...Prior to the beginning of World War I the attitude toward war was extremely positive. People were excited about the war and they greeted it with enthusiasm. In Europe they were told it was going to over by Christmas so people weren’t expecting it to be long nor brutal for that matter. The press romanticized the war with various propaganda; so many men enlisted and were very proud to serve. They viewed it as they were going to be heroes and a victory was on its way; and no men wanted to miss the action. War made people, men and women, feel very nationalistic for their country, thus making them eager to contribute as much as they could to the war effort. Some men felt war was going to be a “great adventure” and gave “the war an ideal and almost romantic character”. All of Europe also helped romanticized the war and heroism because the people no experience with a long bloody war, they didn’t know what to expect. Contributions other than enlisting in the war were numerous. They men and women wanted to help out with the war effort for their country because it made them feel proud and integrated with the war. Some people contributed with food rations and where they donated food to the soldiers. Others planted victory gardens and some women took over the jobs the men did. Women also joined the Red Cross to help out in the war. The wealthier people donated money to the war effort so they could contribute in a way. In that early stage of the war they didn’t know how bad, long and bloody...
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...Six Young Men In 'Six Young Men' by Ted Hughes, a photograph is used to explore a more personal view of the effects of World War 1. This poem is about a group of six young men in an old photograph before they go off to fight in world war one. The photo was took in Cumbria, Lumb Falls. The men are all smartly dressed in the picture, there is now a memorial plaque in place. He explores the horror's of death in World War One. In this essay i intent to discuss the experiences and difficulties these men had to face. This poem covers the horror's of the first world war and what pain the six young firends faced, and how fragile life really is. I am going to show how Ted Hughes uses repetition and alliteration to describe the background. The first way in which Hughes sets the scene to show the horror's of war is alliteration to emphasise that the men all had friends and their own family, Ted Hughes want to show that people loved them. For example he uses "Shoe's Shine" to show they were ready and excited for life. We quickly realised that they are not going to survive as Hughes quote's in his last line, "one's own body from it's instant and death." In stanza 2 and 3, Hughes compare's the contrast of the horrors of war by starting by saying details about them but in Stanza 2 he makes us relise the reality by telling us how nice it is back home, "bulberried bank", this contrasts with Stanza 3. In Stanza three Hughes says, 'From potting at tin-cans in no-man's land, fell back dead'...
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...Brittany Prunsky Episodes of World War I The Christmas Truce of 1914 “Christmas Eve was, in the way of weather, everything that Christmas Eve should be’. Christmas Day itself was a perfect day. A beautiful, cloudless blue sky. The ground hard and white ... It was such a day as is invariably depicted by artists on Christmas cards - the ideal Christmas Day of fiction. And indeed, the curious manifestations taking place along considerable stretches of the British front that day had a look of the most surprising fiction” (Terraine). The wonderful events that occurred over the Christmas holiday of 1914 revealed to all that the human spirit seems to have a way of peaking through at rather disastrous times showing that even in times of chaos, a glimmer of hope can be seen through the compassion that humans undoubtedly possess. This was proven true during one of the most violent and fatal wars in history. World War I, also known as The Great War, spanned from 1914 until 1918 experiencing around 37 million war casualties (“First World War Casualties”). During the horrors of the war, an almost unexplainable incident occurred; the Christmas Truce of 1914, which restored a bit of hope in many men living in hopelessness. Neither a civilian nor a soldier during World War I could have anticipated the Christmas Truce of 1914 due to its story like characteristics. Although at times seen as merely a myth or a small incident blown widely out of proportion, this truce absolutely...
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...Week 5 1 Rebecca Brown HIS/125 September 24 2014 Leslie Ruff Week 5 2 America and World War I-The Battle of Marne This was the first time in history that the United States fought in a European war. This battle also made the world look at the United States in a new light; we were a force to be feared. At the time that our soldiers had arrived the French and British troops were exhausted, and welcomed the help from the solders with open arms. There were several concerns about the American soldiers, and whether or not they would be able to handle the Germen troops. Many of these men were not only untrained, some were unarmed. Things were not going well at the time that the...
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...sides in the conflict sought to save their patients’ lives and limit the harm to their bodies. New types of treatment, techniques and medical technologies were developed that would end up saving thousands of lives. • A High number of wounds occurred in the heads of soldiers. • Arm injuries were common with 25% of Arm wounds on German soldiers proving fatal. • Just 12% of wounds recorded were to the torso, but this is perhaps because of the low number that made it to hospital and were therefore never recorded. • Leg wounds were the most commonly recorded area of injury. Many were so severe that thousands of soldiers had to have limbs amputated. Although traumatic, amputation saved thousands of lives as it often prevented infection. • Trench Foot, a condition induced by standing in water for long periods of time was common among soldiers and would typically cause the flesh of the foot to decay and die. • Infection was a serious complication for the wounded. Doctors used numerous techniques to prevent this from occurring. • In addition to wounds, many soldiers became ill. Weakened immune systems meant that many men were in hospital for sickness, not wounds • Wounding also became a way for men to avoid the danger and horror of the trenches. Doctors were extremely strict against ‘malingering’, where soldiers pretended to be ill or wounded themselves so that they did not have to fight. Wounds on the left hand were also seen as suspicious. • Wounding was not always physical. Thousands...
