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world war 1 and psychology
Disadantages of the Trench warfare
Disadantages of the Trench warfare
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Memory of Battles
The First World War was a common experience that many soldiers, of many nationalities, had to endure. Because the devastation and loss of life was so great, no nation's soldiers were spared from the horrible psychological effects of the First World War. Various books and memoirs were useful in understanding the circumstances of the War and the effects they had upon the soldiers that fought it.
World War One was like no war that had ever been fought before. The advent of machine gun and heavy artillery gave armies the killing power that they had never even dreamed of. The standard tactics of the armies involved had not developed enough to accommodate these new technologies, and the result of these two factors was prolonged trench warfare.
Trench warfare produces some of the most horrible experiences that a man can endure. Men dig themselves into the earth to protect themselves from the enemy. When they are ordered to attack they have to cross a vast open stretch of land knows as "no-man's land". The guns of the enemy, who are dug into trenches of their own, protect this area. When these attacks failed it was then the soldiers duty to retreat back to their trenches, taking back whatever wounded they could, and waiting for the enemy to attack them. Erich Maria Remarque in All Quiet on the Western Front gives a good example of this when he writes: "Attacks alternate with counter-attacks and slowly the dead pile up in the field of craters between the trenches. We are able to bring in most of the wounded that do not lie too far off. But many have long to wait and we listen to them dying" (Remarque). The living conditions that the men had to endure in these trenches were almost as horrible as the conditions of battle. An example of what the common soldier had to endure everyday can be found in Robert MacKay's diary entry of September 3rd 1917: "Feeling like nothing on earth, with a rash all over me, even on my toes. Must have eaten something. Tinned fruit? Carried on half-heartedly and then had to go off to 'bed'" (MacKay). Even the food the men had to eat caused them physical pain. All of these factors together created an endless cycle of pain and killing that left no man mentally unscathed.
The men that went off to war in 1914 were not at all prepared for horrors that they would have to face.
World War I, also known as the Great War, lasted from the summer of 1914 until the late fall of 1918. The war was fought between the Allies, which consisted mainly of the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire, and the Central Powers, which consisted mainly of the German Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria (Alliances - Entente and Central Powers). In total, it is estimated that twelve million civilians and nine million combatants died during this horrific and devastating war (DeGroot 1). When the war first began in 1914, many people thought that it would be a war of movement that would quickly be over. However, that changed when the Germans, who were trying to reach and capture the city of Paris in France, were forced to retreat during the Battle of the Marne in September 1914 (Ellis 10). German General von Falkenhayn, who felt that his troops must at all cost hold onto the parts of France and Belgium that they had overtaken, ordered his men to dig in and form defensive trench lines (Ellis 10). The Allies could not break through the enemies lines and were forced to create trenches of their own (Ellis 10). This was only the beginning of trench warfare. A war of movement had quickly come to a standstill on the Western Front. A massive trench line, 475 miles long, quickly spread and extended from the North Sea to the Swiss Frontier (Ellis 10). With neither side budging, soldiers were forced to live in the most miserable of conditions. Simply put, life in the trenches was a living hell. A lieutenant of the 2nd Scottish rifles wrote, “No one who was not there can fully appreciate the excruciating agonies and misery through which the men had to go [through] in those da...
The First World War saw a new form of warfare known as Trench warfare which involved trenches which were deep long dugouts made by the soldiers that lived in these trenches. The trenches proved useful as they protected the soldiers from artillery and bomb fire and were most likely situated in the eastern and western fronts of Europe. However the conditions of the trenches were far from exuberant but were in fact severely terrible. There was bad hygiene throughout the trenches, for example soldiers bathed probably only once a month and as such were prone to diseases such as trenches fever (which were due to the lice attracted by the bad hygiene). The weather was no exception as well, in the summer it would be too hot and in the winter it would be too cold and due to the nature of the trenches, when it rained the trenches would be filled with water, and due to such conditions welcomed the disease known as trench foot which was due to prolonged exposure to water and claimed the foots of many soldiers. There was also the constant danger of bomb fire and snipers would always be on the lookout for any movement. Latrines, which were toilets used in the trenches also sprouted fear as the enemy could see them in this area of the trenches and therefore were in constant danger of death. Soldiers also had to follow a strict code of conduct which was known as trench etiquette which ordered them to respect higher officers and they would have to be punished if the trench etiquette was ignored.
