Life on the Western Front

Life on the Western Front

The Western Front was a system of trenches that ran from the Belgium

coast, through Northern France and the German border. There were many

different countries that fought on the Western Front but the main

three were Britain, France and Germany. The soldiers that fought on

the Western Front had to fight from the beginning of the war in 1914

to the end of the war in 1918.

At the start of the war the majority of the soldiers were quite

excited and cheerful. They all felt quite patriotic about going to war

and fighting for their country. So all the way to the Western Front

and before any of the fighting had really begun the soldiers were

happy. Though when they reached the Front and the war had begun their

views changed drastically after just one night of fighting the

soldiers began to realise that this was no ordinary war. "When day

dawned we were astonished to see, by degrees, what a sight surrounded

us. The sunken road now appeared as nothing but a series of enormous

shell-holes filled with pieces of uniform, weapons, and dead bodies."

This was written by Ernst Junger after a nights march to the front

line at Guillemont. This is a very vivid account taken from his diary

we have no means of knowing if what he wrote was true or not. He may

have exaggerated because this may have been his first battle although

he would be allowed to write exactly what he saw because this diary

was only for him so it would not be censored. The French thought that

it would be a very short war and that they would defeat Germany within

48 hours. So they werent really expecting the war to be that long so

their attitudes were also quite cheerful but still very determined and

focused because they wanted to beat Germany because Germany had

already beaten France once in a different battle so in a way they were

very excited about the war because now they would have a chance to get