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...In addition to chemical warfare, troops on the Western Front had to withstand the crude unsanitary conditions. To illustrate, Victor Silvester, a British soldier, wrote in his diary, “ I put my hand down and my fingers closed on a big rat. It has nibbled through my haversack, my tunic and pleated kilt to get at my flesh.” Rats were everywhere. They would spread disease and bit many men. The rats kept reproducing and sustained themselves from the corpses of the dead soldiers. Soldiers began to bury the bodies and as Leonard Thompson describes it, “ We pushed them into the side of the trenches, but bits of them kept getting uncovered and sticking out… The bottom of the trench was springy like a mattress because of all the bodies underneath.”...
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...Dulce et Decorum Est I looked at the medals laid before me then took a swig of whiskey and gazed upwards. Looking back at me was once a soldier, never a hero. He was a noble figure that children looked up to. I was never such a thing. I clenched the three or four medals that I held in my left palm and began to pin them to my left chest. Memories of each battle and each event flooded back to me as I stuck each one to my shirt. As I attached the last, the worst of it came back. I fell down to the floor my whiskey still in my hand. Sweating, I remembered it. I remembered it all. I stood between walls of dirt within the battlefield; the gunshots firing overhead deafened me and everyone else in my battalion, which of course included George. George and I were only here because of each other. In the distance we heard German artillery fire again and again for two hours straight. The sky was pitch-black but occasionally George and I saw the very few allied planes above us. Not even the stars decided to come out that night. Our Battalion started to move towards a different location. We walked through the trenches occasionally stepping over the bloodied bodies shredded by enemy fire. Frequently we came across the wounded lying helplessly in the trenches suffering from the bullets wedged inside their chests and shrapnel lodged deep into their back. They shrieked in agony as one by one they were pulled onto the stretchers. That’s when something started whistling in the sky. “Gas! GAS BOYS...
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...After four months of training, on October 21, we went into combat. We were all sent to different French trenches but luckily I was still with my friends when they separated us. It was a scary day. We all saw how hell war is and all of the deaths. So much blood and guts everywhere. It was very shocking and very graphic. It’s something I wish I can erase from my memory and never re live again. A month into being in the trenches, we started getting used to it. The blood and guts everywhere was daily thing and it was unusual not seeing it. We started to get used to all the people in our trenches and tried starting conversations with the french which got awkward at times. We also got used to shooting our guns and how to survive and live in a trench. Everything started getting easier and easier little by little. After three months passed, on January 20th, my best friend, Frankie, got killed. It was probably the most saddest days of my life. Frankie was such a great friend, he was someone I was able to talk to about anything. He even saved my life once. I was about to get stabbed by a German troop and Frankie was able to shoot him on time. I felt so alone after his death. I had no one to talk to anymore. I hated war after what happened to my best friend Frankie. Yeah, I saw people on my side get killed left to right but I never really felt bad. Dang it a french right next to me got shot in the head and his blood splattered all over my face and I still didn’t care, it didn’t make...
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...their country! Others were simply afraid of receiving a white feather from the women. After 3 weeks of training they were sent up the line towards the front. The soldiers slept in dugouts which were of shocking condition. Why were the German dugouts better? – Because they could keep the land they’d already won which meant they had more time to make their trenches more ‘luxurious’. Each soldier had morning duties including Stand-To, refilling sandbags, repairing duckboards, cleaning out the latrines etc. During the soldiers spare time they would write letters back to Britain to tell their relatives how they are. The Defence Realm Act made sure all letters written must be censored before being posted off. Soldiers could not complain about the trench life! Other than writing home, another activity to do in spare time was to read the Wiper’s Times with their comrades. This newspaper made funny jokes especially about leaders. This temporarily relieved the soldier’s worries and as well as bringing cheer to their hearts, helped them to see the funny side of things. A second Stand-To is held at sunset when the light is completely gone and just like at dawn, the soldiers stand on the fire-step with rifles and bayonets to prevent unexpected enemy attacks. After it is safe to ‘stand-down’ a few soldiers still remain on alert if they have been ordered to stand on sentry duty for a couple hours. If you get caught falling asleep on sentry duty you will be punished with execution. By summer, the...