World War 1 is perhaps best known for being a war fought in trenches, ditches dug out of the ground to give troops protection from enemy artillery and machine-gun fire. The trenches spread from the East to the West. By the end of 1914, trenches stretched all along the 475 miles front between the Swiss border and the Channel coast.
The war scarred the soldiers permanently, if not physically then mentally. After the war the soldiers usually never recovered from the war. Two of the most common side affects of the war were shell shock and stir crazy. When suffering from shell shock a soldier’s brain doesn’t function properly and the man is a “vegetable”. This means the man is alive but he can’t do anything because he is in a state of shock because of the war. Stir crazy is a mental illness caused by the firing of so many bullets that when no bullets are heard by the victim he goes insane. Everyone was scared to go to war when it started. Young recruits were first sent because the veterans knew they were going to come back dead. "When we run out again, although I am very excited, I suddenly think: “where’s Himmelstoss?” Quickly I jump back into the dug-out and find him with a small scratch lying in a corner pretending to be wounded.” (P 131) Even the big men like Himmelstoss are scared to go fight. They too go through the mental illnesses like stir crazy and shell shock. “He is in a panic; he is new to it too.
It is evident that WW1 soldiers were deeply impacted by the war. Historians have found numerous journals and diaries that tells personal experiences from soldiers. Especially since this was a war that had a lot of new inventions, these soldiers had a lot to write about. Trench warfare changed the war entirely. Generals had to come up with better fighting tactics to make advances during the war. Prior to WW1 battles were fought out in the open and with less protection. There was no barb wire or sandbags to protect these soldiers. Life in the trenches were rough with constant firing occurring every few seconds. This made it very difficult for them to rest. In the trench soldiers are active all day and have to be ready for combat at all times. The daily journal of Pvt. Donald Fraser gives great detail of what actually took place on the battlefield.
The Great War, fueled by the excessive pride of each country, devastated the world. Each side felt superior to the other and would not stop until it emerged as the victor. These countries altered the style of fighting from a primitive face-to-face combat to systematic style of battle through trenches. To adapt to this style, countries developed new weapons and tactics to prevail over their enemies. But, the war simply remained a draw. Trench warfare prolonged World War I by a causing a bloody stalemate where millions died from modern weapons and horrid living conditions.
As Bertrand Russell once said “War does not determine who is right - only who is left.” No one ever truly wins a wart. The horrors of war are devastating; both mentally and physically. The horror is not only ever present during life on the Frontline, it lives on in the survivors guilt. I believe that althought the horror of war is represented in the soldiers, we are all too quick to forget about the feelings of those at home, the friends and families, and the effects the war had on them. The effects of war are prominent throughtout the Novels “Regeneration” and “All quiet on the Western Front” and is also explored deeply in Wilfred Owen’s “Selected War Poetry”. Throughout these works we discover that war was inescapable for these men, they had no choice, and it+++++s events were also inescapable. We discover that the men would rather die defending their country as a hero than live with the flashbacks, the guilt, the both mental and physical scarring. They would rather lose their lives than their limbs. I find these works encompass this question fully, as it covers all angles. Pat Barker never really shows her opinion in the novel, it is more factual, and as it is based upon real events and real people it’s a reliable source of information on the horror of war and it’s effects, without bias. Erich Maria Remarque had first hand experience in the First World War, and he gives us an insight into what life on the frontline was really like. Althought fictional, I believe his suffering would have still haunted him years later, compelli...
To conclude, many individuals and their families experienced severe physical and mental trauma as a result of the calamitous Gallipoli Campaign due to the extremely high and unexpected amount of casualties, the unprecedented harshness of prolonged trench warfare, the technology of the artillery and the psychological trauma that such violent combat induces. The general logistics of the campaign including the sad fact that bodies were not able to be returned to their loved ones. As well as the era of the campaign as so many suffered psychological wounds that were unable to be treated.
