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Effects of World War 1 on people and society
Effects of World War 1 on people and society
Effects of World War 1 on people and society
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World War One
1 INTRODUCTION
In previous centuries soldiers had confronted each other from fixed places— however certainly not for years at a time and by no means withstanding the physical and psychological circumstances of WW1 1914–1918. The trenches were the front lines: the most treacherous places World War 1 trenches were dirty, smelly and riddled with disease. For soldier’s life in the trenches meant living in fear. In fear of diseases (like cholera and trench foot) and of course, the constant fear of enemy attack. Trench warfare WW1 style is something all participating countries vowed never to repeat and the facts make it easy to see why.
Emotional trauma yle Shell shock, or post- traumatic stress disorder, was common during the first
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Soldiers experienced symptoms like, unrelenting anxiety,nightmares, nervous ticks, and deliriously reliving experiences of combat. For example some soldiers who had bayoneted men in the face developed hysterical tics of their own facial muscles and stomach cramps pccured in men who knifed their enemies in the abdomen. By the end of the war the army had dealt with about 80,000 cases of shell shock. At first Soldiers who suffered from shell shock were looked upon as weak or cowards. Many soldiers were admitted and treated in mental asylums. For doctors and nurses, Shell shock was a difficult illness to understand. In the beginning of the war it was believed that shell shock was the result to physical damage of the nerves. It was later recognized that not all soldiers affected by shell shock had always been on the front line. Suffering from shell shock was frowned upon. Soldiers that arrived in mental hospitals were said o be greeted by silence. The British army reported 80,000 men suffered from shell shock during world war one. The effects of shell shock …show more content…
The trenches were very dirty as they were scattered with bodies of fallen soldiers, rats, used ammunition and rubbish. One of the main causes of death in the war was diseases from living in the trenches, diseases included trench foot; a disease obviously based around your feet where your feet would turn rotten from the wet and swell up making the foot numb. Some soldiers state sticking a bayonet through their foot and not being able to feel it. Another disadvantage of being in trenches was that I cold areas soldiers could easily get frost bite on their lose body parts like toes, feet, fingers, hands, noses and in some cases, ears. The rats would also bring a number of illnesses into the trenches also making the soldiers sick and cause death in some cases. When it rained the trenches would fill up with water and make slushy mud down on the floor of the trenches also causing sickness for the
"First World War.com - Feature Articles - Life in the Trenches." First World War.com - A Multimedia History of World War One. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2011. .
"Feature Articles - Life in the Trenches." Firstworldwar.com. First World War, n.d. Web. 05 Apr.
Soldiers faced diseases like measles, small pox, malaria, pneumonia, camp itch, mumps, typhoid and dysentery. However, diarrhea killed more soldiers than any other illness. There were many reasons that diseases were so common for the causes of death for soldiers. Reasons include the fact that there were poor physicals before entering the army, ignorance of medical information, lack of camp hygiene, insects that carried disease, lack of clothing and shoes, troops were crowded and in close quarters and inadequate food and water.
The First World War saw a new form of warfare known as Trench warfare which involved trenches which were deep long dugouts made by the soldiers that lived in these trenches. The trenches proved useful as they protected the soldiers from artillery and bomb fire and were most likely situated in the eastern and western fronts of Europe. However the conditions of the trenches were far from exuberant but were in fact severely terrible. There was bad hygiene throughout the trenches, for example soldiers bathed probably only once a month and as such were prone to diseases such as trenches fever (which were due to the lice attracted by the bad hygiene). The weather was no exception as well, in the summer it would be too hot and in the winter it would be too cold and due to the nature of the trenches, when it rained the trenches would be filled with water, and due to such conditions welcomed the disease known as trench foot which was due to prolonged exposure to water and claimed the foots of many soldiers. There was also the constant danger of bomb fire and snipers would always be on the lookout for any movement. Latrines, which were toilets used in the trenches also sprouted fear as the enemy could see them in this area of the trenches and therefore were in constant danger of death. Soldiers also had to follow a strict code of conduct which was known as trench etiquette which ordered them to respect higher officers and they would have to be punished if the trench etiquette was ignored.
