Trenches were one of the symbols of the Great War. When the various European governments decided to go to war, they were all convinced that it would be a quick war in which it would be essential to take advantage of the time factor. Instead, after a few weeks the various European fronts were stabilized and the excavation of hundreds of kilometres of trenches got under way, from the North of France to Eastern Europe, in present-day Poland and in the Balkans. These long corridors, slightly less than two metres deep, appeared immediately along the Italian front, in the lowlands, on the Karst plateau and in the high mountains in the middle of the snow. Although the Salandra Government and General Luigi Cadorna had shown an extraordinary amount of optimism on 24th May 1915, the war took on the same characteristics as in the rest of Europe.
In open-air museums and in the itineraries that can be visited today, trenches are the most significant evidence of what happened between 1915 and 1918. During this long period they served as the "home" of soldiers, as the place where soldiers who were deployed on the front had to live for weeks (indeed, if not for months) on end between one battle and another. This leads spontaneously to the question as to how these trenches were built, what kind of life soldiers had inside them, how they slept, how they ate and what were their daily problems. In most testimonies, we can read about their moods, their emotions, their fears, their wish to escape from that hell. But we can also discover chronicles of real life and find out how it was possible for so many different persons to share their lives on the front while being so close to the enemy.
In this way it is possible to discover the harsh rules that were imposed by the military leaders (especially under Cadorna) and the punishment for those who refused to fight. It is also possible to realize how many men felt the need to pin their hopes on religion and on faith. Instances of "peaceful contact" between enemy soldiers deserve particular mention such as when bullets were not fired from inside trenches and instead there were exchanges of staple commodities and agreements for a truce.
