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The AIF stands for the Australian Imperial Forces. It started off when Britain asked Australia to supply 12,000 soldiers to volunteer to fight in the war. William Bridges, the Major-General, decided to call this first division, the Australian Imperial Forces. This was how the AIF came to be, and even through it was the same army, with each new division that was created, they were called the 2nd, 3rd division and so on.
The conditions on the Western Front that the AIF would have endured were absolutely horrific. The trenches themselves were only 2m wide by 2m tall; this left very little room to operate around each other while in battle or even when you were simply moving around the trench. The ground in the trenches would be in a state of constant thick black mud that was made by rain and the residue of any water. This thick mud made it extremely difficult to move around let alone to move quickly. Constant exposer to this thick, filthy mud could result in trench foot.
These valiant Australian men were sent to the Western Front to fight for their country. The conditions they were faced with while on the Western Front were near unbearable and the men had to endure them. These conditions were clearly not fit for human inhabitation and yet the soldiers were forced to live in them for up to months at a time. The conditions in the trenches would, more often than not, result in the death of men due to diseases passed on by rats, parasites, and the constant presence of rotting corpses and overflowing lavatories. Many of the soldiers were unable to leave the trenches physically unaffected. The men who left the trenches often left with: limbs amputated, trench foot, trench mouth, trench fever and severe infections just to name a few. Men would also return home after being effected mentally, the most common form was shell shock.