War trenches are troughs in the ground where soldiers eat, sleep, prepare for battle, and fight. Besides the fact that the trenches were impractical, they were additionally very unsanitary, and caused countless issues for the soldiers. Diseases such as the flu and pneumonia were spread easily through the trenches. Other problems included conditions such as “trench foot” also advanced throughout rapidly. Dead bodies, trash, limbs, blood, guts and more were scattered across the trench floors, providing an unlivable space for the thousands of soldiers.
Throughout the first world war, both Canadian and German troops were challenged with a variety of hardships, the most prominent being the poor living conditions of the trenches. When reading the books, Generals Die In Bed and All Quiet on the Western Front, we can see the lack of sleep, lice in clothing, and subpar equipment that the German and Canadian troops were required to deal with. The quality of life in the trenches over the four years of war exhibits the historical concept of continuity. Hence, both the German and Canadian troops were confronted with poor living conditions due to the lice, absence of sleep, and inadequate equipment.
When the description of them appeared on page 85 it shrewd how these people were made for war and all they know mentally and physically is the war “there knees sag and heads are droopy’(85). This shows how they were lost at war and only know war physically they are
In order to analyze and answer the question, we must first understand the context of trench warfare. World War 1 was a time when advanced weapons and technology were invented. Weapons such as machine guns, artillery, tanks, and other long range military weapons were used at the opposing side. To defend against a wide use of artillery and other long range weapons, trench warfare was used by both the allied and central powers. Trench warfare was a very important factor in World War 1, not only because it would defend one’s own trench, but also attempt to attack the enemies at the same time.
The author explains the emotional, mental, and physical struggles that the soldiers went through. The trenches were deep and filled with water in the rain, causing many soldiers to get trench foot which is just one of the many illnesses and injuries that happened. All Quiet on the Western Front shows the reader the pain the soldiers went through as well as Paul's being impacted physically and mentally while
War has always carried an amount of uncertainty. The harsh truths about war have often been looked at through rose colored glasses. However, the harsh, unromantic realities of war always seem to dominate . Writers, media, and organizations have portrayed soldiers in countless ways. However, the roles which these men and women have played in the defense of our country cannot be so easily summed up.
The dead were buried “in trenches without boxes, coffins or clothes, and but a scanty covering of earth”. He described his fellow mates in the following manner, “their flesh was wasted away, leaving the chaffy, weather beaten skin drawn tight over the bones, the hip bones and shoulders standing out”. Lack of nourishment deteriorated the health of the prisoners- muscles were lost, and the bones seemed to be protruding from their bodies.
From one account of a soldier at Gallipoli, he stated “A few bivvies, excavated in the walls of trenches, but most men only had the floor of the trench upon which to lie” - Colonel Herbert Collett, 28th Battalion. In the movie, it was seen that there were only “a few bivvies” to sit and lie in while there were many soldiers sitting on the dry ground, this is a very accurate recreation of the firsthand accounts and pictures taken at Gallipoli. The trenches were not a pleasant place as they were unhygienic, and disease-ridden because of the constant death in and around the trenches, Weir falsely recreates the trenches with dead bodies buried in the walls and little-seen disease except the flies in the soldier’s food. Another account from 2nd of December describes the trenches as not being under “continuous bomb fighting and bombarding all the time” instead “the chief occupation is the digging of mile upon mile of endless trench” -Dispatch, Commonwealth of Australia Gazette. Weir’s Gallipoli reconstructs life in the trenches as standing around for ages and filling time with activities like smoking and small gambling or betting, this was the case but many soldiers had to be constantly digging more lines of trenches which were not shown in the movie.
In All Quiet on the Western Front Paul Bäumer and his friends of the second company experience the brutality of trench warfare from a first hand perspective. In the story they had to spend time digging in the mud to get the trenches they needed. After they would fight through enemy bombardments, where hundreds of shells destroy the front line leaving them woke with a constant uncertainty if they would be killed. It is even stated by Paul that in the trenches life is no more than an avoidance of death. Each person must not think about anything but to kill or be killed.
They get on the radio and report enemy movement—a whole army, they say” (O’Brien 55). As an author, O’Brien had written the ordeal experienced by the troops to be a depiction of how isolation can result in a loss of sanity and a sensible state of mind. The experience Mitchell Sanders recalls reveals the power that silence can have over the imagination as well as the damage that can take place to a healthy conscience. After the soldiers return to the base, the soldiers on the assignment are unable to answer to their superior, instead “they just look at him for a while, sort of funny like, sort of amazed, and the whole war is right there in that stare. It says everything you can 't ever say.
One of these nights ill be lying dead out there in the dark and nobody’ll find me except the bugs - I can see it - I can see the goddamn bugs chewing tunnels through me - I can see the mongooses munching on my bones. I swear, it’s too much. I cant keep seeing myself dead.” This is a very sad accurate portrayal that could happen to a soldier, you go mentally crazy where you cant take it anymore like poor Rat
Similarly, lice and glum are used to describe the conditions of the trenches/front in "All Quiet on the Western Front". Remarque shows the trenches as hell for the soldiers, especially Paul and his comrades. The extent is more severe in "Suicide in the Trenches", because the soldier boy ends up committing suicide, hence the title. However,
Many soldiers restrained from showing cowardice to be seen as “men”. War was not the time, nor the place to be scared. Many of those who served in the war did not want to be there, and many were put into a petrified mindset. “They used a hard vocabulary to contain the terrible softness. Greased they’d say…
There can be no war without death. For some that meant that they were wounded, and for others it meant truly dying. For Robert Graves, that death came in the form of the ideals of his childhood. In Good-Bye to All That, Graves puts to rest his respect for authority figures. He entombs the religious values instilled in him from his youth.
“Imagine yourself in the pitch dark, after two or three days of wet, cold, hunger, sleeplessness, staggering down a trench, knee-deep in mud, carrying various burdens that almost equal your own body-weight” (Ellis, 48). This was the everyday life of the typical soldier involved in the World War I trench warfare. During WWI trench warfare was common. It began in September 1914 with the German army digging themselves in for a battle that would last what seemed like a life time for the soldiers involved. Soldiers on either side alike lived in deplorable conditions.