of where we are. (The western front, between France and Germany).

I am sorry it has been so long since I've written. Life is very hard at the front lines; I've been here for two months and I can tell you that it is not as easy as what that poster had depicted in my hometown. Our nights are filled with uncomfortable sleep and dreams; we rest our backs on the back of the trenches and try to fall asleep, but our nostrils are filled the stench of rotting bodies and urine. In addition, there is a major problem of rats... all of this dirt has created rats the size of cats. We try and kill them with our guns and shovels when we can, but they produce faster than we can kill. How I wish I could be back home beside my fire. It is very cold here too, and we are constantly wet. We sit here on the western front, where once people must have come for vacations, but now we come here to fight.

I so far consider myself very lucky because I still have good feet. Many men have had horrible things happen to their feet... we're not sure exactly what it is. Their feet seem to be going numb and turning red. I pray to the Lord, that it is nothing to serious.

Everyday we wake up one hour before dawn and go on guard because there is always a threat of attack in the early morning. By the time the first hour of light comes, we hear the first shot of the day, but it is nothing too intensive. We are served some rum every morning, as well as we clean our rifles because we get regular inspections. You might think that all the war consists of is fighting, but  we have to do more than just that. More than we fight, we do our chores; everyone has specific chores. Today my chore was to drain the trenches, which is considered to be of the laborious chores, but other people have to re-fill sandbags or prepare the latrines and such.

Draining the Trenches

Just through print, I don't think you can even begin to understand my grief, but I tell you... this is nothing like the glorious adventure I thought I was coming into. Everyday I have a yearning to come back home, it's eating inside of me. I want to be sitting the comforting arms of Sarah; I cannot wait for the war to be over. They have taken all of us to come here, not even considering that we are so young. Please Lord, let this war end soon.