Death was a constant companion to those serving in the line, even when they weren't under attack, many would die of disease. They would have to face body lice, rodents, small amounts of food, and some hated the life in the trenches so much, they would cause self-inflicted wounds so that they could be sent home. Before that though, the first thing a new recruit would be overwhelmed with on the way to the front line would be the smell, the smell of rotting bodies in shallow graves, men who had not washed in weeks, the lasting odour of
Source A3 is a ‘’photograph taken in the trenches in 1918’’ It is a useful source because it clearly shows the waterlogged conditions of a dug out which is surrounded by mud and dirt. The water is very deep because it’s covering the bottom half of the soldiers body this demonstrates that flooding and living in mud was a common problem for the soldiers in the Frontline Trenches. As a photograph it’s useful because it’s strong visual evidence for a Historian. A3 can be directly corroborated with A4 which shows a photograph from 1917 of a soldier’s foot which is suffering from trench foot, the main cause of this was standing in water and mud for a long amount of time and this corroborates A3. However, the reliability of A3 can be questioned.
Disease that caused stomach pains, diarrhea, vomiting, fever or even death. Along with disease soldiers had be concerned about getting trench foot. Trench foot is a medical condition caused by prolonged exposure of the feet to damp, unsanitary, and cold conditions. Soldiers had to stand for hours in water and mud without the luxury of being able to remove there damp socks or boots. Trench warfare lasted for about four years and towards the end of the war the trenches extended over 600 miles across the countryside.
Germans would shell British trenches and the British soldiers would be ready for the attack. The aim of this battle was to ease pressure the Germans had put on the nearby village of Verdun, using the battle as a distraction. They relied heavily on the ‘New Army’ – the civilian recruits brought in by Lord Kitchener’s advertising campaign. These thousands upon thousands of men had absolutely no battle experience and insufficient training. At 7:30 am on the 1st of July, the British began a massive attack against German forces.
I.e. the Kokoda trail. Symptoms include rapid onset of fever, severe headache, joint and muscle pain, metallic taste in mouth, diarrhoea, loss of appetite, vomiting, abdominal pain, extreme fatigue, minor bleeding in the nose or gums, and various rashes. Dysentery is caught and passed through contaminated food and water, as the troops had a lack of clean food and water, they had to compromise by drinking from muddy puddles and creeks. “The Symptoms of this disease are pus and mucus in faeces, brutal abdominal cramps, nausea, fever, and diarrhoea” (http://health.ninemsn.com.au/family/familyhealth/689888/what-is-dysentery).
In Linda Altman’s Plague and Pestilence A History of Infectious Disease, she refers to bubonic as “the painful lymph node swellings called buboes in the groin and armpits, which ooze pus and blood. Victims bleed under
In investigating for the source-based study, students shall develop knowledge and skills to respond to different types of sources and relevant historiographical issues related to World War I. Students learn about: 1 War on the Western Front – the reasons for the stalemate on the Western Front – the nature of trench warfare and life in the trenches dealing with experiences of Allied and German soldiers – overview of strategies and tactics to break the stalemate including key battles: Verdun, the Somme, Passchendael. – changing attitudes of Allied and German soldiers to the war over time 2 The home fronts in Britain and Germany – total war and its social and economic impact on civilians in Britain and Germany – recruitment, conscription, censorship and propaganda in Britain and Germany – the variety of attitudes to the war and how they changed over time in Britain and Germany – the impact of the war on women’s lives and experiences in Britain 3 Turning points – impacts of the entry of the USA and of the Russian withdrawal – Ludendorff’s Spring Offensive and the Allied
The classic anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), directed by Lewis Milestone, has been restored by the Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Centre. Based on the best-selling novel by Erich Maria Remarque, the book and film tell the story of a group of German students who volunteer to fight in the 1914-18 War. It is not a story of heroes, but of ordinary young men trapped in a terrestrial hell; a bitter critique of war that resonates as powerfully today as it did before the next ‘war to end all wars’. All Quiet on the Western Front was not the only film inspired by the First World War. One of the most famous, Abel Gance’s J’accuse (whose title echoes the notorious Dreyfus affair of 1894) appeared in 1919.
Wilfred Owens’s poems are inspired by the horrors of his own experiences in World War One from 28th July 1914 to 4th November 1918, the day that he died 1 week before the armistice. Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade was written to commemorate the suicidal charge by British light cavalry over open terrain in the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War from 1854 to 1856. This was the first war to have photographic media coverage. Of the 637 men involved in the charge, 247 were killed or injured. Tennyson describes the valiant charge of the light brigade into the jaws of death.
Coughing up blood was particularly a bad problem because everyone around you was then susceptible to the disease. The bacteria would go airborne after coughing blood, which would then infect those around the person. Most people would die two to seven days after being infected by the