Everything was difficult inside trenches. During the war, soldiers at the frontline had to face very difficult moments in structures that were more or less provisional and with the constant fear of being hit sooner or later by a sniper or of being given an order to prepare for an assault. These were experiences that marked most of these men throughout their lives as can be seen from the many cases of mental illness that already developed during the war or as soon as these men returned to their homes.
From the very start preparations by the army were totally insufficient compared to the characteristics of this war. Both the Supreme Command as well as the Government did not follow the advice that was given in several reports by the military allies and did not even bother to prepare their men for a conflict that would last a long time. Convinced that Trieste would be captured within a few weeks, soldiers found themselves with only their summer outfit and with equipment that was far from modern.
In the first year of the war many soldiers took part in battles with their heads covered by simple caps, typical ornaments of the 19th century which certainly could not stop bullets fired from inside enemy trenches or by snipers. Furthermore, at the beginning nobody explained to Italian soldiers to stay crouched inside their trenches and not to reach out of them. Even more embarrassing was the lack of wire cutters that could quickly open gaps between the network of the enemy lines, positioned between the first offensive line and the first defensive line. The more time that a soldier lost during this operation, the greater were the chances of being hit by the enemy.
There were several problems even when the guns were silent. The boots that were used by soldiers were totally unsuitable to withstand the mud or the stony terrain of the Karst or of the mountains. Within a few weeks these boots turned into wooden soles that could barely be worn and obviously this caused serious problems to the feet of soldiers. Wounds and frostbite were very frequent and were cured with the same grease that should have been used to polish boots. Water bottles for the storage of water were made of wood (an absolutely unhygienic practice) whereas the tents where the soldiers would sleep (when available) were useless in the rain. Very often soldiers had to build makeshift accommodation for the night, inside holes covered merely by a simple cloth or in crevices in the ground where they slept close to each other so as to lose the least possible amount of warmth.