World War 1 start July 28, 1914 and end in November 11, 1918. The war involved the whole nation in the world. The trenches only a few of army were inside it, it was the most dangerous places to be in during the war. Behind the trenches their were many supplies like training establishments,stores, workshops, headquarters, food, water, and guns supplies. That’s where most of the army was were employed during the war. The trenches were there because they were the domain of the infantry, with the supporting arms of the mortars and machine-guns, the engineers, the medics and the forward positions of the artillery observers and others. The main reason why they used trenches was because they could be protected from powerful enemy artillery and small
Trench warfare became a common practice in World War One, leading to a war of attrition. Both the Allies as well as the Germans enacted similar basic defense strategies and dealt with many of the same debilitating trench conditions. Trenches were built in an elaborate networking system, with three major sections, the front lines, the support, and the reserves. There was a rotation schedule for soldiers in the trenches, so that each regiment served time at the front lines. Trench conditions were horrendous including rodent infestation as well as unsanitary living spaces; many were infected with diseases such as trench foot with most trenches were filled with dead corpses for weeks after they were first killed. Defense mechanisms included creating dense fields of barbed wire in No Man’s Land, between the enemy trenches, in order to prevent an attack on the trench. Trench sanitation and defense were not the only reasons for the stalemate connected with World War One. The weather played
Prior to the First World War, militaries would stand in multiple consecutive straight lines and march toward the opposing side. While they were marching, they would fire their guns at the other side. In the Revolutionary War, the soldiers would have to reload their muskets which could take up to several minutes. The first row would fire their one shot, then the second row would go in front of them while they were reloading their musket1 2. This would continue until “they saw the white’s of the enemies eyes”2. In time, they would eventually move to trench warfare1. Trenches were dug for an army to fire at another army that is in an opposing trench. Not as many soldiers were killed or wounded since they have the trench4. However, these trenches were disease filled. People died from illnesses, disease and infection. In fact more, people died from infection than the actual war
Infantries could spend months in a disease ridden, rodent infested trench. With watching your fellow soldiers die of disease, have their limbs rot off, and bombed many soldiers that survived ended up developing post traumatic stress disorder, which would not have been treated or diagnosed for many years following the war. Survivors would most likely have many health problems to try to fix after the war ended in 1918. Trench warfare was created to help protect soldiers, but with disease and the harsh conditions of the trenches it may have harmed the soldiers more than helping
World War One was fought primarily through trench warfare. Trench warfare emerged due to the advancement of weaponry in which guns had the capacity to kill many people in a short amount of time. In order to combat this soldiers from both sides of the war would dig out trenches or long, ditches in which they could hide from this incredible powerful gunfire. The result of this is that both sides would dig in on opposite sides of a field and in between them would be what is known as no man’s land. This fundamentally changed the nature of military engagement as instead of tactics, and maneuverability, warfare now resorted to waves of people desperately charging across a wall of gunfire with the hopes of making it into the other sides trenches for direct engagement. As a byproduct of this standstill, there were massive causalities and suffering that are almost indescribable. In addition, many of the soldier’s saving grace, the ditches, were literally hell on earth as they were disease ridden, rat infested, and water logged. It is this subhuman condition that Owen attempts to describe his experience as well as to question the glory and
The First World War introduced a new type of warfare. New weapons were combined with old strategies and tactics. Needless to say, the results were horrific. However, a new type of warfare was introduced: trench warfare. In the movie War Horse, the character that owned the horse originally while he worked on his farm, Albert Narracott, finally was old enough to join the army. His first sight of battle was the Battle of Somme which took place in France near the Somme River. During this battle, the British troops start out in trenches, which were pretty much tunnels dug strategically to avoid gunfire. The soldiers would wait until they were told to advance, and they would run from one trench to the next. Trenches and the area between trenches were muddy and the trenches themselves were poorly conditioned (http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/chapters/ch1_trench.html). Many of the soldiers who fought in trenches succumbed to a foot disease called trench foot and if not treated immediately, gangrene could infect the foot and an amputation would be necessary for survival. Commanding officers ordered one or t...
World War I is known as a war that occurred on extremely cruel terms; there were not many restrictions on what and when certain weapons could be used. Unfortunately, the Industrial Age brought with it many new ways to kill; the soldiers of World War I came in contact with many new weapons that they had never seen in combat.