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...All Quiet on the Western Front Analysis of historical accuracy in the 1978 television production The 1979 film, All Quiet on the Western Front, is based on the 1929 novel by World War I German veteran, Erich Maria Remarque. The narrative portrays the nature of WWI from the perspective of a young German boy from his enlistment and deployment to the Western Front in 1916. It explores many concepts of the war including trench warfare, total war, and the overall long term mental and physical effects of war. Minus minor flaws where minimal information is given, the film appears to be a historically accurate portrayal of Trench Warfare and Total War. The film accurately portrays major elements of WWI, giving historically accurate insight into life in the trenches, war tactics, and gas warfare. The film accurately depicts the trenches as home to, not only the soldiers, but also to disease spreading rats and lice. Those fighting in WWI faced the devastating trench foot condition which was treatable only by amputation; the film truthfully portrays this issue as the duckboards which were used in an attempt to avoid this are shown on the trenches’ muddy and puddled ground. “No Man’s Land”, the term referring to the gap of land between the trenches of the opposing armies, is distinctly portrayed as lifeless, with smoking artillery induced craters, and the bodies of fallen soldiers left strewn across it. As the war progressed, bodies had to be left as it became too dangerous to collect...
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...Trenches were long narrow ditches that were dug into the ground where some soldiers lived day and night. Only a small proportion of the army would serve there. The trenches were the domain of the infantry, with the supporting arms of the mortars and machine guns. The trenches were built in the front line or in any sort of dangerous places. But behind them was a mass of supply lines, training establishments, stores, workshops, headquarters and all the other elements of the 1914-1918 system of war, in which the majority of troops were employed. Frontline trenches were usually seven feet deep and six feet wide. The conditions for the soldiers in the war were very risky. Death was a constant companion to those who were serving in the front line...
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...How successful a military leader was Haig? Explain your answer. I think Sir Douglas Haig was not a very successful military leader. Although he did have some achievements, but compared to his mistakes on leadership, I think it’s not enough to say he was a great leader. Some people argue that death is a part of the war, and that “British generals were not uncaring but they accepted, as they had to, that the very nature of the war, would lead to many deaths however hard they tried to avoid them. ” However we might want to question this statement. Did Haig really try hard to avoid death? If we look closely at the battle plan for the Battle of Somme one would hardly agree. Firstly, Haig assumed a seven-day-bombardment would make the German trenches so deserted that “not even a rat would live”, however he was proven wrong. Also he told the soldiers to walk towards the German trenches; they did, however the Germans simply aimed the machine guns at them and this turned into a suicidal mission. In order to minimize the casualties, he could’ve talk to the soldiers at the front and would know right away that machine gun shells will not beat barbed wire into pieces. In fact, it would only pick it up and through it onto the floor, often in a bigger mess than before… No, he didn’t do any of that. He simply sat kilometers behind the frontline, knowing nothing about the real trenches save the limited intelligence he gets daily. Another piece of evidence that one may argue is Haig’s biography...
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...Life on the Western Front by early 1915 was influenced because of the physical conditions of the trenches, the prevalence of sickness and disease in the trenches and the psychological effects of trench warfare on soldiers. As shown in Source A, trenches frequently became waterlogged and muddy entailing that it was not uncommon for men to have to stand for days deep in cold water unable to remove wet boots and socks, the condition trench foot developed as a result. The mud on the Western Front also provided the conditions for gas gangrene to be contracted due to the soil being highly cultivated. There were many health problems of just simple disease that took many more men out of combat than direct fire (Source B). This was as it was not only...
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...Its opening stage of mobile warfare accelerated the development of armoured cars, numbers of which were quickly improvised in Belgium, France, and Britain’’ (Encyclopedia Britannica). When the World War started, all of the countries started to improve their armored vehicles for the war. They made the armoured cars capable to go off roads, over broken ground and through barbed wire. C) ‘’Britain took the lead, technically and tactically, in developing the mobility of tanks. Even before World War I had ended, work had started on the Medium D with a maximum speed of 20 miles (32 km) per hour. Between 1923 and 1928 the British Army ordered 160 of the new Vickers Medium tanks. They were virtually the only tanks the British Army had until the early 1930s and the only tanks to...
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...I’ve been in the trenches of the battle of the Somme for a few weeks now, and I can safely say, the conditions have not improved since I’ve been stationed here. We have steadily, for two weeks been trying to push into no-mans land, without success. It seems every time one of our men pushes out of the trench, he falls back in without life. I’m worried one day that the soldier who falls back into the trench next will be myself. It is certainly not an easy life living in these trenches. We typically spend eight days in a frontline trench being shot at, then return to the reserve trench for four days, and after that we would have a short stay in a rest camp for another four days. By far the most relieving step in the trip was the return and stay at the rest camp. Although the Somme and the surrounding area are quite nice normally, in time of war it’s a hellhole. Non-stop shells going off, seeing the ones who you’ve become acquainted to fall, and on top of that, the extremely poor conditions of the trenches. Over these weeks I’ve had to endure the seemingly endless struggle of this great war. At this point I am almost regretting enlisting, however, I know once the war ends, it’ll be well worth it....
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