The Western Front

Question 1

What happened in the first battle of Ypres? When was it?

Answer 1

• October-November 1914
• British held on to Ypres
• Was vital in maintaining control of the English Channel ports
• But Germans gained ground

Question 2

What happened in the battle on Hill 60? When was it?

Answer 2

• April 1915
  - British tunnelled into and under the hill and exploded 5 mines from the tunnels
• Enabled them to take the hill

Question 3

What happened in the second battle of Ypres? When was it?

Answer 3

• April–May 1915
• Germans made slight gains towards Ypres
• First time chlorine gas was used (by Germans)

Question 4

What happened in the third battle of Ypres? When was It?

Answer 4

• July-November 1917
• British used the creeping barrage to break out of the Ypres Salient
• Bad weather left the ground waterlogged and many drowned

Question 5

What happened in the Somme? When was it?

Answer 5

• July-November 1916
• Very high casualties on both sides
• First time for the creeping barrage and the use of tanks
• But they had little impact

Question 6

What happened in Arras? When was it?

Answer 6

• April-May 1917
• Year before British linked and expanded the underground tunnels
• Used to launch the battle which began successful but ended with little progress and many casualties on both sides

Question 7

What happened in Cambrai? When was it?

Answer 7

• November-December 1917
• First large scale use of tanks
• Were successful but not backed up so British were forced back

Question 8

What were some features of the trenches?

Answer 8

• 2.5m deep
• Built in a zigzag pattern
• Dugouts, holes in the trenches where men took cover

Question 9

How were trenches organised?

Answer 9

• Front line trench, where attacks were launched
• Support trench, 80m behind, where troops retreated if frontline was attacked
• Reserve trench, 100m behind support trench, where troops could be mobilised for a counter-attack if frontline was captured
• Communications trench, which ran between trenches

Question 10

What were the problems with transport and communication on the western front?

Answer 10

• Land often waterlogged
• Constant shelling left landscape full of creators and destroyed roads
• Was farmland, so lots of fertiliser in soil, meaning lots of bacteria that could infect wounds
• Horse drawn wagons were shaky and made injuries worse, also couldn’t cope with number of casualties
• Stretcher bearers exposed to shelling and gunfire

Question 11

What developments were made to the methods of transport on the Western front?

Answer 11

• Newspapers appealed for donations, 512 ambulance wagons were bought
• First motor ambulances in October 1914
• First ambulance training November 1914 arrived in France
• Later some trains had operating theatres
• Canal barges were also used to bypass base hospitals to take back to Britain

Question 12

What was some medical problems on the Western front?

Answer 12

• Trench foot
• Gas attacks
• Shellshock
• Trench fever
• Bullets and shrapnel
• Head injuries

Question 13

What was trench foot? 

Answer 13

• Caused by standing in waterlogged trenches
• Caused swelling of the feet
• Could lead to gangrene which was only treated by amputation
• Men rubbed whale oil into feet to protect them

Question 14

What is trench fever?

Answer 14

• Flu like symptoms that lasted for months
• Caused by lice so in 1918 troops were deloused and cases decreased

Question 15

What is shellshock?

Answer 15

• Symptoms included loss of speech, uncontrollable shaking, complete mental breakdowns
• Some were accused of cowardice
• Many evacuated British hospitals to be treated
• 80,000 British troops experienced shellshock

Question 16

What injuries did bullets and explosives called?

Answer 16

• Bullets could penetrate organs and fractured bones
• Shells and shrapnel caused 58% of wounds in a study of 200,000 men at CCS
• Bullets caused 39% of wounds

Question 17

What was Phosgene gas?

Answer 17

• First used at end of 1915 near Ypres
• Similar effects to chlorine but faster acting, killing within two days

Question 18

What is chlorine gas?

Answer 18

• First used by Germans in 1915 at the second battle of Ypres
• Lead to death by suffocation
• Used by British in 1915 at Battle of Loos but wind change direction and it blew back to British lines

Question 19

How were gas attacks dealt with?

