Rats were attracted to the trenches in World War I mainly by easy food, plentiful shelter, and the huge number of unburied or shallow-buried bodies on and around the front lines. The filthy, overcrowded conditions created a near- perfect environment for them to feed, hide, and breed rapidly.

Food and Corpses

  • Soldiers’ food scraps, overflowing rubbish, and discarded tins provided a constant food source for rats in the trenches.
  • Countless decomposing bodies of men and animals in and around the trenches drew “corpse rats” that fed on the dead, often in large numbers.
  • With so much food available in a small area, rat populations exploded into the millions along the Western Front.

Shelter and Breeding Conditions

  • Trenches offered dry corners, dugouts, and loose soil where rats could burrow and nest safely away from predators.
  • Constant debris, damaged earth from shelling, and abandoned equipment created endless hiding places, making the trenches ideal habitat for rats.
  • Because conditions stayed relatively stable and food was constant, rats bred very quickly and soon overran the trench systems.

Human Waste and Poor Hygiene

  • Lack of proper waste disposal meant rubbish, latrines, and spilled food were left in or near the trenches, which strongly attracted rats.
  • Heavy rain and shellfire often exposed shallow graves, bringing partially buried bodies and more organic waste to the surface, which further fed rat numbers.
  • The overall unsanitary environment helped rats thrive and spread disease, adding yet another layer of misery to trench life.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.