Types of ration during WW1

Reserve Ration

Three special-purpose rations came into general use in World War I-the reserve ration, the trench ration, and the emergency ration.16 The first of these was an individual packaged ration which the soldier carried on his person for utilization when regular food was unavailable. The reserve ration, which sought to provide a complete food allowance for one man for one day, included a one-pound can of meat (usually corned beef), two 8-ounce tins of hard bread, 2.4 ounces of sugar, 1.12 ounces of roasted and ground coffee, and 0.16 ounce of salt. It weighed about 2 ¾ pounds and contained about 3300 calories. The food was considered ample and satisfying but the packaging, in cylindrical cans of one-pound capacity, was far from practical or economical.17

Trench Ration

As its name implies, the trench ration was designed to provide subsistence under conditions of trench warfare. The unit consisted of sufficient canned meats and canned hard bread to provide 25 men with food for one day. The canned meats were roast beef, corned beef, salmon, and sardines. Other components included salt, sugar, soluble coffee, solidified alcohol, and cigarettes. The unit was packed in large, galvanized containers designed to protect contents from poison gas.15 Although the trench ration was to be prepared as a hot meal, it could be utilized without preparation or cooking. The ration had the advantage of convenience, afforded excellent protection against poison gas, and provided a wider diet than the reserve ration. Its disadvantages were an excessive use of iron and tinplate, which made it heavy and difficult to handle; the unsuitability of the units for a single meal; the invitation to spoilage and contamination offered by opened containers; and its nutritional inadequacy.

Emergency Ration

The emergency ration, popularly known as the "Armour" or "iron" ration, was a packaged unit of concentrated food carried by the soldier to sustain life during emergencies when no other source of subsistence was available. It consisted of three 3-ounce cakes of a mixture of beef powder and cooked wheat and three one-ounce chocolate bars. These hardy items were contained in an oval-shaped, lacquered can which fitted the soldier's pocket. At the time of the Armistice, about two million rations had been shipped to France.19 Manufacture was discontinued after the war, and in 1922 the item was officially eliminated from the list of Army rations. Some of the emergency rations procured in World War I were subsequently used by aircraft pilots on Mexican border patrols, a usage which suggests that the item has some claim to parentage of modern Air Force flight rations.

Food for Troops - World War One

 

A total of 3,240,948 tons of food was sent from Britain to the soldiers fighting in France and Belgium during the First World War. The British Army employed 300,000 field workers to cook and supply the food. At the beginning of the war British soldiers were given 10 ounces of meat and 8 ounces of vegetables a day. As the size of the army grew and the German blockade became more effective, the army could not maintain these rations and by 1916 this had been cut to 6 ounces of meat a day. Later troops not in the front-line only received meat on nine out of every thirty days. The daily bread ration was also cut in April 1917. The British Army attempted to give the soldiers the 3,574 calories a day that dieticians said they needed. However, others argued that soldiers during wartime need much more than this.

Soldiers in the Western Front were very critical of the quantity and the quality of food they received. The bulk of their diet in the trenches was bully beef (caned corned beef), bread and biscuits. By the winter of 1916 flour was in such short supply that bread was being made with dried ground turnips. The main food was now a pea-soup with a few lumps of horsemeat. Kitchen staff became more and more dependent on local vegetables and also had to use weeds such as nettles in soups and stews.

The battalion's kitchen staff had just two large vats, in which everything was prepared. As a result, everything the men ate tasted of something else. For example, soldiers often complained that their tea tasted of vegetables. Providing fresh food was also very difficult. It has been estimated that it took up to eight days before bread reached the front-line and so it was invariably stale. So also were the biscuits and the soldiers attempted to solve this problem by breaking them up, adding potatoes, onions, sultanas or whatever was available, and boiling the mixture up in a sandbag.

The catering staff put the food in dixies (cooking pots), petrol cans or old jam jars and carried it up the communication trenches in straw-lined boxes. By the time the food reached the front-line it was always cold. Eventually the army moved the field kitchens closer to the front-line but they were never able to get close enough to provide regular hot food for the men. Sometimes a small group of soldiers managed to buy a small primus stove between them. When they could obtain the fuel, which was always in short supply, they could heat their food and brew some tea.

Food was often supplied in cans. Maconochie contained sliced turnips and carrots in a thin soup. As one soldier said: "Warmed in the tin, Maconochie was edible; cold it was a mankiller." The British Army tried to hide this food shortage from the enemy. However, when they announced that British soldiers were being supplied with two hot meals a day, they received over 200,000 letters from angry soldiers pointing out the truth of the situation. Men claimed that although the officers were well-fed the men in the trenches were treated appallingly.

