Even thought some soldiers survived the shellings and gas, they were still destroyed by the war. Many men were destroyed by the war mentally. The Soldiers that survived the war and came home almost all had PTSD and were mentally ill from what they had seen or experienced. (Chapter 5, pg.87) "The war has ruined us for everything” This quote means that what they have seen and done in the war has transformed them into only being able to think of and understand the life of war. War becomes what they live and breath and cannot comprehend with other jobs that do not relate to war and the horrifying killing that they were trained to do.
Haig only intention was to breakthrough to get the German trenches and defeat the army once and for all. The battle took more than 1,000,000 lives and as it was the bloodiest battle throughout the history, it is said that more than 20,000 soldiers died in the first hour and more than 60,000 casualties on the first day. The soldiers that took part in this insidious war were as young as 14 and had no training and they did not know that they’ll die so young. The Somme ended in bloodshed and the human cost was very high, 420,000 British soldiers and 200,000 French soldiers had died for their country, almost as many as the Germans added together. This insidious war The Somme was the most tragic moment for Britain and British history.
How important were the actions of officers rather than conditions in causing a high death toll in WW1. In World War One the amount of deaths were staggeringly high, this came down to many different reasons. Over the four years many men died from diseases, the conditions of the trenches and ‘no mans land’. However the most deaths came from within the army itself, it usually came from the poor actions that the officers made. Firstly, a main point that their actions were to blame would be that repetitive tactics and how they would refuse to change them.
Life in the Trenches Life in the trenches during World War I was a pretty brutal time for the soldiers. They fought disease, illness, having no privacy, rodents, and having next to no comfort. So as you can probably tell, life was rough. Every day was a struggle for the soldiers that fought in the war. Many factors we causing all of this, and these are just a few.
The intentions of Erich Maria Remarque were fueled by one simple goal in mind, “to tell a generation of men who, even though may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war” (foreward). This statement really sets the tone for All Quiet on the Western Front and how a whole generation of men who did survive the War, returned home, but their youthful attitudes died with their fallen brothers. The brutality of trench and chemical warfare was enough to kill millions of men, however million’s more were destroyed by the psychological aftermath from fighting in the first World War. This story was narrated through Paul and his understanding of how the war ruined a soldier’s memories of home, their relationships with their families, and just simply
When they started to run out of the older boys, they started bringing in younger and younger recruits. ‘They were helpless and go down like flies (pg 93). The young recruits are not trained well enough to know what to do and ‘to every one old soldier, between five and ten of the recruits are killed’ (pg 94). Like the horses, what have these young recruits
Trench warfare Trench warfare is where rival armies dug themselves a trench, in order to protect themselves from gun fire from side. Life in the Trenches during World War 1 was terrible. Conditions were disgusting, the first thing a new recruit would notice was the smell, rotting bodies barely buried under the ground, men who hadn’t washed in weeks because there were no facilities for them to use. Although these smells were repulsive, new recruits soon got used to them and contributed to it with their own bodily odour. Disease and infection was very common in these conditions.
But when, because of their carelessness and laziness, ground drills and were abandoned. The army started to feel heavy to them since they started to hardly ever wear it. That negligence, and laziness, led them to asking the emperor to take away the breastplates and next the helmets. So when they went out and fought the Goths they had no protection whatsoever from the head to the chest, and were often beaten by archers. No one tried to replace the breastplates and the helmets.
They were not given shoes and equipment so many men were fighting without guns or shoes, they didn’t have wagons or horses and not even first aid treatment for wounds. The fact they had no fist aid supplies was bad because many men had there wounds unattended and even worse the soldiers were made to lye on the ground in the dirt, filth and cold without straw. All this ill-treatment eventually led to desertions from soldiers and this was a problem for the government because they were losing men on the front line, and even worse the soldiers were coming back to Russia angry with the Tsar and equipped with weapons. This is a very important factor in bringing about the Russian Revolution of March 1917 because the people revolting in Russia now had the army slowly joining them. The war was not only badly affecting the
This incredible war story shows us that, even though they display great bravery and valour in battle, the only thing young men who fight in wars accomplish is an early death. The novel talks about many soldiers dying. So many of these soldiers are dead, that in the trenches they can smell the stench of rotting flesh, as the dead men often do not get buried. Those young men lying out in No Man’s Land, unburied, all went to war for the same reason, to prove that they were brave, not cowardly, and to fight for their country. All they end up doing though is becoming another casualty, another statistic, dying in a war that had no real reason.