Trench

Trench (pronounced trensh)

(1) In military (usually army (infantry)) use, an elongated pit for protection of soldiers and or equipment, usually perpendicular to the line of sight toward the enemy.

(2) A system of such excavations, with their embankments etc (usually in the plural).

(3) To dig or construct such a structure; to form a furrow, ditch, etc by cutting into or through something.

(4) In archaeology, a pit, usually rectangular with smooth walls and floor, excavated during an archaeological investigation; any deep furrow, ditch, or cut.

(5) In oceanography, a long, steep-sided, narrow depression in the ocean floor.

(6) To invade, especially with regard to the rights or the exclusive authority of another; to tend towards or encroach upon.

(7) A type of over coat.

(8) To have direction; to aim or tend.

(9) To cut; to form or shape by cutting; to make by incision, hewing, etc.

(10) In (mostly historic military) medicine, as trench foot, a type of foot damage caused by prolonged exposure to moisture.  Those most associated with the trench warfare of the First World War (from which it gained the name), the condition was first described by physicians attached to Napoleon Bonaparte's army during the retreat from Russia in the winter of 1812.

1350-1400: From the Middle English trenche (track cut through a wood or path made by cutting (later long, narrow ditch)) from the Old French trenche (a slice, cut, gash, slash; defensive ditch), from the verb trecncier (to cut, carve, slice), possibly from the Vulgar Latin trincāre (cut into three parts), from the Classical Latin was truncāre (to maim, mutilate, cut off), from truncus (maimed, mutilated).  Truncus also had the meaning "trunk of a tree, trunk of the body" and is of uncertain origin, perhaps from the primitive Indo-European root tere (cross over, pass through, overcome).  The first use by the military for trench in the modern sense was noted circa 1500 with trench foot mentioned in reports in 1915 although the condition had been documented since 1812 and doubtlessly had been long existed.  The trench coat dates from 1916 and, perhaps surprisingly, "trench warfare" didn’t appear in print until 1918.  Trench is a noun & verb, trenching is a noun, verb & adjective and trenched is a verb; the noun plural is trenches.  Forms such as detrench, retrench, entrench et al are coined as needed.  The adjective trenchant once had the meaning "fitted to trench or cut; gutting; sharp" but this is long obsolete; in figurative use it now conveys "keen; biting; vigorously articulate and effective; severe".

The trench coat

Winston Churchill (1875-1965, right), commanding the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers, with his deputy, Sir Archie Sinclair (1890–1970, right), Armentieres 11 February 1916.  Both are wearing trench coats, Churchill in a French M15 Adrian helmet.

One often-repeated story of the origin of the trench coat is it was created as a khaki-colored overcoat to offer protection to soldiers suffering in the muddy, sometimes water-logged trenches on the western front during the First World War.  That was certainly where it picked up the name but, (like the medical condition trench food which had been known to army physicians for over a hundred years) the garment long pre-existed the conflict.  It was descended from waterproof coats created by Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh (1766–1843) and self-taught English engineer Thomas Hancock (1786–1865) in the early 1820s.

Macintosh and Hancock’s rain-repellent garment was called the “mac” or “macintosh" names which became generic for the type of product, a usage which, in parts of the UK endures to this day.  Created from a rubberized cotton, the mac was outerwear offering protection from rain or the elements in general, the target market wide in the age of horse-drawn transport and included anyone for whom outdoor activities were a part of the day.  The mac proved popular among those in horse racing, farming and the whole hunting, fishing and shooting set as well as the military officers with which it would later be so associated.  Macintosh continued to refine the material, the fabric by mid-century breathable, and more water-resistant and in 1853, Regent Street tailor John Emary (b circa 1810, his date of death unknown), designed an improved raincoat, which he produced under the name of his company, Aquascutum (from the Latin aqua (water) + scutum (shield).  Aquascutum’s success attracted the attention of Hampshire draper Thomas Burberry (1835–1926) who would, in 1856, found his eponymous company.  Burberry’s innovation in 1879 was the weatherproofing of individual strands of cotton and wool fibres using a coating of lanolin, rather than something applied to a finished textile, Burberry’s gabardine (a borrowing of a word from the 1590s which described a number of garments, all variations of protective, enveloping cloaks) fabric so superior to anything else available that it was instantly successful.

Lindsay Lohan in trench coat, out shopping.

Over the years, both the recently much-troubled Aquascutum and Burberry have taken credit for having invented the trench coat but both were popularisers of a pre-existing product, Burberry’s re-writing of history more successful to the point where the Burberry Trench Coat is definitive of the type, most others imitative even in variation.  The style too remains class-associative, worn during the Great War only by the officer class and thus gentlemen (though as the death-toll of them rose, it came to be worn also by “temporary gentlemen” a wartime necessity of the British class-system).  The genuine Burberry and Aquascutum trench coats were expensive, but their image and utility attracted other manufacturers which soon had more affordable imitations on the shelves; that remains the market segmentation today.

Burberry Long Chelsea Heritage Trench Coat (US$2450.00).

The variation Burberry created for military use was released in 1912, the term “trench coat” appearing in print first in 1916 in a tailoring trade journal.  The classic wartime trench coat was double-breasted, tailored to the waist, and flared to a below-the-knee hemline, the belt equipped with D-rings for hooking accessories.  It was a functional design with a caped back so water to drip off while the storm flap at the shoulder provided ventilation, the pockets were deep, cuffs could be tightened, and the buttons at the neck, although there for traditional reasons, provided valuable protect against poison gas when that began to be used in 1915.  Some coats even came with a warm, removable liner, which could be used as bedding and the emblematic shade of khaki so identified with the Burberry Trench was part of the War Office specification, just a standard British Army color.  According to Burberry, although advances in technology and the introduction of new machinery has meant the patterns for their trench coats have been changed, some stitching methods have been updated and metric dimensions are now used, were a garment now to be fashioned from the originals, it would be visually indistinguishable for the current range.      

Lindsay Lohan in sheer trench coat from DKNY's anniversary collection, Esquire DKNY official opening party, One Embankment, London, June 2014.

The coats became especially popular after the Second World War.  Although the price differential for the genuine article is striking (it can be ten times the cost of a knock-off), the difference is certainly discernible, each coat made from gabardine in Castleford and said to take some three weeks to complete.  A Burberry check, a signature combination of camel, ivory, red and black has lined the coats since the 1920s.  A fashion convention emerged in the late 1960s: Whereas the military tradition was always to use the buckle to secure the belt, true fashionistas prefer to tie.