World War I, often dubbed the "Great War," summoned countless men to join the war effort in search of adventure, honor and camaraderie. However, the romanticized notions of glory and valor often clashed with the harsh reality of warfare. This essay aims to explore the actualities of life as a soldier during World War I such as the psychological toll it had on the soldiers as well as the harsh reality of trench warfare and camaraderie between soldiers and colleagues.
Life in the trenches was a defining characteristic of World War I, but it was far from glorious. The physical conditions within the trenches were abysmal, leading to widespread discomfort, disease, and despair. Lieutenant Edmund Blunden, a British soldier, vividly described the appalling environment in his memoir, "Undertones of War." Soldiers endured incessant rain, flooding, and the ever-present stench of mud and decaying bodies.Another example of the indescribable life of
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The relentless bombardment, the constant fear of death, and witnessing the horrors of warfare inflicted severe mental anguish on soldiers. Siegfried Sassoon, a renowned British poet and soldier, reflected the dissonance between idealized perceptions and the grim reality in his poem, "Suicide in the Trenches." It portrays the disillusionment and despair faced by soldiers who had initially joined the war with hopes of glory, only to be mentally broken by the harsh reality of combat. Another example of how the war impacted soldiers was from this excerpt from Henry Gregory, a corporal from a machine gun company, which described Shell Shock(a form mental illness often referred as PTSD) as “the terror is indescribable” meaning that the mental illness was so horrific that it couldn’t be explained nor described. This is the psychological effect of World War I and how it was detrimental to their mental health rather then it being positive to their mental