The war scarred the soldiers permanently, if not physically then mentally. After the war the soldiers usually never recovered from the war. Two of the most common side affects of the war were shell shock and stir crazy. When suffering from shell shock a soldier’s brain doesn’t function properly and the man is a “vegetable”. This means the man is alive but he can’t do anything because he is in a state of shock because of the war. Stir crazy is a mental illness caused by the firing of so many bullets that when no bullets are heard by the victim he goes insane. Everyone was scared to go to war when it started. Young recruits were first sent because the veterans knew they were going to come back dead. "When we run out again, although I am very excited, I suddenly think: “where’s Himmelstoss?” Quickly I jump back into the dug-out and find him with a small scratch lying in a corner pretending to be wounded.” (P 131) Even the big men like Himmelstoss are scared to go fight. They too go through the mental illnesses like stir crazy and shell shock. “He is in a panic; he is new to it too.
Life on the Western Front During World War One A dispassionate look at the numbers of the horrendous casualties sustained by the armies of the Allies and the Central Powers on the Western Front in WW1, clearly indicate that these casualties figures are far inferior to what might be anticipated if, indeed, total war had reigned in every location, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and along all the 475 miles of trenches that extended from the North Sea to Switzerland. A couple of simple examples will readily make the case. Imagine two front-line trenches separated by only 20 to 30 yards of ‘No Man’s Land’ (in some extraordinary situations, distances were even less). A determined and prolonged effort by a few hand-grenade bombers on either side could make any hope of a sustained tenancy quite impossible. Again, given the accuracy and rapidity which trench mortars could be deployed against routinely manned trenches (one battalion per 1,000 yards) and their associated dug-outs, a quite short, but determined, and mutually hostile, barrage could readily reduce both trench systems to total ruin.
Unsanitary hospitals and camps kept the wounded soldiers in large groups, which were ideal places for infection, fevers and disease to spread. Soldiers were not immune to childhood diseases like the measles and smallpox. Medical science has not yet discovered the importance of antiseptics in preventing infection. Water was contaminated and soldiers sometimes ate unripened or spoiled food. There weren’t always clean rags available to clean wounds.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), originally associated with combat, has always been around in some shape or form but it was not until 1980 that it was named Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and became an accredited diagnosis (Rothschild). The fact is PTSD is one of many names for an old problem; that war has always had a severe psychological impact on people in immediate and lasting ways. PTSD has a history that is as long and significant as the world’s war history - thousands of years. Although, the diagnosis has not been around for that long, different names and symptoms of PTSD always have been. Some physical symptoms include increased blood pressure, excessive heart rate, rapid breathing, muscle tension, nausea, diarrhea, problems with vision, speech, walking disorders, convulsive vomiting, cardiac palpitations, twitching or spasms, weakness and severe muscular cramps. The individual may also suffer from psychological symptoms, such as violent nightmares, flashbacks, melancholy, disturbed sleep or insomnia, loss of appetite, and anxieties when certain things remind them such as the anniversary date of the event (Peterson, 2009).
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, also known as PTSD, is an anxiety disorder that can develop after a traumatic event (Riley). A more in depth definition of the disorder is given by Doctor’s Nancy Piotrowski and Lillian Range, “A maladaptive condition resulting from exposure to events beyond the realm of normal human experience and characterized by persistent difficulties involving emotional numbing, intense fear, helplessness, horror, re-experiencing of trauma, avoidance, and arousal.” People who suffer from this disease have been a part of or seen an upsetting event that haunts them after the event, and sometimes the rest of their lives. There are nicknames for this disorder such as “shell shock”, “combat neurosis”, and “battle fatigue” (Piotrowski and Range). “Battle fatigue” and “combat neurosis” refer to soldiers who have been overseas and seen disturbing scenes that cause them anxiety they will continue to have when they remember their time spent in war. It is common for a lot of soldiers to be diagnosed with PTSD when returning from battle. Throughout the history of wars American soldiers have been involved in, each war had a different nickname for what is now PTSD (Pitman et al. 769). At first, PTSD was recognized and diagnosed as a personality disorder until after the Vietnam Veterans brought more attention to the disorder, and in 1980 it became a recognized anxiety disorder (Piotrowski and Range). There is not one lone cause of PTSD, and symptoms can vary from hallucinations to detachment of friends and family, making a diagnosis more difficult than normal. To treat and in hopes to prevent those who have this disorder, the doctor may suggest different types of therapy and also prescribe medication to help subside the sympt...
