ICSE Class 10 Answered

The combination of machine gun and heavy artillery had made war way too dangerous for the common soldier. In order to counter this, the opposing armies of the First World War dug a series of trenches in order to defend themselves against enemy fire and launch attacks. The conditions of living in such trenches were horrendous. Soldiers had to face food shortages, rats, lice, poison gas, cold and the stench of corpses. Rain and snowfall often transformed the trenches into muddy caves infested with diseases.