WWI Trench Newspapers:

A Little Known Weapon in the WWI Battle For Morale
 

By

Lauren Kastner

Fall 2015

Trench newspapers produced by soldiers on the Western front and began appearing in 1916. In contrast to government and civilian run newspapers that had to consider politics and propaganda, these papers written from war weary soldiers’ points of view  intended for an audience that was not the wider world, but the soldiers sitting next to them in the trench. These papers provide a window into the minds of soldiers enduring a troglodyte existence while entrenched at the front. Their poems and satire help give an understanding as to the conditions and the daily lives of WWI soldiers on the Western Front. Trench newspapers offered soldiers an outlet to voice their grievances and fears. Newspapers produced by soldiers also provided a sense of camaraderie and belonging among those serving together in extreme conditions both of which improved morale; as soldiers learned they were not alone in their thoughts. A side effect of trench newspapers was that civilians were able to get a glimpse of a soldier's daily life, directly from soldiers they feared for.

Initially the alliance and the entente envisioned a quick victory thanks to major technological advances.  There was a flaw in this thinking; both sides had modern artillery and new technologies that had not been tested against other large modern armies. The failure to achieve a quick advantage by all belligerents resulted in the need for soldiers to dig in and live in a system of zigzagging trenches that stretched from the Swiss border to the English Channel and grudgingly fight it out while all belligerents rushed to invent the weapon that would win the war. Most soldiers spent the entire four years of warfare in the trenches, often underground like moles. These living conditions would test the physical and mental limits of even the strongest of men. Coupled with the massive loss of lives these men witnessed,fear of unknown threats that had yet to be invented, but would be coming at any moment, the lack of adequate pay, rations, time on leave, and the questionable decisions of commanders that the soldiers were not allowed to question left the men feeling powerless and scared. The issue of morale among soldiers became an important factor.

Trench newspapers began popping up among the armies and units on both sides of the war. The most widely known was The Wipers’ Times named after Ypres, the only town in Belgium that did not fall into German hands. There were over 100 such British newspapers and over 400 French and Belgian publications. These soldier produced papers were filled with sarcasm, dark humor, caricatures, and trench poetry.Able to make fun of the officers in command for poor tactical decisions and absurd expectations of the troops on the front lines, trench newspapers served as a much needed release valve that could have otherwise resulted in mutinies like the Christmas truce, desertion, refusal to obey orders or other  forms of disobedience.

Writing and sharing poetry  would have served a therapeutic purpose for the soldiers. They could create their own beauty in a world of corpses and dirt.  It allowed them to anonymously air their fears and grievances as well as the horrors they were facing in a safe way. At a time when warfare changed daily due to rapidly advancing technological and chemical weapons, soldiers did not have any real idea of what to expect next. This was a war unlike any they had been told stories about as children and it was far from what they had expected when they signed up with their friends. The trench papers gave them a place to vent their disillusionment. It allowed them a sense of control in a situation that was so completely out of their control. They could still feel, think and write what they chose without government censorship..

The stalemate experienced in WWI left soldiers with a lot of time on their hands. The new technology used in the war offered weapons with far better range. The use of new weapons like large artillery and gas resulted in a battlefield on the Western Front that had less contact with the enemy. The empty space filled with sounds of artillery and the boredom soldiers experienced left them with time to write and speculate as they engaged in long range warfare for the first time. The poem “Ten German Pioneers” published in The B.E.F Times in 1917 speaks to the nature of this new type of stalemate war. The poem is about ten german soldiers being picked off one at a time by various dangers in trench warfare. These dangers would echo the fears of the Allied soldiers. Given that men would not have been witness to these types of deaths on the German line, they could only imagine that what was happening beyond the bombardments on the other side of No Man’s Land. These types of poems illustrated an acknowledgment that the German soldiers experience at war was similar to what they were experiencing while still vilifying the enemy and justifying their lethal intentions toward them. “Ten German Pioneers went to lay a mine, One dropped his cigarette, and then there were nine. Nine German Pioneers singing Hymns of Hate, One stopped a whizz-bang, and then there were eight…One German pioneer couldn't see the fun of being shot anymore, and so the war was done.” This whimsical prose to the cadence of a familiar childhood rhyme with its imagery, humor and fear that this type of poetry contained was something other soldiers could easily relate to.  

The humor and truth of the satire and poetry also served a therapeutic function for the other soldiers reading these types of trench newspapers. On the Western Front ,where men struggle to stay alive and keep their sanity it gave voice to how the other soldiers were feeling and promoted camaraderie. The despair and solitude soldiers were feeling was captured by the BBC documentary The Great War  in the quote from French Lieutenant Henri Decaneau at the battle of Verdun “How many men are afraid? How many men are weak at the knees? It’s a void. We are no longer in a civilized world. One suffers and says nothing.” The trench newspapers combated that sentiment. They let soldiers know that they were not alone in their suffering. The knowledge that other men were scared, lonely and frustrated with the war made soldiers feel human in an inhumane environment. Trench newspapers made soldiers feel human by the camaraderie they promoted as well. Soldiers could mock superiors and parody their daily life in a way that only the soldiers themselves could really understand, creating a club like society with war as the initiation.

