A First Line Trench, by Frederic Villiers (1851–1922), 1915. Source: Villiers 49.
Villiers describes this scene in some detail, because it does need some explanation. Again, it depicts the French soldiers rather than the British. It shows two stretcher-bearers carrying the covered body of a dead soldier through a trench while two gun-men on one side are stationed to defend the trench against the enemy, and two men on the other side pause, in the midst of creating a drainage system for the trench, to pay respects to their fallen comrade. All the danger, privations, sheer slog and sorrow of the war are suggested in this one sketch:
The advance trenches during the early days of the great conflict varied in discomfort according to the locality in which the "digging in" commenced. In the great rush of the Allies northward, after the Battle of the Aisne, to protect the Calais road, the French and British had to hurriedly dig themselves in in the water-logged plains of Flanders to stem the overwhelming onrush of the enemy. All through the first winter the Allies were compelled to live in trenches with water over their ankles, while the Germans lived in comparative comfort on a higher level. But, later on, by constant pumping and draining, our trenches were made fairly comfortable. The sketch represents a French sector in the second year of the war. A corduroy path-way runs down the side facing the enemy. On the right is a draining ditch and in that side high and dry above the water are the funk holes or dug-outs. The bank towards the Huns is pierced with loop-holes shafted with timber, and these were always curtained when not in use. But for this precaution the change of light and shade made by the passing of a soldier would have brought, at once, a bullet through the shaft from an alert enemy sharpshooter.
The dead man being saluted by the drain diggers as he is being brought through the trench on a stretcher met his death by passing one of the loop-holes that a neglectful comrade had forgotten to cover. [47]
A lapse of concentration on a comrade's part has contributed to this death; but the sombreness of these other comrades — the drain-diggers — helps balance that human error. And, as Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfrid Owen and the other poets of World War I showed so vividly, the real blame for such a waste of life lay not with the soldiers themselves, but with those who deployed them in this bitter conflict.
A First Line Trench, by Frederic Villiers (1851–1922), 1915. Source: Villiers 49.
Bibliography
Villiers, Frederic. Days of Glory: the sketch book of a veteran correspondent at the front. New York: George H. Doran, 1920. Internet Archive, from a copy in the State Library of Pennsylvania. Web. 28 April 2025.
Created 28 April 2025