The Great War began as a conflict of movement in August of 1914. Armies from Germany, France, Russia and the Astro-Hungarian Empire were massing. As Kaiser Wilhelm’s forces advanced through Belgium on its way to capture Paris, a small contingent of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) dug in to halt their movement. Near the town of Ypres, the Germans were slowed, but not stopped. Their momentum carried them to the Marne River, where the French finally halted them. The war became a race of shovels along a five-hundred mile line as both armies dug tremendous underground works and trenches. During the next three years, advances were measured in yards at a cost of millions of dead in battles that lasted for months. Neither could break the stalemate. Michael Eckers’ presentation on “Life in the Trenches” examines the living conditions of these trenches and explores the changes in tactics that evolved because of them. Life was so hard, especially during the wet, cold winters, that a new malady affecting thousands of soldiers was called “Trench Foot” to remember. Mud, rats and deadly gas were as much the enemy as the machine guns that ripped you to pieces if you dared attack across no man’s land.