Food supply was a major problem when soldiers advanced into enemy territory. All men carried emergency food called iron rations. This was a can of bully beef, a few biscuits and a sealed tin of tea and sugar. These iron rations could only be opened with the permission of an officer. This food did not last very long and if the kitchen staff were unable to provide food to the soldiers they might be forced to retreat from land they had won from the enemy.

 

 

Life in the Trenches

Soldiers fought, soldiers died, some lived through World War One; others lived but were disabled for the rest of their lives. Life in the trenches was said to be ‘hell on earth”. In the muddy battle fields there was plenty of life but no real living for the young men who fought in them.

Death, mutilated limbs, disease, rats, maggots, lice and insects were all around the fighting soldiers, who lived minute by minute dodging the bullets and shell fire. With shells exploding all around them and bullets flying just above their heads, life in the trenches of World War One was very hard.

Soldier’s food during WW 1

Food for soldiers in the trenches during World War One was considered a luxury. Getting decent hot food from the field kitchens to the front line trenches was almost impossible when a battle was in full flow and there was no set meal time for the fighting soldiers. When soldiers were at stand-down, hot meals were able to be delivered from the field kitchens to the front line trenches.

A total of 3,240,948 tons of food was sent from Britain to the soldiers fighting in France and Belgium during the First World War. The British Army employed 300,000 field workers to cook and supply the food. At the beginning of the war British soldiers were given 10 ounces of meat and 8 ounces of vegetables a day. As the size of the army grew and the German blockade became more effective, the army could not maintain these rations and by 1916 this had been cut to 6 ounces of meat a day. Later troops not in the front-line only received meat on nine out of every thirty days. The daily bread ration was also cut in April 1917. The British Army attempted to give the soldiers the 3,574 calories a day that dieticians said they needed. However, others argued that soldiers during wartime need much more than this.

Soldiers in the Western Front were very critical of the quantity and the quality of food they received. The bulk of their diet in the trenches was bully beef (caned corned beef), bread and biscuits. By the winter of 1916 flour was in such short supply that bread was being made with dried ground turnips. The main food was now a pea-soup with a few lumps of horsemeat. Kitchen staff became more and more dependent on local vegetables and also had to use weeds such as nettles in soups and stews.

The soldiers in the trenches ate quite well, and the food was considered to be luxurious, compared to what their families back at home were eating.

 

A typical days ration for a British Soldier

20 ounces of bread or 16 ounces of flour or 4 ounces of oatmeal instead of bread

3 ounces of cheese

5/8 ounces of tea,

4 ounces of jam or 4 ounces of dried fruit

½ ounce of salt, 1/36 ounce of pepper

1/20 ounce of mustard,

8 ounces of fresh vegetables or 1/10 gill lime if vegetables were not issued

½ gill of rum or 1 pint of porter

20 ounces of tobacco (two cigars and two cigarettes or 1 oz. pipe tobacco, or 9/10 oz. plug tobacco, or 1/5 oz. snuff)

1/3 ounces of chocolate - optional

4 ounces of butter/margarine

2 ounces of dried vegetables

Daily Ration for a German Soldier

26 ½ ounces of bread or 17 ½ of field biscuits or 14 ounces of egg biscuit

53 ounces of potatoes

4 ½ ounces vegetables

2 ounces dried vegetables.

There was meat available for both The British and German Soldiers in the trenches, but only when a lull in the battle allowed it to be delivered from the field kitchens.

Daily Ration for an Indian soldier

¹⁄₄ pound meat
(Non-meat eaters received 2 ounces of gur (coarse, unrefined sugar made from sugar cane juice) or sugar or 3 ounces of milk in place of 4 ounces of meat)

¹⁄₈ pound potatoes

¹⁄₃ ounce tea

¹⁄₂ ounce salt

1 ¹⁄₂ pounds atta (flour)

4 ounces dhal (dried lentils, peas or beans which have been stripped of their outer hulls and split)

2 ounces ghee (clarified butter)

¹⁄₆ ounce chillies

¹⁄₆ ounce turmeric

¹⁄₃ ounce ginger

¹⁄₆ ounce garlic

1 ounce gur

 

Sheep being taken ashore at Gallipoli in 1915, to be issued live to the Indian troops for slaughter according to their religious practices. [AWM C01662]

Indian troops' iron rations (emergency supplies issued in case soldiers were cut off from regular rations) consisted of:

1 pound biscuit

8 ounces gur

1 ounce tea

6 ounces condensed milk or 2¹⁄₂ ounces dried milk in lieu, when available.