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The regulation Trench Latrine in the Great War was supposed to be dug in pits 4-5 feet deep in special saps dug often at the rear of the Trench, but sometimes at the frontline , forward, so that men did not linger longer than was necessary. A bucket was placed in the pit. Each company would have two ‘Sanitary personnel’, known as ‘s***-wallahs’ whose job it was to empty the Latrine buckets, bury the contents, and dig new pits. Obviously this was not a particularly pleasant duty, and was often reserved as a punishment for defaulters.This duty was understandably most objectionable and there were even cases of it leading to desertion. Defecating in a fighting or communication trench being a punishable offense.? ? ? The most favourite type of Latrine at the front was the ‘Two-holer’ which was considered superior to the ‘One-holer’ as mates could sit side by side and chat.? ? ? Because of the smell, many officers and some soldiers chose to go out into No-mans-Land with a spade after dark. It was wise if taking this option to first warn the sentries that you were doing so, to avoid being accidentally shot as you crept back.? ? ? Before units changed over at the front, the Latrine pits were supposed to be filled in and new ones dug for the incoming unit. In practice this consisted of just chucking the contents of the bucket into the nearest shell hole, or as far as possible.
I don't understand why they didn't simply dig the holes deeper and throw in some dirt or sawdust after they're done. Emptying a bucket seems like an unsanitary way of doing things, and I think that by mid mid Nineteen-teens sanitation was getting more attention. Perhaps the reason is simply that the amount of men in each trench was too many, and the size of the trenches was too small, to make a deeper pit/dirt-throw practical.
I don't understand why they didn't simply dig the holes deeper and throw in some dirt or sawdust after they're done. Emptying a bucket seems like an unsanitary way of doing things, and I think that by mid mid Nineteen-teens sanitation was getting more attention. Perhaps the reason is simply that the amount of men in each trench was too many, and the size of the trenches was too small, to make a deeper pit/dirt-throw practical.
I wouldn't have dug the pits deeper. The front line on the Western front was lousy with bodies after the first year of war. It was common for bodies to be unearthed when new trenches were dug and they wera also unearthed and tossed about by shellfire. Even today farmers along the trace of the Western front unearth skeletons every year of soldiers killed in WWI. I will have to find them but i have seen pictures of soldiers in the trenches with an arm or leg of a dead soldier sticking out of the trench wall. Bodies were so common they went unremarked after a soldiers first few weeks on active service at the front.Also in many sections of the British held sector it was impossible to dig deeper because of the height of the water table. There were places in Flanders where there were no trenches the lines instead being built of sandbag walls built up from ground level. In most parts of Flanders and northwest France the water table is at most 2-4 feet below the ground. This accounts for the massive amounts of mud visible in many of the pictures of British troops taken during the war. Aslo do not forget that the Germans chose the best ground for themselves as they retreated after the First Battle of the Marne. Such as the Chalklands of the Somme, near Artois, and in Champagne.What is funny about the regulations on trench latrines is that they diplay absolutely no recognition of the reality of life in the trenches. If I had been fighting, i probably would have snuck into no-mans land too. It is not like human waste smells worse than the bodies rotting everywhere along the front.
