How do you think conditions in the trenches affected the men fighting?
Long-term deployment in trenches definitely reduced men’s fighting abilities. While things like trench-foot and other illnesses did play a part, especially early in the war, I think this one of the minor effects. As the war went on, both sides learned to build quite elaborate trench systems, complete with underground rooms resistant to shell fire. What it did do was wear on the nerves and psyche of the soldiers. There was the constant barrages ans sniping that forced men into a “keep down under cover” attitude. Such an attitude takes away from morale, and makes it harder to rouse the needed aggressive drive to make troops switch to an offensive mentality. this would be made worse by the numerous times soldiers were in fact ordered out into no man’s land to attack the enemy, only to be slaughtered wholesale for little or no gain. Each failure would make it harder to rouse the drive to go “over the top” the next time, and increase the odds that the troops would break sooner than later on
