Trench weapons, captured by British troops during First World War

These German trench weapons were captured by British troops during the early part of the First World War. Both German and British troops used such crude and brutal weapons, even though both sides' propaganda suggested they were only used by the enemy. Some examples may, indeed, have been produced in Britain and Germany simply for propaganda purposes and never actually used in trench or any other warfare.

The weapons are a wooden club with a spiked iron mace end, a truncheon with an iron-studded end and a sprung-shafted truncheon with a large square nut screwed to the end.

Such weapons were used during small scale 'trench raids' intended to gather intelligence and maintain the aggressive spirit of troops locked in a military stalemate.