Soldiers that are experiencing Shell Shock report having a wide variety of symptoms. It has been discovered that the symptoms that soldiers report experiencing are more mental than physical. Symptoms that we are looking for in Shell Shock victims include, amnesia, poor concentration, headaches, hypersensitivity to noise, dizziness, tremors, fatigue, memory loss, nervousness, reduced visual field, loss of smell and taste, and trouble sleeping. These symptoms are due to the stress that soldiers experienced while fighting on the war front. Other symptoms that soldiers are experiencing with Shell Shock are more emotional symptoms such as, general excitement, anxiety, remorse, anger, depression, irritability, and fear of frightful events. Soldiers are also experiencing symptoms when they experience events that remind them of trench welfare conditions. When soldiers are put in a situation that reminds them of trench welfare they start to experience symptoms of pain, distress, disgust or nausea. The emotional symptoms create a distressed mental state, and...
Since the Great War, the war poem has developed into an instrument of political dissent and an earnest request for understanding on behalf of the soldiers forced or duped into fighting war. During the two World Wars, soldiers suffered from "survivor's guilt" for remaining alive while others died. “Shell shock” was a term formulated to express the reaction of some soldiers in World War I to the trauma of war.The term "post-traumatic stress disorder" was introduced in the 1970s after the diagnoses of US military veterans of the Vietnam War.Most researchers have done clinical study of
With rainwater comes mud, which made it hard for soldiers to keep their legs and feet dry since they were basically submerged in around three meters of mud. Soldiers would easily get trench foot, which eventually made your foot rot off of your body. It is difficult to imagine just how bad these trenches smelt and how bad they were to live in.
The First World War introduced a new type of warfare. New weapons were combined with old strategies and tactics. Needless to say, the results were horrific. However, a new type of warfare was introduced: trench warfare. In the movie War Horse, the character that owned the horse originally while he worked on his farm, Albert Narracott, finally was old enough to join the army. His first sight of battle was the Battle of Somme which took place in France near the Somme River. During this battle, the British troops start out in trenches, which were pretty much tunnels dug strategically to avoid gunfire. The soldiers would wait until they were told to advance, and they would run from one trench to the next. Trenches and the area between trenches were muddy and the trenches themselves were poorly conditioned (http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/chapters/ch1_trench.html). Many of the soldiers who fought in trenches succumbed to a foot disease called trench foot and if not treated immediately, gangrene could infect the foot and an amputation would be necessary for survival. Commanding officers ordered one or t...
World War I marked the true end of the Victorian times and replaced its imperialism, peace, and female hysteria with gas warfare, mass bloodshed, and shell shock. Dr. Charles S. Myers, a British psychologist, was the first to write a paper on shell shock in 1915. By writing and publishing this paper Myers brought shell shock into the spotlight of war psychiatry diagnosis. Shell shock, also known as war neurosis, was by no means a new illness, the first signs of shell shock popped up during the Crimean War in 1845 with Crimean fever. One captain with Crimean fever reported “pains in all the limbs, clammy sweats, parched tongue, irritable heart, dizziness, headache and diarrhea, while being utterly unnerved and agitated violently by the merest
PTSD was such a horrible sickness because it embedded traumatic events in a soldiers mind. So later on this memory impeded a soldier enjoyment of life. Certain smell, sights and taste a soldier experienced triggered their memory making them recall those horrifying moments when their friend was brutally slaughtered. When these memories occurred soldiers would lose themselves. They would would break down and question themselves, ‘What could I have done to save him? Why did he die and not me? The guilt was so great that for many that they simply killed themselves. However, this was only one of the horrible effects of PTSD. Another