The concepts and language, like the use of whizz-bang instead of artillery, that was unique to soldiers in the trench gave groups of soldiers a familial feel. It gave them a group identity other than that of the walking dead. It could also make those outside of the trenches feel as if they understood something about war safely. Civilians were allowed a proxy experience without having  to risk their lives or take a life in order to get a taste of what the soldiers were feeling. These papers were also a safe way to express life in the trenches because while the newspapers were intended for other soldiers in their units, those submitting and producing them knew that civilians would be reading them as well. They were self censored in order to protect those outside the trenches. Even when the trench newspapers made fun of those in charge and spoke of the terrible conditions,they did so in a satirical way that showed the civilian's morale was good and they were laughing off setbacks and losses they were experiencing. Civilians that came across the trench newspapers could see humor and patriotism was still alive among the soldiers on the front, which would help boost morale among those left at home and those that may yet be called on to fight. Thus the trench newspapers did not hurt the war effort and were largely left to themselves by the government.

What the civilians could not know was that the soldiers laughed so that they could keep from crying. With conditions  so horrible that if they did not laugh they could easily fall into despair or mutiny. “Take a wildness of ruin, spread with mud quite six feet deep; In this mud now cut some channels, Then you have the line we keep.” this excerpt from the poem “War” published in The Wipers’ Times in 1916 eloquently alludes to the grave like conditions in the trenches without speaking to some of the more gruesome aspects of trench life, like trench foot or skeletons of fallen soldiers that were at times used to fortify and decorate trench walls, giving their friends support after death.  The poem “Rats” published in The B.E.F Times in 1917 speaks of the constant companion of the trench soldier. “‘Rats’ are no subject for an elegy, Yet they fill my waking moments, and when star-shells softly gleam, ‘tis the rats who spend the midnight hours with me.” The poem goes on to describe a resourceful rat couple that steals the soldiers food, to the extent of using a can opener to open a can of sardines and sealing it back up when they were done. This poem alludes to the loneliness of trench life as well as providing a comical approach to a very real problem facing the soldiers on all fronts. Rats became such a health concern to the war effort that the citizens of France were called upon in 1918 to supply cats to help rid the trenches of their rat infestations. The outgrowth from this was a new companion for soldiers in their underground homes.  

Trench newspapers were a stark contrast to official military and civilian newspapers. Military newspapers targeted literature toward greater efforts and an idealized soldiers. This type of government controlled content was common on both sides of No Man’s Land. The desire of the civilian population to be informed made newspapers and cinematic newsreels much more important as readership and movie ticket sales rose. Ian F.W. Beckett’s The Great War touches on wartime press “The General tendency of patriotic press to ‘play the game’ with respect to domestic news consumption meant most British government propaganda targeted opinion overseas… but the Foreign Office’s domination of the British propaganda effort often led to the neglect of the home front, unless there was a specific need to be addressed such as a new issue of war bonds.” This left a gap to be filled, trench newspapers provided those on the homefront with a much needed glimpse into the daily life of the boys sent to war. Poems like “War” in The Wipers’ Times provided that. “Early morn the same old ‘stand to’ Daylight, sniping in full swing; Forenoon, just the merry whizz-bang, Mid-day off a truce doth bring. Afternoon repeats the morning, evening falls then work begins; Each works in his muddy furrow, set with boards to catch your shins.”

Trench newspapers like The Wipers’ Times were able to fill a void for both soldiers and non soldiers left by government and civilian presses from 1916 to the end of the war. These soldier produced publications filled with satire and poetry were not limited by political concerns and the need for propaganda. They gave a safe window into the lives of entrenched soldiers on all fronts without harming the war effort. At the same time these types of trench newspapers allowed soldiers a much needed release valve for their thoughts and feelings. This not only gave the contributing writer a sense of control in an uncontrollable environment,  but it also reminded soldiers reading these papers that they were not as alone as they felt. This could only result in the all around improvement of morale.

Bibliography

“1914~1918. A BBC History Of the Great War: 4. Slaughter.” YouTube. YouTube. Accessed November 15, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwb3luieke4.

Beckett, I. F. W. The Great War, 1914-1918. Harlow: Pearson/Longman, 2007.

Coetzee, Marilyn Shevin, and Frans Coetzee. World War I &Amp; European Society: a Sourcebook. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath, 1995.

Mathieu, S. “World War One: A Global History” (lecture University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, September-November 2015)