Answer 19

• Medical services had no experience with gas attacks so had to experiment with treatments
• Before gas masks soldiers urinated on socks etc
• Gas masks given to all British troops in July 1915

Question 20

What is mustard gas?

Answer 20

• First amused by Germans in 1917
• Odourless gas that worked within 12 hours
• Caused internal and external blisters and passed through clothing to burn skin

Question 21

How were heading injuries prevented?

Answer 21

In 1915 soldiers soft hats were replaced by Brodie helmets

Question 22

What were the RAMC?

Answer 22

• Royal Army Medical Corps
• Founded in 1898
• Medical branch of the British Army

Question 23

What were the FANY?

Answer 23

• First Aid Nursing Yeomanry
• Founded in 1907
• First women’s voluntary organisation to send volunteers to Western front
• Driving ambulances and providing emergency first aid

Question 24

What were the stages of the chain of evacuation?

Answer 24

• Regimental aid post
• Dressing stations
• Casualty clearing stations
• Base hospitals

Question 25

What are the features of the regimental aid post?

Answer 25

• 200m from the front line
• Staffed by a regimental medical officer with help from stretcher bearers
• Gave immediate first aid to get men back to fighting but could not deal with serious injuries

Question 26

What were the features of dressing stations?

Answer 26

• Advanced dressing stations were 400m from the RAP
• Main dressing stations where another half a mile back
• Often located in abandoned buildings dugouts or bunkers
• The Field Ambulance worked here
• Each unit could deal with 150 wounded men
• Only had the facilities to care for wounded men for a week

Question 27

What were the features of the casualty clearing stations?

Answer 27

• Located 7-12 miles from frontline
• Set up in buildings such as factories or schools and often located near a railway line
• Triage system – walking wounded, in need of hospital treatment, no chance of recovery

Question 28

What were the features of base hospitals?

Answer 28

• Located near the French and Belgian coast near to ports so wounded men could go home to Britain
• Were less important until 1918 when Germans pushed back the front line and many CCSs were pushed back so base hospitals took over surgery

Question 29

What will the features of the underground hospital at Arras?

Answer 29

• Waiting rooms for the wounded
• 700 spaces where stretches could be placed as beds
• An operating theatre
• Electricity and piped water was supplied

Question 30

What was the Carrel-Dakin method?

Answer 30

• 1917
• Salt solution was moved through the wound using tubes
• Only lasted six hours, had to be made up when it was needed, difficult when lots of casualties

Question 31

What were the new techniques for infections?

Answer 31

• Antiseptic and aseptic surgery not possible in dressing stations or CCS
• Surgeons went back to using chemicals to kill bacteria but didn’t work on gas gangrene
• Carrel-Dakin method
• Surgery developed to remove damage and infected tissue
• Last resort – amputation, by 1918 240,000 men lost limbs

Question 32

What was the Thomas Splint?

Answer 32

• From December 1915
• Reduced death rate from broken limbs to fewer than 20%
• Kept the leg rigid which reduced blood loss

Question 33

How were blood transfusions developed?

Answer 33

• Used from 1915
• In 1915 Richard Lewisohn discovered adding sodium citrate to blood stopped it clotting, so could be stored a short time
• Richard Weil used refrigerators to store for much longer
• In 1916 Francis Rous and James Turner added citrate glucose so it stored even longer
• In preparation for Battle of Canterbury, 1917, Oswald Hope Robertson stored 22 units of blood in the first blood depot

Question 34

Who was Harold Gillies?

Answer 34

• Developed plastic surgery
• Sent to Western front in 1915
• By the end of the war nearly 12,000 plastic surgery operations took place

Question 35

What are different sources to use for question 2b?

Answer 35

• Diaries by soldiers, doctors, nurses
• Hospital and medical records of the RAMC
• National army records
• National newspaper reports
• Government reports on the war
• Photographs
• Army statistics